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Govt. refuses to meet visiting US delegation on ‘fact – finding mission’
Kaieteur News – The Government of Guyana said that it will not be engaging a visiting US delegation that will be on a fact finding mission here this week.
In a statement issued on Saturday night, the Government said it learnt from publications on social media that a delegation from the United States of America intends to travel to Guyana today for a “fact finding mission.”
President Irfaan Ali
The Government said that the delegation and the intended visit appear to have resulted from a conference organised by commentator Rickford Burke, a Guyanese residing in Brooklyn, New York.
During the month of September, 2023, the Government said Burke organised a “Conference on Guyana” in Washington, DC, to which the Government of Guyana was not invited but which was attended by members of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition.
The visiting US delegation will be led by the Honorable Dee Dawkins-Haigler (left) and her co-leader Rep John King (SC)
According to the People Progressive Party /Civic (PPP/C) administration, the “one-sided” engagement presented the platform for opposition politicians to spew concocted and fabricated narratives about the Government of Guyana, including their usual diatribe about racial discrimination and extra judicial killings, without any fact-checking mechanism and without the government being afforded a hearing or the facility of a response.
“It is obvious that these jaundiced, baseless and unfounded narratives of these opposition politicians, unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, have influenced this delegation,” the Government said in its statement.
Instead of focusing on the opposition claims, the government said that the US delegation should conduct fact finding into a number of other issues including the fraudulent elections in 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985; the massive violations of human rights and freedoms of the people of Guyana during 28 years of dictatorial rule from 1968 to 1992; the abuse, violence and killing of persons opposed to the Government, including, the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney, a world-renowned historian and a black political leader, and Father Bernard Darke, a Jesuit priest; The total mismanagement of Guyana’s economy from 1968 to 1992, leaving Guyana as the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, second only to Haiti.
The government noted in the statement given that Burke’s Facebook page is the main medium for the dissemination of information regarding this visit, only serves to compound the matter.
“This is nothing but a politically driven and orchestrated design by opponents of the Government which seems to have ensnared certain office holders within certain a few States’ Legislature in the US as a result, the Government of Guyana will not be engaging this delegation acting in their private capacities as this is a clear interference in G
Guyana’s domestic politics with a bias towards the political Opposition in Guyana,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, the United States delegation of elected officials from several States will arrive in Georgetown, Guyana, on Monday, November 13, 2023, on a fact finding mission.
The team will comprise of State Assembly members and Senators from Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee, as well as leading education, legal and civil rights experts.
The delegation issued a statement Friday saying the mission is to “Promote Bilateral Relations and Address Concerns of Discrimination.” The mission will be in Guyana from November 13 to November 19, 2023. The team said it hopes to “engage in constructive dialogue with various leaders, community groups, business owners and Guyanese citizens.”
“As stated in a previous press statement on Thursday October 26, 2023, the delegation to be led by the Honorable Dee Dawkins-Haigler and her co-leader Rep John King (SC), is concerned about allegations of discrimination towards certain ethnic groups in Guyana as well as Guyanese-American citizens currently residing in and out of Guyana,” the statement added.
The team said that it has seen presentations made by Members of Parliament, Roysdale Forde S.C., David Patterson, Dawn Hastings-Williams and Catherine Hughes, made at the Washington Conference on Guyana, which took place in Washington in September.
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