RECENTLY, there has been a lot of noise about the alleged creeping development of an “Apartheid State” in Guyana.
The proponents of this school of thought are the Cuffy 250 organisation and the A Partnership for National Unity. They are being ably supported by the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) and other paper organisations.

They have spent time and resources trying via all forums to get Guyanese to back their arguments that there is ethnic, racial, political, and economic apartheid taking form in Guyana.
Firstly, every right-thinking Guyanese must be suspicious of those making these arguments. They are the same actors that had this country at the breaking point and on the verge of becoming an undemocratic state when they tried to derail Guyana’s fledgling democracy.

They have the same actors, speakers, politicians and instigators.
They operate similar organisations under the cloak of being newly formed ‘independent’, non-governmental and not-for-profit organisations like the IDPADA-G movement that is embroiled in a scandal over alleged financial mismanagement.

For instance, Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton tried to deliver an address about the economic apartheid of the state and ended up confusing the politics of the PNC/APNU and what he alleged to be happening. Anybody or any objective mind would be more confused and have more questions than answers after his presentation was finished.

Secondly, where are the statistics or evidence of the alleged creeping apartheid in Guyana? Why have the paper organisations, Cuffy 250 and IDPADA-G not commissioned a survey to get factual information on their claims of discrimination economically and socially under the PPP/C Governments?

More importantly, did the alleged apartheid stop happening in 2015 and restarted after the PPP Government took office? Make that make sense to ordinary Guyanese because when APNU+AFC was in power, they did absolutely nothing aimed at ridding the system they inherited of this apartheid if indeed it existed.

If anything, the APNU+AFC Government was more about practising apartheid and dividing Guyana along racial lines using a series of projects and programmes, repainting national buildings in party colours and renaming everything.

Who can forget the famous salary increase the ministers who had just gone into office pocketed because they felt ‘entitled’ to it? Scandals broke out in almost every sector with Guyanese ethnic groups including the Africans complaining that they were being left out of development.

One would think that David Granger’s administration was equally guilty of practising this alleged apartheid if any Government.
Thirdly, there is truth in the popular saying that the APNU+AFC government and, by extension, the Cuffy 250 and its satellite organisations have never really been concerned with the empowerment of Black and the Afro-centric population in Guyana.

They seemingly only pop up whenever the PPP is in power. Go to Facebook and social media and watch the dates of their activism.
When APNU+AFC had state Power, they wasted it. African Guyanese were seemingly no better off than they had been in every year since the PPP/C was in power.

It appears that now the PPP/C has intensified its campaign to dispel the opposition’s lie to keep the Afro-Guyanese in a form of neo-slavery and loyal to the PNC. The PPP Government is demonstrating boldly that Afro-Guyanese must take an equal share in Guyana’s patrimony and development process.

They are going into communities to offer people jobs, health care, business loans and training for start-ups, and giving the Afro-Guyanese a new chance at socio-economic independence through the titling and lease agreements of acres upon acres of traditional and ancestorial lands.

Afro-Guyanese, from the look of things, is warming up and trusting the PPP/C. These claims of an apartheid State in Guyana are baseless, unfounded, and mischievous.
Apartheid simply does not exist in Guyana because of the legal and other frameworks contained in the Constitution. It does not exist as a policy either codified or uncodified by the current PPP Government.
It appears to be a figment of somebody’s active imagination because it has no factual evidence.

Finally, the Cuffy 250 and other African organisations must be condemned by all.
Instead of celebrating the diverse heritage and contributions of people of African descent to the development of our societies through forms of empowerment, they are joining APNU, the real oppressors of Afro-Guyanese, in making claims against the PPP/C Government with the hope that people would buy into this new lie.

Maybe, it is time for the PPP/C Government to take a firm stance against these organisations which secretly have a hidden agenda to cause Guyana more harm through these racist and divisive platforms.
Guyanese are not fools. The APNU+AFC Coalition is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Guyanese with the same discrimination propaganda ahead of Local Government polls.
Replace everything Guyanese have heard about apartheid with the attainment of ‘One Guyana’ and Guyana would be a better place.