Dear Editor,

THIS letter is not intended to question the right of sugar workers to engage in street protests whenever they feel the situation demands that line of action. In fact, if truth be known, I, over the period of my lengthy political activism, have recognised, applauded and defended their right to protest actions and will continue to do so.

My intention here however, is to draw the public’s attention to the fact that since the APNU+AFC government came to office the nation has witnessed a number of street protest actions by supporters of the PPPC, the most recent being GAWU’s ongoing protests against government’s decision to privatise the non-profitable Skeldon Sugar Estate in Berbice. To date, there has been no public outcry from any section of society against these protests.

The absence of any expression of concern on the conduct of the protests is instructive. When one compares the sound of silence from those who were offended when the APNU supporters took to the streets to protest against actions of the then government, when one recalls that the newspapers, the electronic media, private sector organisations and certain well-known individuals in the society, were hysterical in their condemnation of the actions of these persons and pointed to what they referred to as the destabilisation of the economy and country while raising the specter of violence in the society, one is amazed but not unduly surprised at the level of their acceptance of what is taking place.

Today, those prophets of doom, who condemned the APNU supporters even as they peacefully protested, have not seen it fit to raise a single note of concern as the PPP goes along its merry way of organising the protests, which are now taking place. In reflecting on this issue I feel emboldened to say that there seems to have evolved in Guyana two standards of what can be referred to as acceptable behavior – one for APNU African supporters and another for the PPPC Indian supporters.

As an activist in the African community, I have had cause on numerous occasions to pen letters in support of the rights of African Guyanese to engage in street protests when the occasion demands it. I have done so in the face of hostile criticisms by high and low officials in the PPPC party and government, their propaganda letter writers and the numerous Indian rights activists, who have combined to criminalise Africans street protests, while supporting acts of political aggression directed at the African Community, with the specific intention of ensuring the PPPC’s political domination of the country. African street protests were therefore seen by the rulers and there cronies as providing resistance to their policy of domination.

I had made the point very often in those days when the debate on street protests raged, that very often the character of street protest is determined by the actions of the rulers and the police. My detractors rather than being objective, resorted to propagandising to score cheap political points and to reinforce the historical political conditioning of the Indian community that Africans in general, and the PNCR in particular, are violent.

Today, with a change of government, we see a change in policy. The new rulers have not been criminalising Indian street protests for political gains or for any reason as was done by the former regime when African protest actions were taking place. There is no politically directed police aggression against the sugar workers or any section of the support-base of the PPPC that choose to take to the streets. This is how it must be in our democracy.

On this and other issues of governance, the APNU+AFC government are light years from the PPPC regime.

Regards,
Tacuma Ogunseye