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The PPP has been decried and exposed for their racism and racially motivated policies. The shortcoming however is the reluctance to look at their overarching strategy of racial domination and critically deconstruct its various prongs. Unashamedly, the PPP has several race-baiting academics always willing to impose their sugar-coated sophistry to advance their madness of justifying their absurd obsession with the racial domination of and reducing Africans in the country to docile, subdued, subjugated and marginalised bystanders.
The recent budget provides another huge window into the profound darkness that is slowly enveloping this country while so many remain eerily and fearfully quiet seeking solace in the fragile hope of migrating to other places to escape the horror that now characterizes the Irfan Ali interregnum. A paradoxical reality indeed, as it is confounding to see large groups running from a country identified as having one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Nationalism and a sense of a collective future, continue to evade the policy making of Ashni Singh and his enablers as he operates from the immunized Office of the President, content that he is fulfilling a long-term PPP goal of ultimate domination of Guyana and all it holds dear. Widespread theft, corruption, and racial discrimination are the more evident hallmarks of their decadent regime
Dr. Henry Jeffery in his recent article, Mocha madness, referred to the PPP’s obsession with power – its inability to establish inclusive governance, and highlighted the violence against innocent citizens at Mocha! The PPP has over a period of years ensured that by starving African public servants of decent salaries and utilising contract employment to undermine job security and tenure they would inch closer to their final goal of shutting the “other” group out of meaningful participation in the economy and reducing an entire ethnic group to subservient status!
A despicable and insidious strategy which created an outward migration push of African teachers, nurses, and other qualified African civil servants. This certainly would create that contrived void and manufactured necessity, justification to invite their replacements from as far as India- the motherland to the Indian Supremacists which still has a stranglehold on the leadership of the PPP!
Another of the PPP’s poisonous deformities is their contemporaneous efforts to locate, so far, all the transformational projects they contemplate and execute are invested in their strongholds- an Oil and Gas training facility in Port Mourant, a proposed LNG plant in Wales, Shore-based facilities funded by their friends and favorites in Region 3 and the curious emergence of hospitals being built by the brother of convicted felon Ed Ahmad ( both close friends and confidantes of Bharat Jagdeo.)
One may justifiably question whether national policy is now being influenced by or is being conceptualized in concert with questionable sourced or derived funds? That Jagdeo’s previous efforts culminating in the now forgotten award of the Sanata Textile facilities to his then best friend, and the numerous allegations of corruption in the disposition of government largesse and of vested personal interests escaped definitive investigation during the Granger administration remains a source of angst for many who cared to connect the dots.
As Guyana’s ruling elite continues its obsession with seeking to integrate India into the economy, observers who understand the political reality and the onset of full-fledged authoritarianism in India, which is undermining all the norms of democracy and the institutions of that State, are decrying the fact that Guyana is increasingly mirroring those ugly aspects of what is considered the world’s largest democracy!
Modi returned to power with an increased majority in May 2019, and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has set itself the goal of establishing a one-party dictatorship. This required an outright onslaught on the opposition. This is not unlike what we see evident in Guyana in the behavior of the PPP with its vicious onslaught on public institutions including GECOM, the Judiciary, Public Service, the Guyana Police Force, and its unrelenting campaign against key opposition politicians.
In India all other parties in parliament are being sidelined; elected state governments of the opposition are destabilised by bribing Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and through the selective use of central government agencies against critics of Modi and the BJP. Also being implemented in Guyana.
The anti-corruption Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the income tax department have been weaponized against opposition leaders and ministers in the opposition-ruled state governments. What we have seen in Guyana is a direct replication of this reprehensible weaponization of government institutions to bolster a dictatorship. The other significant paradox is the fact that Modi is a rabid Hindu nationalist who has seen his followers burn mosques and unleash untold violence on Muslims in the country. That Irfaan Ali, a Muslim, sees Modi as a role model befuddles the mind for its pure absurdity.
And one cannot ignore the argument that the PPP is not considering its perpetual obsession of security given the unrelenting cry of its former critic Ravi Dev and now cheerleader who must be pleased to see the emerging warlord infrastructure, reminiscent of Afghanistan, with a plethora of Indian security companies being approved for advanced weapons whose whispered assignment is to protect the regime’s friends and family while they continue to expropriate and plunder the oil and gas revenues as the wild scramble for untold Dubai-like wealth continues.
All this presents a conundrum for those who understand that Guyana’s oil wealth should be equitably distributed, and the ballooning poverty should be eliminated. There are some pathways to seeking national reconciliation and resolution to this pending social implosion. There needs to be legislation that prescribes distributive equity with significant penalties for efforts to undermine societal cohesion, but this must be crafted taking into consideration the tremendous advantage these racially exclusive policies have had on impacting the African and indigenous communities.
The question of ancestral lands must be brought to parliament and given national focus with titles to land being awarded to ensure that this issue is removed from the long list of racially explosive issues to be dealt with. In Columbia our South American neighbor struggling with the impact of centuries of racism in the aftermath of the slave trade, a Ministry of Equality and Equity, a government agency aimed at eliminating inequality was established recently. This demonstrates the level of national commitment and political will required.
