Foreign Policy magazine article contained glaring errors about Guyana

Jul 31, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

I refer to an article captioned: “Does Guyana Foretell an American Future?” by Justin Gest and published on July 29 in the magazine, ‘Foreign Policy’, which contains glaring inaccuracies.

For example, the writer’s flawed assertion: “The party in power is almost entirely supported by native-born people with centuries-long heritage in the country. Official results point to their defeat at the polls by an opposition party predominated by people of immigrant origin.”

As a member of the Guyanese Indigenous community, I’m highly offended as by a stroke of a pen the writer has eliminated the existence of my people which make up 11% of our population. Also, my people, Amerindians, are the only ethnic group native to Guyana. I recall that the same treatment was meted to Native American groups in North America whose existence has been threatened for centuries. Please be advised Africans, Indians, Chinese, and Portuguese were all brought to Guyana either as slaves or indentured immigrants.

Also, no ethnic group is large enough to alone command a majority to win either the Presidency or the Parliament. For instance, Indo-Guyanese which is the largest group represents only 39% of the population. As such, as with the case of the PPP/C, which convincingly won the March 2, 2020 elections by over 50 percent of the total votes, electoral victories require cross-ethnic voting. It must be noted the PPP/C ran and won against 14 political parties, five of which make up the APNU-AFC grouping.

It is neither about race nor oil; it is about democracy and respecting the will of the Guyanese people who voted on March 2, 2020.

Yours truly,
Alister Charlie