Dr. Bertrand Ramcharran did an opinion piece in the Stabroek News last Tuesday in which he thinks Guyana is facing autocratic government. I examined his resort to the flawed theories of American academic, Anne Applebaum, in his application to Guyana. Today. I will look at Dr. Ramcharran’s reason for thinking that Guyana is heading down an autocratic path.
But first, it must be noted that Dr. Ramcharran spent years working at the UN High Commission for Human Rights, so one has to assume that he must be sensitive to human rights violations. In recent months, Dr. Ramcharran has surfaced as a columnist with the Stabroek News. Prior to that, Guyanese hardly knew who he was, if at all.

But Guyanese should have known about his “human rights capacities” when Guyana faced its second most serious threat to its existence since Independence, the five months of attempted election rigging.
I would put the first threat as the paramountcy and hegemony of Forbes Burnham’s mentality. I certainly would not equate the post-election violence of 1992 and 1997 and the Buxton madness between 2002 and 2005 with what happened between March and July in 2020. The election conspiracy to my mind was the second largest danger point since Independence.

So where was the pen of Dr. Ramcharran, as a former UN human rights officer, when the world was watching the slide into endangered waters for five months? Enter Stabroek News (SN). The newspaper has claimed that leading ministers (it singled out the President, Mr. Jagdeo and the Attorney-General) have criticised certain civil society groups because the government is judging them by their inaction over the 2020 election disaster.
But the brutal fact is that the government is right. You cannot throw gasoline to out a fire and the parallel to that saying is that you cannot be a civil society activist and stay silent when an incumbent ruling party rigs an election and permanent power is the inevitable consequence.
I don’t want to tolerate anything Mr. Ramcharran has to say about autocracy when he was silent when autocracy prevailed for five months in 2020 in Guyana. It is for this reason I say without any apology: I was livid in my response to him when he sent me an email asking me not to criticise Mike McCormack, the forever head of the Guyana Human Rights Organisation (GHRA). Imagine the great paradox in world affairs: a human rights group chose silence over protest when the then incumbent attempted to deny Guyanese their right to vote.
The same silent Ramcharran has now found his voice and is referring to state abuse in Guyana. We will quote him then elaborate on his superficial understanding of democracy. Here he is: “In Guyana, we have recently seen official inquisitions into the tax status of NGOs, calls for new laws to ‘regulate’ NGOs, and public campaigns of vilification against particular NGOs and their leaders. There are shades of autocracy here, without a doubt. And Guyana has also seen ‘highest level’ admonitions of judges carrying out their duties in good faith.”
Who is “we?” I live in Guyana and I did not and I am not seeing any official inquisitions into the tax status of NGOs. Note the word, “inquisition.” This is unadulterated nonsense and Ramcharran has certainly damaged his credibility. All NGOs and civil society groups have to be financially audited in all countries of the world. All trade unions have to be audited. This is called financial accountability and the law governing the registration of NGOs in the US is a complex and arduous one.
Mr. Ramcharran could be accused of copying word for word from the propaganda of the SN. In a democracy, the President and his Prime Minister or the Prime Minister and his Cabinet have a democratic right to defend their government from what they consider unfair, biased, dangerous and degenerate criticism, especially in an age of social media.

There is no exception to this process in any democratic country. Which world is Ramcharran living in? In the Western world, ruling politicians have been poisonous in their condemnations of NGOs that support the Palestinian cause. Again I ask: Which world is Dr. Ramcharran living in?
An NGO demanded that 20 murder charges be dropped against a girl who allegedly set her dormitory on fire killing 20 teens. The NGO wants the substitute charge of arson. Which law, natural or man-made, prevents a Prime Minister or President from criticising this foolish NGO? Another NGO demands that oil production be immediately cancelled because of climate change. Why is a government response to that insanity an attack on NGOs? Please Dr. Ramcharran! Stop writing nonsense!

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.