Freedom of speech started with Hoyte’s PNC, not the PPP

Aug 17, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
What the hell passes for history these days in Guyana? Everywhere I turn there is a profound campaign to distort truth. Look, we all know the PNC is a royal disaster. But let’s be true about the past to begin to see a future.
A word to the flocks of Kool-Aid drinkers in this country who believe that free speech started with the PPP in 1992: it didn’t. The PNC under Burnham treated free speech as garbage until 1985 when Hoyte took over the presidency after Burnham kicked the bucket. Hoyte started the turnaround with respect to free speech. Stabroek News came into being as a newspaper during the Hoyte years.
You heard that right. Newsprint and equipment was allowed back into Guyana under Hoyte. While press freedom was still repressed under Hoyte’s PNC, it is marginally better under the PPP. Archaic libel laws still govern Guyana. Newspapers cannot even speak freely to name crooks stuffing their pockets with taxpayers’ money.
The jokes known as the Broadcast Bill and the Access to Information Bill continue to play sold out shows in Guyana. A single radio station after 19 years of ‘democracy’ is such a wonderful example of freedom of speech.
The Guyana Chronicle is still a government mouthpiece just like it was in the PNC days. There is still just one radio station just like the PNC days. CN Sharma was reportedly pressured to remove a talk show recently just like the PNC days. A major critic of the government had a vile substance thrown in his face and faces threats just like the PNC days. The ad withdrawal by government from local newspapers was something straight out of the PNC days. Concessions to the Guyana Times newspaper to form another mouthpiece of the government was again a remarkable exhibition of free speech just like the PNC days. Yes, in this free speech heaven the PPP created the PPP has two of the four major newspapers as mouthpieces (Chronicle and Guyana Times) plus it has a political newspaper in the Mirror in addition to the country’s only radio station in addition to the nation’s national television station. What kind of free speech is there when the bulk of the media is controlled by government and the laws enable the government to emasculate the media?
The so-called independent media in this country are basically separate newspapers and television stations competing against each other in content, message and style. Up against them is a government behemoth and a monolith of a government dominated machinery of three newspapers, one radio station and several television stations standing in a formidable line and emitting a consistent and uniform message promoting the excesses of the Machiavellis living in Pradoville as heaven on earth. Further, this government will now control one of two Internet cables in Guyana. Plus, it will put laptops into homes. The question is who will be watching you on the Internet while you are on your government-issued laptop. Phone tapping is now the law in Guyana. Can you truly speak freely in this country? The overwhelming majority of the poor, powerless and working class are deathly afraid to voice an opinion against a big one for fear of dire consequences. And these people have the nerve to tell us about freedom of speech.
Let’s get something straight here: freedom of speech is not limited to the print or visual media. Most freedom of speech is exercised in our homes, at workplaces and in the public domain. Many did a lot of that during the despicable PNC regime and are now doing it during the despicable PPP regime. Freedom of speech with respect to the print media did not start with the PPP. It started with the PNC and has hardly improved under the PPP. If the PPP had the military’s backing (David Granger would know) like the PNC, Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar would have considered shutting down Stabroek News and Kaieteur News already.
The reality is that the PPP government dominates the media in this country. For every word that is uttered in the two major newspapers, there are at least six organs at the PPP’s disposal to deliver thrice as much or to twist and taint those words. It is a herculean task to be a critic in this country. The true test of free speech is the willingness to protect and defend one’s right to it. The PPP has done nothing of significance to change the PNC ways.
Concerned Citizen

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