How long will this charade continue in an election season

Jun 11, 2011 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Last Wednesday evening I had the privilege and pleasure to share in the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce Anniversary Dinner.
We live in times where standards in quite a few areas have fallen, however the event was a credit to those who organized it, and they deserve public approbation.
The Chairman, Mr. Clinton Urling, was the perfect Chairman and Mr. Ramesh Dookhoo presented a careful address making full use of the fact that the two leading Presidential Candidates, Brigadier David Granger and Mr. Donald Ramotar, shared the same table. Mr. Dookhoo, Chairman of the Private Sector Commission, quite appropriately dealt with the importance of the media, or the fourth Estate.
As I understood it, the imperative of securing the Nation’s integrity, every patriot must share his views about the significance and relevance of the vehicle of mass communication in a free democratic society.
But as I pondered the situation in Guyana, I looked forward to both Presidential Candidates, but Mr. Ramotar in particular, taking the microphone to give the guests comprising of the diplomatic community, Ministers and the cream of our society, the assurance that the next government will release the stranglehold the State apparatus now has on Radio and Television, and emancipate the Freedom of Information Legislation.
Guyana is the only country in the free Western Hemisphere – where we boast of a multi-party democracy – that has only one state-owned and controlled radio station. The other serious indictment is this, only the state-controlled NCN TV, has full countrywide coverage. Why did the candidates, and the Prime Minister (who was at the head table), allow the remarks by Mr. Dookhoo to go by, without giving this nation some comforting words that this Stalin-like grip on the major media will be released or even relaxed?
Worrisome is an attempt to close Channel 6.
How can we deceive our collective selves at a stellar event such as that Dinner? How long will this charade continue in an Election Season where the (PPP/C) Government has such a mighty communication advantage?
This injustice declares now that these elections certainly could not be fair, if one side has a monopoly on radios and save for two TV Stations, the others are either compliant or client satellites of the PPP administration, or just afraid.
Last Monday’s Editorial of Stabroek News is worth repeating.
Hamilton Green, J.P.,
Mayor

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