There must be respect for Guyana’s Constitution and with how the People’s Progressive Civic (PPP/C) Government is governing Guyana, said Dr. David Hinds about the decision to participate in the Washington Conference to prevent what had occurred in the 1960s. We need to put a break on that type of politics in Guyana he warned “when resources are not being equitably distributed or going around to all the ethnic groups that leads to dissatisfaction and that dissatisfaction leads to political instability at home and it’s that political instability that we’re trying to pre-empt; it is that political instability that we are trying to prevent which has a history of rancour among the ethnic groups where we saw what happened in the 1960s with violent clashes between African Guyanese and Indian Guyanese and we feel that if we do not correct it history will be repeating and we are going to descend into ethnic instability and it is not going to be good for any ethnic group in the country.”
Hinds is a panelist at the Washington Conference on Guyana scheduled for September 27th & 28th, 2023 which is being held under the theme: ‘Promoting inclusive Governance, inclusive Economic Growth, Equal Justice, Social Equity & Sustainable Development for All Guyanese.’
Hinds, who is an associate professor, political activist and representative of Working Peoples Alliance (WPA), in a telephone interview with Village Voice News from Washington, said the PPP/C Government was installed in the aftermath of 2020 Regional and General Elections.
“The American Government Department of State had said in 2020 that the elections were disputed and that the present government was not elected, they say INSTALLED and we are saying that the consequences of installing a government as a result of disputed elections, what happens is that government becomes a law unto itself, it is not answerable to the people of country, it is not answerable to the laws of the country, it is not answerable to the international to the international community because it feels that it’s the international community that put them there and what we have is a dictatorship without any rails and we are saying to the Americans a mistake was made in 2020 and you and other stakeholders were part of that and therefore your responsibility to encourage correcting that.”
The WPA representative further stated that “we understand that you have a responsibility to protect your economic interest and political interest but you must protect it without injuring the Guyanese people and so there has to be the protection of American interest and global interest by other global actors while at the same time ensuring that Guyanese are not put in harm’s way, economic harm, in political harm and in human rights harm.”
Hinds believes that inclusive governance is needed in Guyana to mitigate the current leadership style of the PPP/C Government “we are going to make it very clear that we are not talking about one party governance we are going to be talking about an inclusive governance.”
Dr. Hinds outlined that of particular concern is the way in which the People’s Progressive Party Civic Government has been operating in the Past three years. The government has sought to govern the country without any formal engagement with the Opposition Leader on extremely important matters of constitutional requirements such as constitutional employment of officers and matters of the oil and gas industry.
Hinds also noted that Guyana’s current electoral system does not lend itself to free and transparent elections “we need a brand new Voters List, we need biometrics and that there is no electoral impersonations with people voting two and three times as we saw in the 2020 Regional and General Elections and we feel at minimum we should have the arrangements in place for elections that are free and fair and that are free from fear.”
The political activist, touching on Guyana’s oil resources, said mechanisms must be put in place to benefit all of Guyana and be distributed equitably to ethnic groups that are behind. He emphasised that statistics show more than half of Guyana is living below the poverty line and something has to be done about it. According to him “the way you deal with the issue of poverty is not by going around the place giving handouts to people but through a policy that addresses, in a democratic way, each household in the country with the fastest growing economy. We have a poverty rate of 50% of our people living on US$7 per day or less. That is unacceptable, so we will be saying to Washington that we have to adjust our politics, we have to adjust our distribution system in the country.”
