THE Ghana Day Committee takes serious note of a press statement issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs which was published in the August 9 edition of the Guyana Chronicle. The statement sought to cast the recent Forum on the State of Black African Guyanese in a racist and unlawful light and represents not-so-veiled threats against the participants.

The release states in part: “According to the said reports, the presentations were laced with racial hostility towards the Government of the day, self-flagellations, attacks against the Guyana Police Force and the PPP/C Administration. Above all, the conference formulated a series of protest actions aimed at creating public disorder and disharmony in the country…… Further, it is interesting to note that at the Thomas Lands encounter, Aubrey Norton referred to the removal of the vendors from the Kitty Seawall and in the same breath, drew a parallel with Celina Resort which he said is still standing, a clear reference that to remove the vendors but not to touch Celina’s was an act of discrimination. A mere two days after,a security guard and four Chinese nationals employed at Celina’s were attacked, severely beaten and robbed by five armed bandits. The Ministry of Home Affairs is concerned that there may be a political connection here.”
We wish to draw to the ministry’s attention that the forum was widely covered by the local media and none of them reported these claims by the ministry. In addition, since the Forum was well advertised in the pubic media, the suggestion that it was a “sinister plot” is clearly an attempt to mislead the public.  The Ghana Day Committee condemns this statement and challenges the Ministry of Home Affairs to provide the evidence to support the charges above. We challenge the ministry to publish in the state media all the presentations at the forum so that the public could judge for itself.
In the meantime, the Ghana Day Committee wishes to categorically state the following:
** None of the presentations at the Forum attacked the Police Force
** While some of the presentations took the government to task, none of them was “laced with racial hostility”
** The Forum did not plan any protest actions
The Ghana Day Committee views the attempt to link Aubrey Norton’s statement at the forum to a robbery at Celina’s as ugly and dangerous. We also note that the statement listed Lincoln Lewis, Mark Benschop and Hamilton Green as presenters at the forum. While we are glad that these gentlemen attended the forum, we wish to point out that none of them made presentations or spoke from the floor. We also wish to point out that ACDA was not an organiser of the Forum.
The Ghana Day Committee condemns this attempt by the government to criminalise and racialise efforts by the African Guyanese community to discuss and plan to tackle the problems in the community.
We also urge all Guyanese of goodwill to raise their voices in condemnation of this attack on the freedom of assembly and the right to discuss public matters in the public space without official harassment. Finally, this attempt by the government to tarnish our efforts will not deter the Ghana Day Committee from fulfilling its promise to mobilise the African-Guyanese community to look after itself.