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When faced by autocracy/dictatorship, the WPA has always had a radical wing who believes that it is legitimate to remove the government by coercion if necessary. It designated Forbes Burnham’s People’s National Congress (PNC) an autocratic regime and was involved in illegal and unconstitutional action, some involving members of the security forces, to dislodge it. The PPP was not condemnatory for it was also involved in illegal and unconstitutional behaviour. The extant context is too complex to detain us here, but in the essential electoral sense, Burnham was an autocrat, and an important feature of democratic governance is that people have a duty to protect their democratic rights ,and usually the armed forces among the first allies they seek. I wrote some time ago: ‘The freedom of a people largely depends upon its vigilance in designing, establishing and reforming its governance mechanisms to keep the political establishment in check. … To meet this eventuality, (i.e., to confront an autocrat) the people need to be vigilant and to always keep its power dry! (‘A people must always keep its powder dry:’ SN: 14/07/2014).
Stabroek News cannot easily be accused of being biased against the PPP, so let me use its editorial of 12 March 2023 condemning the call to arms made by the WPA at a public meeting in Buxton, to provide a snippet of the current behaviour of that party. The editorial claimed that ‘there is a more fundamental problem ….. (with) a purely political rather than an ethnic character, and that is the fact that the government will not give the opposition any space to function either in Parliament or in local government, even where it is required in the Constitution. … In other words, there is discrimination of a kind against the representatives whom the African constituency voted into office.’
It proceeded to detail some of the transgressions of the PPP. ‘[T]he issue regarding the appointment of a substantive chancellor and chief justice, various commissions, and the shenanigans over the PAC in Parliament as well as the refusal to send Bills to Select Committee.’ … In local government the ruling party has either impeded or ignored decisions and requests emanating from opposition-controlled councils, Georgetown being a notorious case in point, although the Region Four Council is also now coming to notice. What the government hopes to achieve by appointing REOs whose main task appears to be to run interference, is difficult to gauge. The point is that stymieing opposition representatives at any level percolates back into the constituency and feeds discontent because it appears like contempt for them and their choices. It is not a safe way to run a divided country like this.’
What the editor observed is not merely the withholding of political space that is at the discretion of the regime to give but a blunt denial of the constitutional rights of close to half the people of Guyana over a whole range of governmental functions. When an ethnic party is in a position to deny and has been denying the constitutional rights of another ethnic group, particularly such a sizable one, matters stop being ‘purely political’ – it is ethnic discrimination! And as the editorial observed, the situation becomes dangerous as the affected group has a moral duty to use all possible means to fight against the status quo. Not as some would have it, to suffer in silence and wait for the absurdity of a few nice people from the other side coming to their aid by voting for them. It should not be possible in the 21st century for any ethnic group, much less a substantial one, to find itself in this inhuman situation, and that is why, in the context of Guyana, a majoritarian political system is inappropriate and it is imperative that the Constitution that allows this dangerous folly be radically reformed.
There has been big hullabaloo about Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye asking for the support of the security forces. By article 197A of the Constitution: ‘(1) The State’s defence and security policy shall be to defend national independence, preserve the country’s sovereignty and integrity, and guarantee the normal functioning of institutions and the security of citizens against armed aggression. (2) The Defence and Security Forces shall subordinate to national defence and security policy and owe allegiance to the Constitution and to the Nation. The oath taken by members of the Defence and Security Forces shall establish their duty to respect the Constitution.’
Please note the security forces ‘owe allegiance to the Constitution and to the Nation’, not necessarily to the executive government of the day. They must be impartial and should ask themselves whether the behaviour of the regime outlined above constitutes ‘the normal functioning of institutions’ of a democratic state.
Contrary to the editorial ‘What the government hopes to achieve by appointing REOs whose main task appears to be to run interference,’ is not difficult to gauge. As with almost every violation, the regime wants to establish total dominance over society and entrench itself in government. As a result, what the other group sees is a strident ethnic dictatorship attempting to lord it over them: shouting at their meetings, grabbing their lands, handing out contracts and the country’s resources in an ad hoc, discriminatory, inefficient and unsustainable manner.
In such circumstances, how can one say that a call to the affected constituency to be prepared for a struggle is not justifiable? Why do we want to interpret Rhonda Layne’s comments as implying that Indians have no place in Guyana rather than as a reminder to the PPP and its supporters that they arrived here from poor conditions like most of us and have no god given or sociological rights to even attempt to lord it over Africans. Indeed, many Africans have come to the view that in its drive for dominance the regime is set upon establishing an apartheid state and impoverishing them.
Not for a moment, therefore, should one believe that the views expressed by the WPA are out of step with this general feeling. The only somewhat controversial issue is how to respond to the regime in the context of massive electoral fraud and judicial humbug? The struggles against slavery, apartheid and all unjust forms of human subjugation have left the lesson that immoderate behaviour will result in immoderate responses. Bob Marley was succinct: ‘no peace without justice’.
Tacuma Ogunseye and his colleagues believe that their position is as just today as it was when Walter Rodney was alive, and have given notice that they intend to use all the means at their disposal to resist the current autocratic trend and hopefully establish a more democratic political system. Like they did when opposing Forbes Burnham, they expect all democratic forces to support their ‘just’ cause.
