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Speaker rules against unrest of Agricola unrest
– Opposition denies it plotted Oct. 11 unrest
The government was yesterday denied a request to have the National Assembly suspend its usual business to discuss the recent Agricola unrest as a matter of “definite, urgent, public importance.” And the opposition dismissed the charge that it plotted the October 11 unrest in the East Bank Demerara village.
As a basis for his judgement, the Speaker of the House, Mr Raphael Trotman, referred to rulings by previous speakers Ralph Ramkarran and Clarissa Rheil on such matters of “definite, urgent public importance.”
Trotman said that while he was satisfied that the matter was of public importance, it does not satisfy the criterion of being “urgent,” because as former Speaker Ramkarran once ruled, the matter has to be of a “sudden” nature and an emergency, before it could be considered “urgent.”
Standing in vain: Prime Minister Samuel Hinds leads gov’t MPs in “standing” for the urgent debate of a motion on the October 11 Agricola unrest.
As a result, the government members of the House proceeded to stand to press for a motion to be debated. It was the understanding of the government side of the House that the Parliamentary rules would allow the motion to go ahead once 18 members of the House stood.
But opposition Parliamentarians Deborah Backer and Khemraj Ramjattan argued that the procedure the government was trying to use was faulty.
They argued that the Speaker has to be satisfied first that the motion is of “definite, urgent public importance” and then he would ask for the consent of the entire House. If then by sounding “no” the House does not give its consent, if 18 members stand, the Speaker would then have to allow the motion to be debated, but only after 4:30 pm the very day.
The Speaker took a break, and after consulting with the Clerk of the National Assembly on various previous rulings on such matters, including the Indian Parliament, he did not allow the motion to be debated.
The government deferred to the ruling of the Speaker but Teixeira said that the government would bring a substantive motion to discuss the issue since there have been two attempts at repeating the unrest of October 11, when traffic in and out of the city was stalled for five hours and some persons were robbed.
The government had sought to blame the opposition, mainly the Alliance for Change (AFC), of organising the violence. Yesterday, the government again sought to trump up that argument and again it was denounced by the Opposition.
In a separate statement on the issue in the House yesterday, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds attributed the “disruption of the peace and injury to people” to the opposition, saying that it seems that the AFC and the coalition APNU plotted and actively led disturbances that were aimed at destabilising the country.
Hinds said that Government was horrified by the October 9 statement of AFC Chairman Nigel Hughes who called on President Donald Ramotar to dismiss Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee within 48 hours, or else the AFC would call for mass protest and encourage civil society to take their own action.
“We hold the AFC, in particular, responsible and accountable for the disturbances,” Hinds stated, noting that the events of October 11 were characterised by the setting of fires, blocking off of the East Bank Demerara Highway, attacking of Police officers, preventing the fire service from operating, assaulting and robbing citizens, destruction of private and public property, and the disruption of flights in and out of Guyana.
Opposition Leader David Granger refuted everything the Prime Minister said regarding the involvement of the APNU coalition he leads in the unrest.
Granger said he personally presided over a meeting of the PNCR, which is the main bloc in APNU, and there was a protest without incident on the day of the Agricola unrest and the Police provided no reports that there was disorder.
As a result, he said that the accusation was “damning” and he rejected the government’s attempt to link APNU with the unrest.
AFC Parliamentarian Moses Nagamootoo said he was personally offended by the accusations of the Prime Minister, saying that it borders on charges of sedition and treason.
He said that the AFC agrees with the right of citizens to peacefully protest but condemns any attacks on citizens, since it would do no one any good.
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