Bharrat Jagdeo, Irfaan Ali, Mark Phillips and other officials of the regime are on race deception safaris to the United States and Ghana, hoping they could deflect attention from their divisive record and poor governance at home. Many are not fooled by the charade at the expense of the taxpayers and working poor, whose money these people are spending like drunken sailors, and as though it is from their personal bank account.
First it was Irfaan Ali’s presentation at the United Nations, in New York, where cat either caught his tongue or the ancestors his voice, posing a challenge to him pronouncing a simple word like “reparative.” The ancestors know he has no interest in Reparative Justice for the enslaved because he would have been ensuring justice for their descendants in his programmes and policies. Ali’s safari was followed by Mark Phillips, Gail Teixeira and entourage’s visit to the United States and bringing into disrepute the Christian church with their political shenanigans of divide and rule.
The church is treated as sacred. The pulpit revered. Particularly for Africans in the New World the church since slavery has been a place for spiritual guidance, the articulation of the concerns of the congregants in the family structure and wider society, and the putting in place of mechanisms for the realising of salvation and justice.
Coming from a past where Quamina, a slave and senior deacon, led the Demerara Rebellion in 1823, Africans have a deep sense of the role of the church to rights, to freedom, to humanity, to self-determination. Guyanese, home and abroad, are no stranger to the work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. et al and American church in the achievement of Civil Rights for African Americans and others of the coloured community. These rights include the right to vote, fair housing, equal employment opportunity, among others.
In that Philips et al were allowed to stand at the pulpit of the churches in the United States, given the history of the church to the Black community there, and were not held to account for their divisive record in Guyana should be of concern. They should be thankful we are not living in the days of yore where, according to the Holy Book, redemption would have faced them as it did Saul on the road to Damascus.
I pause here to recognise the efforts of Rickford Burke and others, who mounted protests during the visits of the enforcers of the oppressive policies. It was helpful to remind them of their record and highlight to the world the racial, political and social injustices practiced by the Ali regime. Every soldier is needed in this fight for justice and fair play, be they natural or formal leaders, rank and file, or sympathisers. All hands are important in this struggle, once again.
The regime sent Bharrat Jagdeo to Africa, the motherland of those he has a record of marginalising and discriminating against, to paint the impression that all is well in divided Guyana and there is racial harmony. It is times like these the invocation of the ancestors is missed for he should never have touched the soil of Africa and not be visited by the spiritual wrath of our forebears.
I listened to a radio programme he was on. Nothing but lies and half-truth spewed from him. The interviewer was gracious, but Jagdeo’s deception could not be missed. The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) never built housing schemes in Linden. The housing schemes in Linden, Amelia’s Ward and Wisroc started in the 1960s and 1970s during the Forbes Burnham administration. Back then Jagdeo was a boy.
The extension of Amelia’s Ward was led by the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) under the chairmanship of Mortimer Yearwood. I could recall, without fear of contradiction, the opening of that area started through an agreement between the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union (GB&GWU), of which yours truly remains the General Secretary, and the RDC. It was agreed that the GB&GWU would work with the RDC to have the area cleared and in return house lots would be made available to members of the Union.
The GB&GWU negotiated with OMAI Gold Mines, which was the bargaining unit for workers represented by this Union, to make available a bulldozer and fuel to clear the area. These were provided. Workers operated that bulldozer and through self-help successfully cleared a massive area for the commencement of the extension of the Amelia’s Ward housing scheme. The RDC was in charge of the distribution of the lots.
When the Jagdeo government recognised what was happening they moved in and took away the project from the RDC in effort to distribute lands to their friends from outside of the region. The recount given here is the true, ugly and divisive story of the PPP/C’s role in building housing schemes in Linden. They did nothing and when the people decided to pursue home ownership through self-help and with the assistance of the RDC, Jagdeo intervened and undermined the project.
Space will not permit in one article to throw disinfection on his numerous lies. It is important however to set the housing record in Linden straight. For what Jagdeo did to Region 10 and its people was to implement and execute the programme of economic genocide in an effort to bring a proud people, and the nation’s most skilled artisans, to their knees. This is the truth he didn’t tell. Their overseas safaris can’t mask their divisive policies and Jagdeo’s dishonest interview in Ghana.
