PRESIDENT, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, said his government will play its part in addressing race relations but noted that such issues require a collective effort and a level of maturity and responsibility from every stakeholder.

Speaking at a press conference with Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, President Ali, in response to a question, said, “Yes, as a government, we will address the issue through policies and programmes.”

The government, he said has a responsibility of charting policies and programmes that reflect the needs and aspirations of all Guyanese.
“In terms of public policy and programming, we have to ensure that our public policy and programmes are designed for all the people of our country and that is a great responsibility of the government and that is what you will see in the way we craft our policy,” Dr. Ali said.

Adding that mainstream media have an important role to play, President Ali said how headlines are captured can be the difference in how people react.
“I have had over a thousand, and this is no exaggeration, Facebook posts, sent to me in the last 24 hours, some from people, who I would have great respect for their intellect, their level of education, but their posting is not only damaging and insensitive, but their posting borders on criminality itself, and as your President, I want to say that we have to address these issues frontally,” he said.

Emphasising that strong monitoring and actions will have to be taken on social media, the President said the amount of hate posts and speeches on social media are damaging and have serious implications.

Noting that his administration intends to create a Youth Advisory Council, Dr. Ali said a major component will be to work on race relations to create a new culture, environment and sense of purpose.

“We need to go out there in at-risk communities and develop a framework of action, that the government can pursue, to help at-risk communities, but this requires all of us to play a part and we are committed to it,” the President emphasised,  Guyana is an ethnically diverse nation and during March to August 2020, it survived an attempt to derail democracy. Attempts by activists of the coalition government to fan the flames of racial animosity also failed.

In this light, Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, said the killers of Isaiah Henry, 16, and Joel Henry, 19, must be brought to justice.
“We hope the perpetrators are caught and punished severely for what they did,” he said while noting that those who strive to divide Guyanese must also face the law.