THE Prime Minister of Guyana, the Hon. Brigadier (ret’d) Mark Phillips, was, on Tuesday, honoured by Guyanese-American State Senator, Roxanne Persaud, who represents a district in Brooklyn where thousands of Afro Guyanese reside.

The Senator also honoured Ministers Gail Teixeira and Collin Croal as well as Joe Yussuf of the Guyana Consulate in New York. This honour came on top of similar honours by Assemblywoman, Jenifer Rajkumar of Queens. Jenifer’s district comprises of thousands of Indo Guyanese.

The Prime Minister and his entourage have been in New York since Saturday to promote investment in the homeland, as well as to give an update on Guyana. The entourage has met with different groups of Guyanese in several parts of New York and New Jersey. A reception by the diaspora was also held in their honour on Long Island on Saturday evening.

While the entourage was honoured for their work to promote Guyanese abroad, one Rickford Burke was rebuked for planning a boycott campaign and protest at a Christian church service and business forum for the entourage in Brooklyn. Burke is known as a perennial critic of the government. He has used nasty words to describe the Prime Minister. The Guyanese nation and the diaspora have largely ignored Burke who has been known to crave attention.

Pastor of Grace Christian Church, Dr. Reynold Howell, a Guyanese, chastised Burke. The pastor issued a release saying his church is in the business of meeting people’s needs and pointedly declared that the Guyanese American Chamber of Commerce doing business with Guyana Forum will not be cancelled.

Burke runs a primarily one-man organisation called GCID.
The pastor said when Burke wanted to use the church facilities for visits of the Prime Minister under the Coalition Government, he agreed. He said it would be discriminatory for him to deny permission for an event for the Prime Minister of the present Guyana administration.

“I accommodated he and his group multiple times. Now, in similar fashion, the Guyanese American Chamber of Commerce approached us with its need for meeting space and our catering services, to host the current PM, the honourable Mark Phillips, other government dignitaries and about 60 people from the diaspora, and we consented to do so, in the tradition of hosting two previous PMs.”

Pastor Howell said that, as a non-profit religious organisation, Grace Christian does not discriminate, and is now cast in a position to promote dialogue and healing in Guyana. Discrimination is against the law in the US. Organisations can lose their non-profit status if they discriminate.