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Why this PPP attack on the US?

Jun 10, 2011 Letters

Dear editor,
As someone born and raised in Guyana, and now settled in the United States, I take personal offense at Dave Martindale’s use of language calling the United States a “vermin”.
See Martindale’s letter titled, “SN and AFC are wrong about Jagdeo’s Middle East thrust” in Kaieteur News of June 8.
Dave Martindale has published hundreds of letters in the last few years, all of a public relations category either defending or attacking critics of the Jagdeo Administration. It is reasonable, therefore, to infer that Mr. Martindale is the mouthpiece of the Jagdeo Administration.
I quote from Mr. Martindale’s letter: “It should be understood that the AFC is in collusion with the imperialists and will salivate at their feet to get into the corridors of power in this country [Guyana].
The same vermin that the AFC is courting has a well-orchestrated policy of rape, murder, plunder and pillage in the Middle East”. End of quote. This statement would have been considered blood libel, save and except for the fact that it is covered in political free speech rights.
If Mr. Martindale wants to attack the AFC for some perceived wrong-doing, couldn’t he have done so without using such uncalled-for language against the United States. It is campaign season, so it is probably okay to level criticisms against your opponent, providing you have a solid basis for the criticism.
But there is something deeper to Mr. Martindale’s articulation. His choice of words and specific charges – imperialism, policy of rape, murder, plunder, and pillage allegedly committed by the United States in the Middle East – represents an old ideological position of the PPP, one that no longer holds true, and of which both the PPP and the United States have had some kind of rapprochement and moved on. I can say with a measure of certainty that had Cheddi Jagan been alive today, he would not approve of any party spokesman official or unofficial calling the United States a “vermin”.
The U.S. government was instrumental in making Free and Fair Elections possible to be held in Guyana in 1992. President Carter’s first trip there had been approved by then Secretary of State Jim Baker, and his chartered plane had been paid for by the U.S. government.
When President Cheddi Jagan fell ill in 1997, he was medivac-ed on a U.S. plane and provided the best medical care free of charge at a U.S. hospital. When he passed away, the late president was given a 21-gun salute before his body was loaded onto the plane for Guyana.
I thought the symbolism of all this was a fitting reconciliation between two ideological enemies, a political party of a small nation and a major super power nation.
Not so, obviously, the hatred for the United States has not abated one iota, for a
perceived major spokesman/defender of the PPP to label the United States a “vermin”.
Martindale’s letter is reminiscent of several recent letters written by Dr. Prem Misir who is an advisor to President Jagdeo. In each of these letters Dr. Misir purported to do political analysis of the ongoing pro-democracy unrest in the Middle East, but used it as a pretext to accuse the United States of committing acts of “imperialism”, and favoring some nations more than others.
The United States has not provoked these uprisings; and if the U.S. called on some of the embattled leaders to deal fairly with the protesters and work out their transitions, while being less forceful or ambivalent with others, that is in the U.S. national interest – and these actions do not constitute acts of “imperialism”.
Neither Dr. Misir nor Dave Martindale understands the ongoing unrest, which are genuine mass protests for democratic rule.
Today, an estimated 350,000 Guyanese have settled in the United States. We have never been treated like foreign workers; there are laws in this nation providing for foreigners to regularize their status – first as green-card holders (resident status), then citizenship.
In many countries of the world (Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait), you remain a foreign worker forever. So what makes the United States a vermin?
Mike Persaud

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