By GHK Lall – I am told that Pres. Ali has some learning. Mine is the humble duty to tell the president that he must manifest that learning. According to the president, most of the involved in the protest action for access to information are “opposition critics.” I take that personally, am offended. In my book, politically motivated or “opposition critics” represent the slurs and smears of weak leaders. Still the president’s response is not surprising and he is in good company. I recall PNC big chief, Li’l Joe Harmon, referring to me as ‘reading from a PPP script’, when the PNC government was called to task. PPP, PNC, it is the same damned thing when they don’t hear what they wish to hear. Birds of a feather, dictators disguising themselves in the dress of democracy. It is political dressing in drag, I think.
Pres. Ali should be more circumspect, think before he hurls himself into the political entertainment circus. It troubles how he drives nails in his own verbal productions. Given this week, I become my brother’s keeper. Excellency Ali should always remember that he is a head-of-state, and not one of the many headcases and headhunters in his group.
‘Politically motivated’ and ‘opposition critics’. Even if accurate, why does that matter for access to information? The broad brush of those two-word insults is too convenient, self-serving, obtuse. I recall efforts by the opposition to have the US$2 billion Wales gas-to-energy project, and other oil-related matters, discussed in Guyana’s highest forum, parliament. Among the objectives, were that details of the nation’s biggest business be before citizens. Access to information using another channel. To date, those efforts have been stonewalled by the PPP Government, but somehow that doesn’t qualify as politically motivated. Perhaps, Excellency Ali thinks that Guyanese are dummies.
When Pres. Ali visits a community, he may claim not to be politically motivated. Take Linden. He hastened to put the smoothest polish on his government’s image (and his own) in lethal circumstances. The right of the president to try his hand at comforting a family is recognized, and cooling a protesting community is applauded. Using the president’s standard, politically motivated has its people, and not what he would Guyanese to believe is his timely, honest leadership. Considering the president’s actions, I see some parallels in citizens seeking relief in an ugly, unlawful situation involving information. His actions can’t be seen as developmental, while action by citizens for info access is political. It’s the president, but any other citizen, and I would be tempted to label a rank hypocrite, or an illiterate, for arriving at such a conclusion.
Thus, I submit that the right to peaceful protest has its place in front of that government office responsible for responding to requests for information, but which has failed to do so. Information, of all things, I remind the president is part of the oxygen of the democracy of which he loves to pontificate. Yet, it is now inexplicably withheld. To seek information, as provisioned for by law, should not be damned as politically motivated or the work of “opposition critics.” Not with the record of what is owed. Hence, any contention about politically motivated (opposition critics), is disagreed with vehemently. Why should asking for information in this country come to this: “opposition critics?” Such are the reactions of men with much to hide. Why even have the law then, why waste all that energy and the resources that made it happen? If to seek info is now being considered in this light, then little else could be exempted from that presidential taint. It is not a high bar; it is no bar at all, a free-for-all, with the government deciding what should be made available, and who qualifies as ‘nonpolitical’ in the asking.
Is the nonpolitical today, the sole preserve of the president? Take the NIS. Must Guyanese interpret his newfound compassion and charity not as a hustle for votes on the cheap, but as a leader and a government given to the considerate, and the best of intentions? When the president derogates some Guyanese as “critics” and “naysayers”, then what is that, high political wisdom, or presidential aiming as suppressing free expression, silencing nuisances?
Using President Ali’s measuring rod, when the PPP Government pushes a project in a community, I could assert that it is less of engineering eligibility, even developmental, and is more related to the politically motivated. All politics is local, it is said. The PNC did it, the PPP did it before, does it again. When the PPP Government subsidizes Guysuco, that is not so much about sugar and workers. Those billions are the essence of what is politically motivated, i.e., buying votes blatantly. I think the president boxed himself in, left little room to exit the straightjacket that in imposing on others, he unwittingly imposed on himself.
NIS, a visit to a community, a subsidy for farmers all have ‘vote for me’ stamped on it. Perhaps, in the president’s thinking, there is nothing politically motivated in such decisions, actions. What couldn’t have happened before is now being rolled out in a sleazy rush to steer recipients in a certain political direction on election day. Say that isn’t so, sir? Serve up the spin, and let’s all watch that skidding, slithering ball.
When the search for information that is not prohibited, a plea for access to it, is degraded to the company of what is politically motivated, then the presidency has tumbled to unprecedented depths. Unfortunately, so does the rest of Guyana.
