Mark Benschop's activism and Guyana's mistreatment of desperate Venezuelan women

Mark Benschop’s activism and Guyana’s mistreatment of desperate Venezuelan women

Jan 18, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Times like these I miss Mark Benschhop’s brave activism. If Benschop was still living in Guyana, there is no doubt, absolutely none whatsoever, that together we would have ensured those poor Venezuelans coming to Guyana for food would have made applications for refugee status. Under international law you cannot turn back a refugee claimant without due process.
The visitor may eventually be denied residence and be deported but due process must be given. For two years now, desperate Venezuelans coming to Guyana for food and work have been charged, jailed and then deported. Many were jailed and are being jailed because they could not and cannot pay the fines for the charge of illegal entry.
I have no respect, absolutely none, for the performance of a majority of magistrates in this country. In a nation where talented lawyers would lend their skills to the magistracy, many of these serving magistrates would not be on the bench. But one cannot disagree when they fine or jail the poor Venezuelans placed before them. If the charge is illegal entry, then a guilty plea carries with it punishment that the law stipulates.
The culprits are the police and our government. These desperate Venezuelans do not know about the laws governing refugee claims. They enter Guyana illegally and because of ignorance of the law and language difficulty, they are arrested for entering Guyana illegally. These poor souls should be allowed to apply for refugee status but no individual or group is willing to help.
This is where an activist like Benschop is needed on the landscape of Guyana. The cause of human rights suffered a setback with his long absence. Benschop would have intervened. So many of us should and we should do it ASAP. I believe the time has come for Guyanese citizens who care about human rights to assist these Venezuelans. We have a neighbor where the society has fallen apart and people are looting for food, searching bins for food, begging for food, travelling to neighbouring countries for food.
Strangely we have not produced one claimant for refugee status while Trinidad and Brazil have. So the question is; why do they go over to Guyana, Trinidad and Brazil and we find only in the latter two countries, they make claims for refugee status? The answer is simple. Either they are doing just that at the point of entry and the border security are denying them their international right to ask for refuge or they do not know how to make the claim.
Recently, a group of Venezuelans women appeared in front of one of my two favourite magistrates (please note the irony; you should if you read these columns). After they were convicted, one of the women begged not to be deported. Obviously the magistrate could not have grant that request; the law does not permit it. It has been more than two years now that women like these have been running over to Guyana and when in court they asked to be treated leniently because they were in Guyana looking for a better life.
There are two questions to be asked here? Where is the humane thinking of our youths? Where are the voices of our women groups? In a neighbouring country, the collapse of society and economy are forcing people to search for food and shelter in other countries, our youths have not lifted a finger to help these feeling souls. I am saying given the nature of young people that would not happen in any other country. You can count on the youths to intervene in such tragic circumstances but not in Guyana.
Where are our women folks? These women have children who are starving in Venezuela. Why are we deporting them? Why have our feminist/liberationist women folks been reticent for so long. But there is a third question – the role of our government. If the government had stated openly that these feeling Venezuelans should be catered for, then maybe the police would react differently.
When former Barbadian Prime Minister Thompson picked up illegally resident Guyanese in the uncivilized hours of the morning and deported them, there was a huge condemnatory reaction including some direct words by Sir Shridath Ramphal. What are we Guyanese doing to poor Venezuelans who only want the right to survive and thus they come to Guyana to do so? And how do we react? By arresting them, charging them and deporting them. In an upcoming column, I will voice my condemnation of Trump’s racist dismissal of some countries calling them “shithole” or “shithouse” countries. But I know one such country.

3 thoughts on “Mark Benschop’s activism and Guyana’s mistreatment of desperate Venezuelan women”

Ameri January 30, 2018 at 4:03 pm

When the going was rough in the 80’s quite a number of Guyanese mainly Essequibans migrated to Venezuela and still lives there, their children speak fluent Spanish, I know a family, and they were allowed to live and survive, why can’t these people be allowed the same chance at living and eating and feeding their families in a legal manner? Oh how we forget what we went through in the days of foodstuff being banned by Burnham, only those who lived it can tell, many a days joining a line at Geddes Grant or Guyana Store , not knowing what was available but just hoping it was a little flour or butter or any food item, or shoes for the children to wear to school, Oh how many of us CHOSE TO FORGET???
Ameri January 30, 2018 at 4:07 pm

I agree with you, but people choose to forget those days of rice flour, black tea and plantain till it was ready to come out your ears, or joining any line you see in the hope that it was a food item, or shoes for your child to wear , or lining up at a baker shop in the middle of the night for a loaf of bread, my husband chose to bring his family to America rather than punish, and we are still here 34 years later thank God.
Ameri January 30, 2018 at 4:13 pm

Mark Benschhop returned to the US with his family, leaving all who believed and followed him to deal.
He trying again with American politics, but he is known here as a soup drinker, so he got nowhere to get with that.