Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) President Rickford Burke, in a stinging statement, condemns the action of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) for allegedly acting as a political pawn of the Ali/Jagdeo regime. According to Burke, the GDF is allowing itself to be dictated to by the government and engaged in partisan political decision-making by removing Mayor Pt Ubraj Narine as reservist Staff Sergeant. Similar viewpoints have been shared by several other Guyanese and members of the military.
Burke’s full statement follows:-
CGID CONDEMNS GDF FOR ALLOWING THE PPP REGIME TO USE THE FORCE AS A POLITICAL FOOTBALL IN DISPUTE WITH MAYOR UBRAJ NARAINE – SAYS GDF’S IMAGE PERMANENTLY TARNISHED
Wednesday the PPP regime directed the Guyana Defence Force to announce the removal of Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Naraine as a reservist Staff Sergeant with the GDF. In announcing the government directive, the GDF said that Mayor Narine was “disembodied” from the Force.
The Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) is astonished that a so-called military organisation like the GDF is ignorant of military processes. A rank can only be “disembodied” after that rank was called up from a reservist status to full time duty in war time and is being reverted to a normal peacetime role at the end of the war – back to being a reservist. Consequently, according to the GDF announcement, the Mayor retains his reservist status.
It’s unfortunate that in rushing to fulfill the corrupt political mandate of the government, the GDF has made a mockery of itself in the eyes of other military institutions in the world and now stands in disrepute internationally among military professionals as a political joke.
The PPP government continues to destroy Guyana’s democracy by coercing institutions of the state as well as Guyana’s Disciplined Forces to do its dirty work and conduct political vendettas on its behalf. The regime has completely destroyed the Guyana Police Force and transformed it into a PPP vendetta, gangster operation that is run by incompetent, unqualified puppets.
Similarly, the PPP regime has now permanently damaged the image of the GDF by directing the Force to purportedly discharge Pandit Ubraj Narine as a reserve officer for frivolous, partisan political reasons.
Some may argue that it is laughable that the scantily equipped GDF – a perfect match for the rickety, unsophisticated PPP government, is discharging the Mayor on fabricated issues of immorality, when their Commander in Chief, was a criminal defendant accused of a $270 million fraud.
It is disgraceful for the GDF to allow itself to be dragged into the PPP efforts to destroy democracy in Guyana, and into this political firestorm as a partisan tool of PPP bigotry. The GDF is a majority African Guyanese institution. The PPP regime, headed by Ali, is considered by many as the most racist and oppressive, anti-black government in the Western Hemisphere and can be established by empirical data.
The men and women of the GDF are aware that the PPP regime openly perpetuates racial discrimination against African Guyanese, including members of the GDF and their families. Factually the government is attacking the Mayor for standing up for the rights of African Guyanese vendors who are legitimate vendors authorized by the Mayor and City Council to vend. These vendors have relatives in the GDF.
Officers in the GDF also know that the regime has been deliberately bypassing African Guyanese officers to promote others in the GDF as part of the PPP regime’s agenda to exercise ethnic dominance over Guyana.
GDF officers should therefore eschew being used as a political football by a government whose policies and practices render said officers second class citizens, while members of the regime project themselves as new colonial rulers of Guyana.
