Go local before international!

Mar 08, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Corriverton Town Council should not be looking to external countries to solve its problems. If the Council has an issue with the government or any member of the government or any government agency, it should first seek an internal solution.
The decision of the Council to internationalise its disapproval over the decision of the Guyana Police Force to halt the town’s annual Republic flag-raising ceremony will not being any resolution. The ABC countries are not interested in such petty matters. They are not going to bat an eyelid over the town’s problems.
The Town Council should seek a political solution. It should file a constitutional motion against the Guyana Police Force for breach of its citizens’ right to assembly. The police have no authority to stop any gathering in the town. The permission of the police is not required to host an annual flag-raising event.
Permission is required to use a noisy instrument. Therefore, unless the police have specified to the council that no permission was granted for the use of noisy instrument, then redress lies in a constitutional action against the police.
The media is not interested in exposing double standards in this matter. The media has not queried whether permission was granted by the police for the flag-raising event at Durban Park or at the other places were flag-raising ceremonies were held.
There would have been flag-raising ceremonies in other parts of the country at which noisy instruments were used. The media has been in dereliction of its responsibilities of ascertaining whether there was the exercise of double standards in terms of police permission for the use of noisy instruments at the various events hosted for the Republic anniversary celebrations.
But surely, notwithstanding the lack of interest by the media, the Mayor of Corriverton can ask his fellow Mayors, in other regions, whether they had sought permission to use a noisy instrument at the events they hosted for Guyana’s Republic anniversary.
The Corriverton Town Council can also seek redress from the Police Complaints Authority. The Commander of ‘A’ Division has said that he did not order that the event be halted. The orders, therefore, had to come from elsewhere and may have been outside of the operational command of the Guyana Police Force.
If this is established, then those who participated in the action to halt the event can be disciplined by the Guyana Police Force. The Town Council should file a formal complaint with the Guyana Police Force’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
The Corriverton Town Council should seek redress and an explanation, given its version of what transpired before the event, with the President of Guyana. The action of the police makes a mockery of all the President has been saying about regional development.
If a flag-raising ceremony was stopped, as one person of the Council is alleging, on the basis of a political directive of a government Minister, then the Corriverton Town Council should ask for the President to investigate this action and to take the appropriate action.
The other option is local to Corriverton. The Council may take a decision that unless there is an apology to the Council from whomever gave the directive to stop the event that the Council will not participate in any event in which that person is present.
The Council is not without redress. It should seek the support of other organizations in the area, including the Upper Corentyne Chamber of Commerce, to press for an independent investigation into the incident. It should also highlight this matter through letters and press releases to all the daily newspapers, the TV stations and the radio stations.
It is only after the Council has exhausted these forms of redress that it should seek to internationalize the issue. The Council must not be induced or deceived into believing that the Americans or the British or the Canadians give a hoot about the Corriverton Town Council.
Charity begins at home and the Council should domesticise this matter before going international. Only then will it get the attention it deserves.

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