I HAVE been writing newspaper columns for 35 years and I will ask all those who stuck with me over those long years to accept the words in the next lines because they are sincerely based on the feeling I had.

Here I go. On reading that the Government of Guyana has refused to meet with the non-governmental American delegation that is supposed to arrive here today to carry out so-called investigation into discrimination, I honestly said to myself immediately; I mean it just flew into my mind right away – why don’t they go to Israel?

In the history of world politics, no recipient of aid has ever received the immeasurable amount of aid the country of Israel has got from the United States. If you put together all the developing countries in the world that have special bilateral relations with the US, they collectively would not have received the amount of aid in one year that one country alone collected – Israel.
This is tax-payers’ money that over a period of 60 years is simply staggering. With Israel the centre of world criticism, why did the delegation not go there? Israel has a greater obligation to talk to American taxpayers than any other country on Planet Earth.

The question is not why the delegation is coming here but two aspects need interrogating – their status and the dangerous precedent that the visit will create in the future for Guyana. Let’s analyse both. First, Guyana is a signatory to certain international institutions whose request to come to Guyana to investigate a complaint, the Guyana Government cannot refuse.

The list includes the UN, OAS, Commonwealth, World Court, International Criminal Court, WTO, and of crucial importance CARICOM. Guyana has bilateral relations with some powerful countries, particularly the EU and the US. If a dialogue results in either the US or the EU asking for acceptance of a fact-finding mission, it is likely the Guyanese administration will concede.

As it stands today, no government in any part of the world and not one internationally recognised legal institution has made a comment on Guyana’s politics and sociology. No CARICOM nation has commented adversely at any time on the policies and behavior of the administration in Georgetown.

Why should an unofficial, non-governmental group in the United States, not representing the Congress and Government of the US come to Guyana and arrogate to itself the right to investigate the policies of a sovereign nation. That should never be accepted by any sovereign nation on Planet Earth.

Let’s look at the second aspect. For the government to accept an unofficial delegation from the US to meet with it to discuss how the government relates to its citizenry is creating an incredibly dangerous precedent that over a period of time will lead to the erosion of Guyana’s sovereignty.

This story is not about the UN General-Secretary, US President, Chairman of CARICOM having expressed a desire to have a dialogue with the President and his Cabinet on some curious area of governance. This is a non-governmental group deciding it wants to meet with the President of a sovereign state and enquire from him about the complaints of discrimination made by the opposition in Guyana.

The University of Guyana, civil society groups, media houses, NGOs have not made any request to this so-called delegation to come to Guyana to investigate racial discrimination. What is ugly and repugnant about the intention of this delegation is that it wants to probe a government for discrimination when that very government is headed by one of the most popular presidents in any country in the world at the moment and a president that enjoys widespread acceptance across cultural, ethnic and religious communities.

Why the precedent is dangerous and the President was right to refuse to meet the group? There are two dimensions to the answer. One is that particular delegation would be empowered to inquire into any complaint it is in possession of from the opposition. It would feel it can descend upon Guyana and seek dialogue with the President whenever it wants to. So today is discrimination. Tomorrow will be investment policy. The next year, it will be foreign policy. The following year it will be local government elections. Where will it end?

The second dimension is that other groups from other parts of the US, and maybe Canada or the EU that have some form of connection with the opposition in Guyana can write a sovereign nation and claim it wants to investigate governance in this country. The group is supposed to come today. I want them to know as an opinion maker in this country, they are out of line by a far, far way. Next – a question for the delegation.