AT the Babu Jaan rally, Vice-President, Bharrat Jagdeo made some scathing criticism of certain civil society organisations. He named Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), Transparency International –Guyana Incorporated (TIGI) and Red Thread.
Over the past four years, government ministers and the President himself have lambasted these organisations for their failure to condemn one of the most dangerous moments in post-Independence Guyana – the five months of conspiracy to alter the 2020 election results.
At Babu Jaan recently, the accusation was repeated. Here are the words of Mr. Jagdeo: “… but they were silent when APNU was rigging or trying to rig the elections in 2020.”

These organisations since 2020 have not addressed the accusation. They cannot because they were silent during the five months of rigging because they favoured the return of APNU+AFC.
The GHRA has replied to the Vice-President’s accusation and as night follows day, there isn’t even a one-word reference to the GHRA’s position on the March 2020 election. The Stabroek News carried a huge middle page spread of the GHRA’s reply to the Vice President with the headline: “GHRA defends its role in society.”

Well, well! I am living in a different country than the one the head of the GHRA, Mr. Mike Mc Cormack is living in. I wrote a daily column for the entire five months that the onslaught on the election results went on.
There was a gargantuan absence of the presence of the GHRA. But as usual, the GHRA’s rejection of Mr. Jagdeo’s criticism stayed clearly away from any reference to the 2020 election.

This is the Achilles heel of the GHRA. The GHRA lost all credibility when it hibernated during the five months of election tampering. Then when President Ali was sworn in, the GHRA arrived back in Guyana.
It went on a regime of incitement when it implied that two cousins that were found dead in Cotton Tree was the work of PPP supporters in jubilation of the PPP’s election victory.
This was the manifestation of colossal stupidity. Why would the supporters of a party that won an election go on a rampage killing people out of election joy? The trend is the opposite. Party supporters create mayhem when its leaders lose an election.

In September 2020, the GHRA expressed itself through press releases and letters in the newspapers six times, and went on a campaign for forensic experts from Argentina to be called in.
The GHRA which didn’t write anything for five months –March to July, 2020 when the election was being rigged, found its voice six times in one month in September 2020. This country has an overwhelming number of twisted minds. In its reply to Mr. Jagdeo, the GHRA listed civil society groups as the conscience of the nation. Could you get sicker than this?

Organisations that are the conscience of the nation watched as the nation was slowly being destroyed by the denial of its citizens’ right to vote. If these entities are the conscience of the nation then by logical deduction this country may not have much longer to exist.
The analogy is Dracula and the blood bank. If you put Dracula in charge of the bank then all the blood will be gone and there would be not a drop to save the life of a poor soul in need of it.
Likewise, if you have organisations in a country that are the moral custodian of the nation, and those organisations stayed silent when the incumbent went on a rampage to secure permanent power, then with custodians like them, the country cannot survive.
Guyana will survive because the Guyanese people know about the moral question mark and political bias of the GHRA, TIGI and Red Thread.

Here are some facts for Guyanese to read so they can detect the hypocrites in society. Do you know there is no printed word since March 2020 up to this day by Red Thread denouncing the five months of rigging?
Do you know that Red Thread’s co-leader, Dr. Alissa Trotz, edits a column in Stabroek News titled “In The Diaspora” and that throughout the five months of rigging, there was never a column devoted to any aspect of the election.

Do you know years after the election, I saw a social media programme in which the then leader of ANUG, Timothy Jonas, challenged the head of TIGI to declare that there were attempts to alter the election results.
Jonas asked him that because TIGI never denounced the rigging. As for the GHRA, is there any need to write on their silence when the entire nation knows that the GHRA was nowhere to be found from March to July in 2020?

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.