WHILE Guyana has made laudable strides since Independence, it still faces a number of challenges, and there is great need for a united effort to crush racism and petty political differences that have divided Guyana for far too long.This position was articulated by Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo on Sunday in his address to the Guyana diaspora in the USA during a cultural forum at Naresa Palace in New York. The Prime Minister said it is time Guyanese bury their differences.

As he reflected on the lives of Guyana’s late former Presidents Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham and Cheddi Jagan, who, in their early political lives, had fought vigorously for Guyana’s Independence, the Prime Minister said: “…on May 26, 1966 (at) the National Park, two friends, two comrades who had then become enemies as it were, buried their differences, buried their hatreds and embraced each other because, at last, Guyana was free!” he recalled.

He said the determination of Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham to transform Guyana into an Independent nation, despite their political differences, showed that Guyana was in deed bigger than their internal issues.

GUYANA COMES FIRST
“Guyana is bigger than all of us! So don’t allow the change of Governments and the change of relationships between comrades to set us apart and to make life difficult for us to transcend our differences and move to the future,” Prime Minister Nagamootoo said, even as one member of the Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) cried discrimination as he accused the PM of betraying his own.

The Prime Minister had toiled under the PPP/C as a long-standing member before breaking away from that party ahead of the 2011 General and Regional Elections to join the Alliance For Change (AFC) before A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and then AFC merge on February 14, 2015. Mr Nagamootoo departed that party reportedly due to entrenched corruption and nepotism in the PPP. Several Jaganites were also forced out by the Jagdeo administration.
With the exception of the AFC, the PPP/C and the APNU, of which the People’s National Congress (PNC) forms a major part, have attracted criticism of being dominated by Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese respectively.

“When I see the Opposition resorting to protest, picket and petition, I am sad because the three Ps are associated with those activities, because they perceive that one race and one ethnicity must transcend all other ethnicities and all other nationalities in Guyana,” the Prime Minister disclosed. But, the Prime Minister said, Guyanese do not gain their greatest respect because of their ethnicity, but because of their citizenship.

“For when people used to put us on the bench in Barbados to sit and do not accept us in Trinidad, it was not your race that made you sit on the bench; it was our nationality, it was a Guyana bench,” he explained to his audience.

Prime Minister Nagamootoo’s comments on the issue of race come at a time when the APNU+AFC Government, after just seven months in office, has been accused of racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing. But this allegation, the Prime Minister said, is baseless. “My Government does not practise ethnic discrimination,” he said, while pointing out that none of the staff who served under the PPP/C regime was fired by him.

“The persons who were there as the staff of the former Prime Minister, they are my staff. None has been dismissed. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, (who) was the Permanent Secretary of Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar, he remains the Permanent Secretary of Moses Nagamootoo, the Prime Minister of Guyana, and he is Indian.”

It was further pointed out that the Secretary and Protocol Officer, both of whom worked under the former Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, are still on staff. The same is true of President David Granger, the Prime Minister said, noting that President Granger has not removed a single hair from any of the staff that he inherited from Jagdeo and Ramotar.

RACISM
“So this claim of racial discrimination in Guyana or political discrimination in Guyana is not founded in fact, it is founded and rooted in racism!” the Prime Minister said. He warned thus: “We have to be clear, when we bandy around ethnicity, that we do not do greater damage to our country, that we do not make allegations of ethnic cleansing when there is no evidence at all that there has been a purge of one race by another.”

However, the Prime Minister did not deny that certain senior Government officials who served under the PPP/C Administration had their services terminated. He said it was necessary in order to root out corruption and malpractice.

“We have replaced people who have been investigated and are being investigated for the loss of billions of dollars. It is not discrimination if you remove a Raj Singh from GuySuCo. He worked for $3M a month while he lived in New Jersey. It is not discrimination if you remove Bharat Dindyal from the head of GPL [Guyana Power and Light] and the country was affected by widespread blackouts when he worked for $6M a month. If you remove him for incompetence, it is not discrimination,” the Prime Minister declared.

“And if you start to investigate the billions of dollars in NICIL and the billions of dollars missing from Government departments; and people chose to resign and people chose to go on leave; it is not discrimination, it is facilitating a process of investigation,” the Prime Minister said.

HURTING GUYANA
The Prime Minister said that Guyanese who are bent on fostering racism and baseless allegations of ethnic cleansing are “wounding the soul of our nation”, because, indirectly, they are indicating to the outer world that Guyana does not deserve Independence.

He noted that the country must be rescued from the evils of the past.

His remarks received overwhelming support from the masses. They especially applauded his message on the importance of nationhood and the need to foster an environment free of corruption.

The cultural forum, which saw Guyanese from home and aboard performing in music, song, dance and poetry, was organised by the AFC, and, as such, saw in attendance senior functionaries within the party, including Dr Rohan Somar, Professor Shamir Ally, Salaudeen Nausrudeen, Rudy Jadoopat and Ewart Marshall, among others. Notably, US-based Guyanese Senator Roxanne Persaud was present.

During the forum, the Prime Minister presented a number of AFC members with certificates for their unwavering support. These included Asha Sobhan, Marlyn Jaikaran, Anita Jaikaran, Kamla Balbachan, Professor Shamir Ally, Ewart Marshall, Ron Alert, Mahendra Jagmohan, Derek Basdeo and Bernard Rollins.

The cultural forum, which served to welcome the Prime Minister to the USA, formed part of three events organised by the AFC. These included a Business Breakfast at Richi Rich Palace in Richmond Hill, New York, and a panel discussion in Brooklyn, New York on the abundant and critically important resource for Guyana’s economic development. (smarshall@guyanachronicle.com)

By Svetlana Marshall in New York