Then let Guyana die. Period!

Apr 30, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Do you know while American troops were shooting Iraqi insurgents and Iraqi insurgents were road-bombing American soldiers, the leadership of both sides were negotiating with each other? The American general in charge in Iraq in 2007, Raymond Ordierno, was given permission to open dialogue with the insurgents.
Ordierno’s political advisor, British volunteer Emma Shaw, told this to the British Guardian. She describes the hazardous pathways she manoeuvred to meet with the insurgents’ leadership. The Americans have done the same in Afghanistan. It was obvious to the Americans that politics and war are intertwined and negotiations are part of the solution.
The identical situation exists in Guyana at the moment with the money laundering crisis. But unlike the American leadership in Washington, we in Guyana have fools in power that do not understand history or politics, but are just interested in power for power sake. Also unlike the American public, we have a society in Guyana that is shamelessly self-destructive.
Both the opposition and governmental delegations that met a visiting team from the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) told the press that CFATF has emphasized the dire consequences that Guyana will have to endure if the amendments to the main Bill are not passed by the end of May. From the Government side, the adjective, “devastating” was used to describe those consequences. The word “draconian” was the choice of Basil Williams when APNU held a press conference after the meeting with the CFATF team.
If the CFATF people could spell out the danger that will envelope Guyana, why then can’t Guyanese see the disaster that is forthcoming and confront an obdurate, power drunk government that refuses to be reasonable. To date none of the organizations that are crying all over this country about the imminent death of the businesses, have taken the self-preserving step to insist that the government talk to the opposition on a quid pro quo.
Take Clinton Urling, who recently demitted office as the head of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. Urling is seeking national recognition as an outspoken business person. Urling wants us to believe that he is not openly supportive of the PPP like his colleagues in the Private Sector Commission — Gerry Gouveia, Ramesh Dookoo and the late Ronald Webster.
The latter three are more straightforward. They don’t want to be seen as independent. They openly sided with the policies of the Government. Such candour should be accepted. Urling on the other hand has never uttered a word on the inherent political factor in the stand-off between the opposition and the Government over the stalled anti-money laundering Bill.
A stakeholder runs the risk of being dismissed by the opposition if that stakeholder cannot see how large that political factor is.
One has to be an extremely stupid person not to understand that no opposition party that has a majority in parliament derived from a general election is going to surrender that priceless political capital and kowtow to a minority regime. If there is any lesson that the AFC and APNU ought to teach this country it is that modern political power comes from popular support, and if those with popular power are ignored then the alternative is tyranny.
This is exactly the situation in Guyana at the moment. The insurance association, the banking association, the commercial classes, and the rest of the private sector in this country want to save their businesses from devastation and draconian consequences of the failed anti-money laundering legislation, but they want APNU and the AFC to do it for them.
What we are seeing in this country unfolding in front of our very eyes is a macabre, bizarre, ghoulish manifestation of self-destructiveness. The Government is refusing to concede to two demands from the combined opposition. If these two requests are rebuffed, devastation and draconian consequences take over Guyana. But no one in the entire business world in Guyana is prepared to go to the PPP leadership and tell them that the consequences can be avoided if the political reality of this land is recognized by the PPP leadership.
And what is that reality? Power lies in the hands of the opposition to prevent economic financial ruin. The simple thing to do is to ask the Government to concede to the two requirements of the parliamentary majority. What are these two requests?  They contain the seeds of an expanding democracy – presidential assent to a parliamentary Bill that will enhance local government jurisdiction; secondly, an oversight body to stop corruption in the tendering process.
If the business world in Guyana cannot press the Government on these two democratic fronts, then let Guyana die. Period!

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