The Witter interview: The wrong way

Dec 15, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to understand that your boss isn’t going to listen to your plea for a salary increase if he can justify his denial by your pattern of behaviour.

If your record shows absenteeism and non-performance, it means he will attach no respect to your words. This is basic psychology that is as mundane as the perennial grass on the parapet. I have argued over the 50 years that I have been in social activism that many critics of the government will never get the ruling politicians to listen to them if the corridors of power believe they are flawed people who have a convenient approach to rights and wrongs, justice, freedom and civilized life.

These flawed detractors of the government are doing a huge disserve to the nation and to people that want the government to listen to them. No other example is larger than the relationship between the government and the City Council between the years 1992 and 2015 when the PPP had state power.

The cry from City Hall was that central government was denuding City Hall of funds. But no minister in the government in that period took City Hall seriously because it was a receptacle of wasted funds, corruption and incompetence.

There is a group I referred to as the usual suspects. They write long letters in the newspapers castigating the government for everything under the sun. Months after the new government was sworn in, the usual suspects published a letter with over 70 signatures questioning the visit to Guyana by then Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.

They argued that the visit may jeopardize the Caribbean as a zone of peace. But the Caribbean as a zone of peace was bound to be in trouble if the incumbent in March 2020 had succeeded in rigging Guyana’s national elections in defiance of world governments.

For sure CARICOM would have collapsed and Guyana would have become so unstable that the Caribbean Sea would have attracted terrorists. The usual suspects never wrote one letter denouncing attempts to steal the country’s legal election results.

Put yourself in the place of the leaders of government. When the usual suspects open their mouths to condemn the government over an unwanted policy do you think these leaders will listen? Their first reaction will be – “listen to those hypocrites, who, them?”

The words of Minister, Priya Manickchand on the Gildarie-Freddie KIssoon Show are worth listening to in the context being discussed here. When asked about those women groups that supported the rigging or refused to endorse it, she said she wants nothing to do with them and will not engage them.

Be realistic- other PPP leaders feel the same way. Who loses? The people of Guyana of course. If these folks were credible social actors, perhaps they would have been able to bring about a reversal of policy. We come now to Mr. Norris Witter.

Mr. Witter is known in Guyana as a long standing trade unionist. He recently joined the group that has given itself the name, Article 13. Mr. Witter has been in the news recently picketing outside the Office of the President on several occasions. In an interview on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show last week, Mr. Witter refused to accept that there were attempts to rig the March 2020 and said his pronouncement on same by him would only be done if he is given the evidence.

When asked if he has the evidence to back up his accusations on the show that the government is violating the constitution and laws of Guyana, he answered in the affirmative. Here was a chance for a trade unionist and civil society actor to establish a line of contact with the government maybe to effect changes he and his organisation want.

Put yourself in the place of the ruling PPP. Why are they going to listen to this trade unionist and Article 13 on issues of policy formulation when he refuses to acknowledge election rigging? Why deny something as egregious as the denial of the right to vote but uphold the right of individual trade unions to bargain with government?

Rights are not convenient things to pick and choose from. Rights are fundamental to civilized living. There is nothing wrong with accepting that there were five months of endeavours by the then incumbent ruling party to tamper with the March 2020 elections. You can do that and still confront the government on what you see are the wrong things you believe it is doing. The opposition party, ANUG is a fine example. Its leader, Dr. Mark Francis was on the Gildarie-Freddie Kssoon Show last week. He did just that.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)