The GHRA and the indecency in and of Guyanese society

Jul 24, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has replied to my “constant banging,” that is, my consistent condemnations of its silence the past two decades. Not by any standard, can a researcher or analyst conclude that the GHRA has functionalism.
I have always postulated a position on the proliferation of knowledge in Guyana which I will continue to do – citizens, social activists and intellectuals must respond to the echoes of society by people whose questionable record needs to be highlighted.
In its response to me in yesterday’s KN, the GHRA has displayed a certain type of attitude which has confirmed all my accusations against it the past umpteen years. I will enumerate each manifestation of pathetic emanations
1- GHRA indicates that it is false to say that it did not condemn the 2020 rigged elections. Whoever wrote the GHRA’s letter is a barefaced person. From December 2018 with the no-confidence vote (NCV) all through the horrible manipulations of the Region Four tabulation in 2020, the GHRA has been silent.
2- The GHRA noted “More objectionable are the attacks on the many decent people – not powerful people of course, they’re off-limits.” I would give my very soul for the GHRA to tell me who are the decent people my pen has been directed against in this society.
All the board members (if they exist) could easily access the work of French philosopher, Jacques Derrida. He birthed the philosophical methodology of “deconstruction.” If the GHRA reads Derrida, they will see that all those words and terms that we inhered from centuries ago had false premises. When we deconstruct them we see the deceptive nature and we arrive at clearer meanings.
So who is decent in Guyanese society? What does “decency” denotes? What are its essential features?
3- GHRA announces that it has a 12-person board. I am betting the continuation of this column that those 12 persons will never, never come forward and identity themselves publicly. The reason is fear of facing accusation of being indecent, of being associated with a defunct organisation, of being accused of silence when incredible constitutional corrugation and rigged national election almost destroyed Guyana.
4 –The GHRA revealed that successive editors of the Kaieteur News have not published its press releases (20 per annum). Maybe the GHRA does not have friends in Kaieteur News like the Stabroek News who are willing to use journalism to keep paper organisations alive.
Journalism has obligations to its sacred principles. Why should a non-existent human rights body be given coverage in the media when the purpose of its press releases is to deceive the citizenry that it is alive and functioning? A political party, a human rights entity, a civil society organisation must earn its publicity by its activism in society. In a country like Guyana, where all types of rights violations from all types of people cascade like fountain water, a human rights organisation will not have time to scratch its head.
5– The GHRA says that I eschew commentaries on powerful people. Well that has to be a joke. Powerful people disregarded the NCV for one entire year. Powerful people attempted to rig Guyana’s national elections for five consecutive months. Powerful people lied to Guyanese and told them a Russian team came to rig the 2020 poll. Powerful people went up Region Five and incited violence. The results were mayhem and destruction in which all the victims, who were beaten and properties destroyed, were East Indians.
I condemned those powerful people since the NCV in December 2018 right up to this moment. But I have to apologise to the GHRA for accusing them of not criticising these powerful persons. You see all the press releases that the Kaieteur News did not carry did indeed carry criticisms of these powerful people. But the Guyanese people will never know about these things because the Stabroek News which is a friend of the GHRA did not publish those condemnations either. So what is the explanation? Those condemnations were never made.
Finally, the GHRA accuses me of castigating the Stabroek News. In my 33 years of media experience, I am competent to comment on the media. Glenn Lall, Adam Harris and other well placed people in the media have their faults. But give me them any day in preference to the editorial leadership of the Stabroek News.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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The GHRA and the indecency in and of Guyanese society

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