Dear Editor,

TO mark UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in March, the “PNCR declares intent to build good relations”, Stabroek News 21/03/2022.

This leaves one to cogitate on whether these people are serious about race relations or is it gimmickry to garner votes for the upcoming local government elections and early campaigning for the 2025 general elections.

They have declared their intent to build good race relations and fairness. Wonders never cease. Is the Reform in PNCR now kicking in after a still birth for decades? The PNC has never had a good track record of improving race relations. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, meaning that you can only judge the quality of something after you have tried, used, or experienced it. Good race relations have never been practised by the PNCR, so pontificating now needs to be manifested by genuine practise.

In the 1960s, PNC operatives carried out mayhem and racial-cleansing of Indians in Linden, because they wanted to oust the PPP government.

Burnham brought Guyana down to an improvised country, next to Haiti, as the second poorest in the Third World, where even today our currency has little value internationally. Just a few months ago, two PNC supporters argued with me that no one starved in Guyana. I posited that there could be sufficient availability of foodstuff, but lack of variety and malnutrition, and its concomitant disastrous effects, co-existing. People were told to “produce or perish”. By the way, have you seen the food and beverage list on Burnham’s plane when he visited Mexico in his quixotic purple attire? It included assorted scotch whiskey, imported salmon, caviar, expensive wines and an endless variety of luxury items not available to others, even the wealthy. And while Burnham was grandstanding on the world stage about apartheid in South Africa, he was hypocritically practising apartheid in Guyana.  See my letter, “The Order of the Companions of O R Tambo should be given to the Guyanese people, not Burnham”, published in Stabroek News of March 15, 2013. The then pro-Burnham editor of Kaieteur News refused to publish it.

Where were PNC advocates, if any, of good race relations when people had to flash PNC cards to get jobs, contracts and other opportunities? Just as recent as the last Coalition administration, people told me that they show their party card at PNC headquarters to get attended to. Paramountcy of the party was still practised.

In Region Two, one PNCR REO bypassed the personnel department responsible for hiring, and unilaterally employed his villagers; 16 of them. Additionally, contracts were given to PNCR brown-nosers, at the disadvantage of other deserving bidders. I wrote the former Prime Minister about unfair, racially implemented policies, and he requested a list of the names of the employees, which I forwarded to him. As expected, the list was garbaged, and nothing resulted. The next REO implanted the Region Two PNCR Secretary on the panel of the personnel department to influence recruitment to benefit their supporters.

Editor, any little gain by the former Ministry of Social Cohesion in relation to racial unity was set back light years when PNCR leaders instigated Afro-Guyanese in Region Five to beat, rob, vandalise vehicles and traumatise Indo-Guyanese road users. Except for one former PNCR leader, the rest of them were silent by consent, comatose, or clandestinely egged on the gross injustice.

Even now, people from predominantly one race, some operating with cycles, rob, snatch bags, jewellery, phones, cash and other valuables from people, predominantly of other races (they seldom commit crimes on their own race) to the extent that residents feel unsafe to go about their legitimate business. There is nothing wrong with being ethno-centric — liking and supporting one’s ethnic group or race, but publicly advocating that one race should boycott and not patronising other races spawns division and disunity.

The ‘Black pudding Man”, an “academic”, was raving over the fact that an Indo-Guyanese lady was selling black pudding, and Afro-Guyanese were buying from her even as we live in a free market economy, based on supply and demand, and choices. Then, a PNCR Minister made a controversial statement at a PNCR event on November 25, which included that `jobs would only go to PNC people’. Who is she referring to, when the support base of her party is mostly Afro-Guyanese?

How has the PNCR responded to these utterances? Their silence was deafening. The leader is now saying that they have intention for good race relations? This political pitch sounds good, but rhetoric does not replace pragmatism. All of us, I think, have good intentions for many things, but where is the practise and implementation?

For good race relations, we need equity, fair practices, proper socialisation and habits of mind (at home, school and the community), good role models, motivation and guidance, education and cultural competence, training and employment and other opportunities for all races. Finally, there needs to be reconciliation, dropping the burden of baggage, and sincere and genuine acceptance of others. Lip service and rhetoric alone does not cut it.

Yours respectfully,

Karan Chand
Region Two resident