A cancer that will remain in the body politic for two centuries

Jul 08, 2014 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The people of Guyana continue to be victims of the Cold War which caused the United States and British governments to displace an elected government in 1964 by an electoral contrivance intended to put the Peoples National Congress in power with Forbes Burnham as the controller. The United Force under Peter D’Aguiar was a useful tool to create a coalition which was never intended to work, after it had helped these two governments to ensure independence in 1966 with a façade of legality which was transparent, because the political party which had the largest support in the country was out of it.
The new regime was an implant of the United States which had endeavoured to prevent the Peoples Progressive Party from being in government after independence. The Peoples National Congress did not have political support to win an election and once imposed upon the nation, proceeded to maintain power by poisoning every institution of government using a fraudulent electoral process to create and develop fake institutions.
By 1992, when the United States decided that a free election was to be allowed, the institutions had already broken down and a contrived Constitution had been rigged into place in 1980 by the Peoples National Congress. Since 1992 the economy has seen a revival, but the revival is no more than ten per cent of what could have been achieved if the institutions had not been poisoned to permit corruption and poor governance to inhibit development. Despite political splitting and name-changing, the two main party institutions remain the Peoples Progressive Party and the Peoples National Congress.
During the period from independence in 1966 when the country came under the dictatorial rule of the Peoples National Congress, and the Peoples Progressive Party was kept out of office, the United States and Britain washed their hands and never sought to intervene to prevent the dictatorship from being harsh and oppressive.
There is a current perception that the United States and the European Union would wish to see an end to Peoples Progressive Party government, but the most likely replacement will be the Peoples National Congress, which has no experience, save the creation and maintenance of rigged and subverted institutions and a failed economy, in which even bare necessities of life were hard to come by.
The suffering which the people endured was grave. After Burnham’s death his successor Desmond Hoyte massively rigged an election and became clothed with political power which he used to try to improve conditions in the wilderness left by Burnham, but the institutions remained poisoned while he retained office. The Burnham/Hoyte legacy was a poisoned chalice.
To the voting community and to external observers, politics is a matter of perception. It is perceived in some quarters that local government elections under a system of poisoned institutions will reflect the dislike or unpopularity of the existing regime, which itself is the product of rigged governance with its roots deep in the Peoples National Congress.
The dominant minority which controls the current regime is seen by some to be corrupt and incompetent, with its guiding philosophy being a combination of kleptomania and eroticism. It is also seen as affected by a cancerous nepotism which regards skills and integrity as parasitic. The mass of the population hardly knows or understands the reasons for their under development and deprivations, but they see exile in alien lands as a hope of greater promise. They will all be happy to leave the sinking ship.
The replacement of the regime will simply take the country back to the time of the Burnhamite implant and the exercise of authoritarian power to savage its enemies. It is not unexpected that the United States will wash its hands as it did before. The rule of law died under Burnham. It will not be resuscitated. The current regime only maintains its grave. The United States and the European Union do not wish to be enemies of the People of Guyana, but the harm done by the imposition of Burnham will remain as a cancer in the body politic for two centuries, only a quarter of which has passed.
Subhas Singh

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