Weaponising state advertisements

Sep 24, 2024 Editorial

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Kaieteur News – As Guyanese observe the latest antics by the government, threatening to withdraw state advertisements from this newspaper we must also pay attention to the wider implications this has for our nation.

Already we have seen signs of a creeping dictatorship emerging. A government obsessed with power that has begun to treat its citizens with disdain. Look at the recent issue regarding teachers demanding a livable wage and the highhanded approach it took in removing Mocha residents from lands they claimed they wanted to use to build a road. Look at the reluctance to put in place a petroleum commission to provide independent oversight of the oil and gas sector and the recent disrespectful treatment meted out to respected sculptor, Ivor Thom. These are just a few of the atrocities we have witnessed by the government and now it wants to move against the independent media. As we said in our leader yesterday Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and the government are so afraid of transparency that they would seize on any opportunity to close down Kaieteur News and the other independent media voices.

Earlier this year the international media watchdog group- Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned that there was a growing number of governments and political authorities who are not fulfilling their role as guarantors of the best possible environment for journalism and for the public’s right to reliable, independent, and diverse news and information.

It is well known that advertisement is the lifeblood of any newspaper and this was weaponised by Jagdeo in the past who is again threatening the same. It is clear that his intention is to try and weaken the role this newspaper plays in holding his government to account in its management of this country. Our task is not merely to regurgitate what he churns out at his weekly press conference, but to search for the truth.

RSF said it sees a worrying decline in support and respect for media autonomy and an increase in pressure from the state or other political actors. “As more than half the world’s population goes to the polls in 2024, RSF is warning of a worrying trend revealed by the 2024 World Press Freedom Index: a decline in the political indicator, one of five indicators detailed in the Index. States and other political forces are playing a decreasing role in protecting press freedom. This disempowerment sometimes goes hand in hand with more hostile actions that undermine  the role of journalists, or even instrumentalise the media through campaigns of harassment or disinformation. Journalism worthy of that name is, on the contrary, a necessary condition for any democratic system and the exercise of political freedoms,” RSF editorial director Anne Bocandé wrote.

In Guyana, the work of Kaieteur News, the people of Kaieteur News are in the firing line, made the objects of palpable rage, by a group of men in the PPP/C Government led by Jagdeo, who will stop at nothing to suppress the press, suppress truth. They use the state media and other friendly outlets to demean and discredit this newspaper all in their efforts to stop the press, stop KN, stop the revelations about how the oil is mismanaged, stop how the many people around it are mostly bent towards corruptions, and stop all this from being presented in honest fashion to Guyanese, and a watching world. Given that Guyana now has oil, and in the kind of quantities that it does, the eyes of the world are sharply fixed on every development occurring here, because of this precious commodity that the Western world needs so much.

Oil is known to bring its own diseases and other curses, so there is vigilance the world over, on what surrounds it when it is discovered. In Guyana, secrecy has been the thick shroud that governs how this national oil patrimony is handled. The more the government tries to run, the more it corners itself, falls into a hole. The more the government works overtime to cover-up, the more of what is unacceptable comes to light. The more the government lashes out at those daring to peer behind the curtains of secrecy and pull them back, the more determined those attacked and lashed become in pursuing the scent of corruptions that grow stronger by the minute.

This is where we are at KN. If the objective is to terrorise into surrender, then consider that a failed objective from right now. This oil patrimony is too vital to the nation’s interests, too significant to the people expecting so much from it, to be left to what government, or leaders, say that that is happening with it. Better governments and cleaner men than those we have in Guyana have been near oil, and only the worst of devastations has been the lot of dependent citizens of those countries. There is no secret about the kind of governments and leaders that Guyanese have had; they are not what inspires, or comforts that the nation is in good hands. We must be watchful like never before, and we commit to doing so.

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• Advertisements, Nation, petroleum, State, Weaponising

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