The history of the world has shown repeatedly that wars and violence never really resolve problems and differences between nations or peoples.

On the contrary, they give rise to fresh problems which often are even of greater proportions than the original problem.

In the words of a veteran World War II Russian General: “In wars there are no victors, only losers.” It is a statement with deep philosophical connotation and this is no surprise as it is coming from a man who lived it and experienced the horrors of one of the bloodiest wars in the history of Mankind.
In our own country, we are still reeling from the terrible violence of the 1960s which was fomented by foreign and local agents in their quest to unseat a freely elected government.
Today the scars from a most unfortunate period of our history are slowly healing. But it seems as if there are some who are bent on taking this country backward through the use of violence and it would appear as if the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is the major target, as there have been several incidents of the party’s campaign materials being vandalised.
However, worse yet, the Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon has reported that a group is actually inciting insurrection.

At his last weekly press briefing, he disclosed that members of the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) have been holding meetings at the community level where they have been encouraging audiences to engage in insurrection-type activities in the event of a People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) victory at the November 28 polls.

He said there have been reports of exhortations to insurrection and appeals to racial and religious sentiments.

Dr Luncheon said the incitements to insurrection have all been attributed to prominent members of ACDA and there had not been any reports of similar actions by other Opposition parties, to date.

According to him, incitement on insecurities have been coming out of these meetings held by ACDA and transcripts of these statements have been obtained and are being studied by the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for possible legal action against the perpetrators.

This is indeed an ominous development, but one that is not surprising because a couple of months ago, a leading ACDA member categorically said that, if the PPP/C wins the elections and there is no shared governance, there will be mass protests and an uprising.
So it is clear that the threat was not an empty one as the reports suggest that the threat is now moving into the implementation stage which certainly has to be halted in its infancy as the vast majority of Guyanese want to see a peaceful election atmosphere and the continued progress of this country.

Therefore, a few misguided elements with their narrow and selfish agenda cannot and must not be allowed to prevail.
The electorate is the one which decide on what type of government they want and not these misguided elements. When voters exercise their franchise they do so for a political party to be in government. The issue of a shared government is irrelevant.
When the People’s National Congress (PNC) government entrenched itself for 28 years in government through rigged elections why weren’t these misguided elements calling for a shared government then?

Why didn’t they take to the streets and incite insurrection then? Or was it all right to have an illegal government then but wrong to have a freely and fairly elected government now, which is an overwhelming expression of the will of the electorate?