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Condemnation of Donald Ramotar continues

May 04, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
I have just read an online article purportedly written by Former President Donald Ramotar, captioned ‘The racist tactics of the APNU+AFC regime’, published by Citizens Report (May1/2016). This article must be condemned as it is a deliberate attempt to stir up racial strife in Guyana.
Against the backdrop of the conduct of accused Bibi Safoora Salim, who was recently charged for posting a statement ‘Granger want a bullet in his head’, Mr. Ramotar’s article can be viewed as a dangerous call calculated to incite and excite hostility against the person of HE President David A. Granger and the leadership of the APNU+AFC.
To support his thesis, Ramotar cites that one of the moves the APNU+AFC made when it assumed office was to commence mass dismissal of persons of Indo-Guyanese and Amerindians ancestry. Mass firing meant mass hiring.
Mr. Ramotar cunningly ignores that fact that the PPP/C engaged in mass hiring of persons many of whom were not the most qualified persons to positions but based on their political affiliation, from amongst the Amerindian and East Indian communities. This includes Ramotar’s own children, who were chosen for plum positions earning super-salaries, when I am sure other more experienced and qualified persons were available and not hired. The same is applies to many other off-springs of PPP senior party members, and their supporters.
I am unaware of any of the children of President Granger being catapulted to a government or state agency job. His claim therefore that Amerindians were laid off due to their ethnicity, is nothing but a lie, as he knows that those persons who were on the payroll of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs and other government agencies were PPP/PYO activists, who were hired to walk around wearing PPP T-Shirts, promoting the great virtue of Mr. Ramotar’s  presidency.
Mr. Ramotar is no fool as some would like to peddle. He is a seasoned politician of some standing, and now laying the groundwork to make a play at the PPP Congress for a greater stake in the leadership of the PPP. Mr. Ramotar knows that when he attacks the APNU+AFC he is directly attacking President Granger who is the leader of the coalition team to score points amongst his rank and file.
However, in doing so he has miscalculated badly as his argument when examined against our recent history nails the lie. Mr. Ramotar I am sure is familiar with the ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAM and shift to a market-driven economy introduced under the leadership of the late great, President Hugh Desmond Hoyte. That program created significant dislocations in the labour force, as many government employees lost their jobs from state agencies, with the shift to the private sector expansion.
He would therefore have known that the majority of these employees who joined the unemployment line were Afro-Guyanese who worked in the state sector but also included Indo-Guyanese and Amerindians. Using Mr. Ramotar’s logic are we to conclude that President Hoyte was engaged in ethnic cleansing of his own race?
History has shown that Mr. Hoyte did not pander to his own race, but took tough decisions, (some have argued he had no choice, but there are always choices), to shift our economy in a direction that caused the greatest pain to Afro-Guyanese, the majority of whom supported the PNC.  Hoyte understood that economic pain had to be endured for long term gain. But Ramoutar was bellowing aloud then that the ERP meant Empty Rice Pot. He didn’t care about the workers. He was just circling the wagons around racist arguments to corral the ethnic vote in his party’s favour. This is the hypocrisy of the man and now repeating himself targeting President David Granger. As a former president I expected better of Ramotar!
Jerome Khan

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