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Brooklyn, NY – A crowd of over 300 Guyanese Americans gathered on Wednesday to protest Guyana’s President, Irfaan Ali, during an event in Brooklyn, chanting slogans of “racist” and demanding justice for alleged racial discrimination and corruption under his administration. The demonstration, which took place outside the Waterfall Lounge on Church Avenue, was organized by the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) and several Guyanese diaspora organizations.
The protesters, many of whom accuse the Ali administration of marginalizing African Guyanese, called for a boycott of local businesses, including the Hills Restaurant and the Waterfall Lounge, as a form of protest against the perceived complicity of these establishments in hosting the president. Holding signs and chanting slogans such as “Ali is a racist,” and “We want justice for the death squad killings,” they also displayed a large 20-foot banner demanding an investigation into extrajudicial killings and the Guyanese government’s alleged targeting of diaspora leaders.
One of the key participants was the mother of Courtney Crum Ewing, a former Guyana Defence Force officer and political activist who was murdered in 2015 while campaigning for the opposition APNU-AFC coalition. Protesters linked his death to operatives of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP), which has been accused of fostering political violence and racial discrimination in Guyana.
Speaking to the crowd, Rickford Burke, President of CGID, condemned President Ali and his government for what he described as ongoing racial discrimination and the harassment of African Guyanese, both in Guyana and within the diaspora. Burke accused the administration of deliberately excluding African Guyanese from the country’s growing oil and gas wealth and imposing policies designed to subjugate the Black population.
“The Ali administration is driving African Guyanese into a state of subjugation while imposing East Indian supremacy in the country,” Burke told the gathered protesters. He criticized President Ali for not addressing racial tensions, citing a recent incident involving Ivor Thom, an administrator at the Burrowes School of Art, who was allegedly racially insulted by a PPP member. Burke condemned Ali’s silence on the matter, which he described as indicative of the administration’s deeper racial bias.
Burke also criticized US relations with the Ali administration, slamming US officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Ambassador Brian Nichols, for maintaining close ties with the Guyanese government despite accusations of corruption and discrimination. He called on the Guyanese diaspora to unite and demand that the Biden administration reexamine its policies toward Guyana, arguing that the current approach ignores the hardships faced by African Guyanese.
In addition to racial discrimination, Burke accused the Ali government of using the Guyana Police Force to intimidate political opponents in the diaspora. According to Burke, police officers from Guyana have been sent to the homes of government critics in the United States to harass and intimidate them, allegedly in collaboration with local authorities.
Despite the protests, President Ali attended the event, which was heavily guarded by the US Secret Service and the NYPD. Security became a significant concern when the size of the protest appeared to overwhelm initial preparations by local police. At one point, Secret Service agents expressed concern about Ali’s ability to exit the venue, prompting a scramble to set up barricades and maintain crowd control.
The protest is part of a growing wave of opposition from the Guyanese diaspora, which has increasingly expressed frustration with the government’s handling of ethnic tensions and economic inequality in the country. As oil revenues surge in Guyana, critics like Burke argue that the benefits of this wealth are being unfairly distributed, leaving many African Guyanese communities behind.
