Dear Editor,

I’VE noted with interest, the letter published dealing with the Carter formula written by my good friend Clement Rohee.

It is universal that every story has two sides.

In Guyana, we are a little advanced, every story here has three sides and very often, you hear your side, my side but getting to the third side oft times, the whole story is always a tedious exercise.

My friend Clement needs to recall the activism of a Patriotic Coalition for Democracy.
It was used as a foil in the purported quest for a return to democracy (SIC); one of the main actors being Ms Gail Teixeira.

It appears that the Carter Centre persuaded GECOM to submit a list to be used on Election Day to this group for scrutiny.

As a result of this,for whatever reason, many citizens were disenfranchised on Election Day 1992.

Persons whose names appeared on Voter’s Lists posted up at several locations in certain areas found that their names did not appear on the list provided by GECOM on Election Day 1992.
This is an undisputable fact.

It is clear that the list submitted for use on Election Day, particularly in PNC strongholds, were ‘doctored.’

I share with readers, this personal experience, Election 1992.
In the area where I live, my voting place was the Enterprise Primary School in Lodge.
After, I had voted, some party supporters complained that in spite of them having their identification cards and having seen their names on the list posted at the School earlier, their names didn’t appear on the list being used by the presiding officer at Enterprise Primary School and therefore, were denied their right to vote.
I contacted the Chairman of the Elections Commission, Mr Rudy Collins, drawing to his attention this unhappy situation.

He dispatched immediately the Chief Elections Officer, Mr Stanley Singh to the school.  Mr Singh examined the complaints by the citizens and sure enough their names appeared on the list, which was hung up at the said Enterprise Primary School.

Mr Singh was satisfied that the list given to the Presiding Officers was not accurate and removed the list at the school, requesting the presiding officer to use that said list.
The presiding officers informed Mr Singh in the presence of the scrutineers that they were instructed to use only the list provided by GECOM.

This meant that qualified voters were denied their right to vote.
This situation occurred in several other areas in the country, causing near riots in several places.

Recall, investigations revealed that the lists used on Election Day were prepared and printed only the night before.

Fact – some areas in Region Three, lists were delivered for use by electoral officers hours after the official 06:00hrs opening of the polling station,for reasons beyond belief.
The then party leader had ignored my proposals to deal with the situation, but agreed with recommendations by persons from the Carter Center, that those disenfranchised persons should be issued a ‘Tendered Ballot ‘paper.

A useless, nonsensical proposal, since ‘tendered ballots’ were not counted.
Next, at the instance of the Carter Center, we cancelled all overseas voting, thus denying thousands of Guyanese abroad their democratic right to vote in 1992.
We must be reminded thus the ‘theology,’ of the Carter Center lead by James Earl Carter Jnr (Jimmy), 39th US President from Plains, Georgia – was ‘regime change’ wherever they went.

Regime change was their clarion call.
I will not burden this letter with more details, save to state that My President described Mr Carter as a friend.

His Excellency is a decent and wise man and he may be right – but then we have all sorts of friends.

The above describes some of the conditions which existed in an election clearly superintended by the Carter Centre.
Let me add this caveat: even though I was prime minister at that time, I was skilfully kept away from the gentleman – never once meeting him.
Perhaps, I cautioned that Mr. Carter was a disciple of ‘regime change.’
I write because many of our youths may be unaware of the above and older ones may have poor memories.

Regards
Hamilton Green