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Guyanese must continue to fight to undo Jagdeo’s eye pass

Mar 25, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
The minority PPP government is well aware of the effective role of sloganeering in political propaganda. Thus it is no surprise that it has turned to sloganeering to help defend former President Bharrat Jagdeo against just and growing criticisms for his indefensible allocation of radio frequencies and licences almost exclusively to his and the minority PPP’s friends and affiliates.
The government has decided that criticisms of Mr. Jagdeo’s decision will be answered with what is at best a sloganeering twaddle, to wit: Bharrat Jagdeo’s decision was a fulfillment of his promise to end government’s radio broadcast monopoly and he needed to think geographically when he allocated the radio frequencies.
The government hopes that its sloganeering twaddle will distract from the salient truth that Guyanese frustration with government’s radio monopoly had as much to do with the absence of radio-station owners with diverse socio-political opinions as it did with the absence of diverse socio-political opinions on our radios. So we need the presence of owners with diverse opinions to solve the problem of the absence of diverse opinions on our radios. Bharrat Jagdeo’s allocation of radio frequencies and licences has not solved this problem, and any government talk of Jagdeo’s “geographic consideration” is nothing but a red herring.
Jagdeo’s and the PPP’s most trusted three friends and affiliates have been each granted five frequencies (they received 15 of the 19 frequencies issued), allowing for easy coverage of the length and breadth of our nation. Now, how many reasonably believe that these three friends and associates will carry programming content that will gladden the hearts of the AFC, the PNC, or any other group that opposes the PPP’s policies? And what are the chances that they will carry programming content that will displease Jagdeo or the PPP?
And does anyone reasonably believe that it is by happenstance that these three are the only ones who received enough frequencies that will allow them to easily broadcast to our entire country? Or that the four others, who were each awarded one frequency for what amounts to coverage of a few villages, could seriously challenge the content imbalance on our airwaves? So Jagdeo could not have chosen a more sinister way to pretend to end government’s radio monopoly. And the government could not have chosen a clumsier way, in fact it has no other way, to attempt to defend Jagdeo’s indefensible action.
While unveiling and trumpeting the government’s sloganeering twaddle at a post-cabinet news briefing, Cabinet Secretary Roger Luncheon uttered his and the government’s conviction that Jagdeo’s unjust decision had already found favour with “the enlightened Guyanese”. He also unleashed a Jagdeoesque attack on the press, labeling sections of the private media as being “hostile” for justly protesting Jagdeo’s pernicious decision to deny them radio licences; and even arrogantly declared that the government had no intention of “removing the monopoly to the satisfaction of the hostile media or to the satisfaction of the applicants”.
Dr. Luncheon obviously means that the government has no intention of satisfying applicants other than Jagdeo’s and the PPP’s three friends and affiliates who were so richly rewarded by Jagdeo. Roger Luncheon and the PPP are free to be conduits for Jagdeo’s ventriloquy on this maddening issue or to be Jagdeo’s spokespersons as interested beneficiaries.
However, Guyanese must continue to fight to undo Jagdeo’s eye pass: It must not be allowed to stand. After all, we cannot allow the government to expropriate and distribute our nation’s resources under executive discretion or any other guise. We must show Dr. Luncheon that we are “the enlightened Guyanese” and that we don’t agree with Jagdeo’s decision.
Lionel Lowe

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