The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) issued the advance unedited version of its “Concluding observations on the third periodic report of Guyana” dated March 28, 2024. Page 4, paragraph 14 under the title Non-discrimination said the following: “…the Committee remains concerned about the absence of comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that may extend beyond discrimination in employment, provide full and effective protection against all forms of discrimination prohibited under the Covenant including direct, indirect, and multiple discrimination, and contain a list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in line with the Covenant” (emphases added are all mine). This was what the UNHRC wrote. I firmly believe that the final version of the UNHRC report will retain every word quoted here, and the rest written under the subhead Non-Discrimination.
Representatives of the International Decade for the People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) went to Geneva before the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent and gave voice to the contents of that same page 4, para 14 captioned “Non-Discrimination”. The PPP Government’s Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had wanted names. Now he has names, faces, and places. I endorse what the UNHRC said about “direct, indirect and multiple discrimination”. It is here. There is IDPADA-G, a casualty of the PPP Government discrimination wars.
I subscribe fully to what Mr. Nigel Hughes articulated in Geneva, and Dr. Jagdeo has more names to add to his enemies list. Discrimination against African Guyanese is alive and flourishing under the PPP Government. There are also Amerindians, and the occasional Indian like me, who can testify to the poisonous fruits of PPP-powered discrimination. The president and Vice president can deny as much as they wish, and for however long. But there is IDPADA-G and with discrimination on subventions withheld under the most porous of camouflages, an audit. There is also the malevolence about fraud and individual self-enrichment that incensed Mr. Vincent Alexander to seek truth and justice through the courts.
Truth, fairness, and justice are curses to clever men in PPP leadership roles. They will attempt anything, hurl at anyone, that which helps them to conquer and banish those who stand in their way. Running sores plastered over are still sores. They fester. They scream for relief. It was the cry that I heard emanating in Geneva. Appeal to the better impulses in Prez Ali and VP Jagdeo for what is reasonableness, fairness, and inclusiveness, and their swords come out.
The idea is to level and vanquish those who dare to speak to, or write about, those issues. Secrets have their lifespans. Coverups and pretenses and flimflam men and women become frayed at the edges and develop tumors in their cores. The weight of their malfeasances bloats them, weighs them down, ruptures their diseased-ravaged makeups. The rank discrimination against IDPADA-G and its dependent constituency rates as one vindictive malfeasance.
Rather than address the problem (the many concerns of the UNHRC), men like Ali and Jagdeo prioritize revenge. Instead of listening, realizing that the game is up, and that they must get going in a new direction, their reaction is to get even. The power of men given to pettiness, the petulant, and the puerile. Childish leadership can be stinging, for sure; but it never results in mature governance, just as surely. Wounds do not seal. They simmer and quiver. Pain. Passion. The power of the open palm raised high and then closed in a defiant fist. Does the PPP Government really desire to encounter that road, navigate it? One man, one call, and one collapse could follow. It is worth a thought for all of us. When the have-nots have the little that they have taken away from them, then the limited choices deplete and cripple remaining options.
When the people from the UNHRC questioned and commented, the PPP stiffened its back in its characteristic reflexive fashion. The messages about “direct, indirect” discrimination were ignored, treated with contempt. Going beyond given short shrift. Now a bigger audience was spoken to in Geneva, with wider coverage sure to follow. Discrimination of a blatant nature, as directed at IDPADA-G, may be controlled internally for a time, but it cannot be contained when it deteriorates beyond a point, then a new one, and other ones.
Face the facts and fix the failures. Free up the funds for IDPADA-G. If not, justified claims of discriminations against African and Amerindian Guyanese will continue to roam nakedly, embarrassingly. Some investors are going to think twice at some time. For his part, Jagdeo wants Guyana to show its best face always on the global catwalk. Caution: protestors with their placards and pamphlets of racial injustice will slash and scar his presentations, unless the necessary changes in attitude and action are quick to occur.
The choices in front of the PPP Government, and Messrs. Ali and Jagdeo are clear. Continue to trust in the durability of confrontation and containment. Or come to grips with this self-made crisis and come together to deliver what cures the grievance. President Ali and former president Jagdeo are free to engage in an orgy of self-congratulation about how much they have done for Black people, with supporting papers to bolster their claims. I nod in the direction of IDPADA-G. What about that, sirs; what’s going on there?
Today, I go nowhere Mocha, nor Black faces wherever they are, nor statistics. Those are left for another day. The tragic irony is that when there is more, more of the little from before is withdrawn. This can never be about leadership in a country, nor not discrimination. This must be the calculated output of a criminal gang. Guyana heard some of this before. Now it was Geneva’s turn. President Ali and VP Jagdeo must make the best, most constructive, use of their turn to end the discriminations that multiply. Deal fairly, squarely. Address the IDPADA-G situation that damages.
