Chairperson of the National Toshaos Council (NTC), Yvonne Pearson, took issue with Stabroek News article of October 29 which suggested that the NTC meeting was being staged by the Government, that the Toshaos were being curtailed in speaking to the media, and that the Amerindian people have plights that needed to be highlighted.
Pearson criticised the article while delivering her closing remarks at the end of the NTC meeting which had been ongoing at the Guyana International Conference Centre since Monday. The article was headlined ‘SN reporter ordered out of toshaos meeting’ and it appeared on page 14.
“I want to tell you something…the media [are] the media. They’re hawks, they’re sharks…we have to be prepared to deal with them. We have to let the media say what we really want to say,” she said.
She read part of the story which said that the Stabroek News reporter who had been evicted from the conference centre had come to elicit responses on issues frustrating the Amerindian leaders in their communities and that this is part of the newspaper’s efforts to highlight the plight of the indigenous people whose problems often goes unventilated.
“They only looking for the plight and the trouble and the stress and the ugly things. I am not surprised because one day I was walking out of here and a reporter came to me to ask about the issues affecting Amerindian people. Why you don’t ask about some of the good things? I was angry because they only wanted to know the issues and the plight,” Pearson said.
“Why do we only have to talk about our plight? Why can’t we talk of some of the positive things? We must stop thinking of the past, where we were when we were barefooted…there are changes in this world and we have to be prepared to cope with the changes…there have been tremendous changes and we must not only talk about issues and plight. We must talk about some of the things that are happening,” she said.
Pearson noted that the article reported that on the previous day, another Stabroek News reporter had been told not to speak to the participants on the premises by Kwame McCoy and team and that they learned from one of the Toshaos that they (the Toshaos) had been told not to speak with the newspaper because they carry false reports.
“Maybe it was ‘be careful what you say to the press’; but I don’t think anyone said that we must not speak to the press,” she said. “I want to know why deny us our right to speak. This is a free country because we can speak anything inside here and outside. I think we had an opportunity to speak our mind inside here, so I don’t know who can deny us our right to speak,” she said.
The NTC Chairperson took issue with Stabroek News Editor in Chief’s comment on the article, which read: “McCoy’s eviction of the SN reporter was repugnant and redolent of increasing desperation as the government tries to stage-manage this meeting of Toshaos and to deny them their right to speak to the press.” Persaud further stated in the article: “It was evident that there were diverse views among the Toshaos over the issues being discussed and that the government did not want these to be ventilated in the media for fear of unsettling certain donors.”
Pearson said: “These are the things that are being said in the papers, that the Government staged this thing…if they so like us, they can offer to cover the cost of part of the conference.”