‘I believe there’s no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended. They’re created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail’ (George John Mitchell Jr. Chair of all-party talks; 1998 Good Friday Agreement).
In the early 1990’s a group of Irish Americans were able to persuade United States President Bill Clinton to take greater interest in his ancestral land, and in 1995 he appointed former US senator George Mitchell as the US Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. Mitchell was later to lead the international body that looked into the possibilities of paramilitary arms decommissioning and then co-chaired the all-party talks, leading to the 1998 “Good Friday Agreement”. He spent some two years? chairing the discourses between the majority Protestants – unionists/loyalists who want continued and closer relations with the United Kingdom – and the minority Catholics – nationalists/republicans wanting a united Ireland, and finally brought an end to the century-old troubles that had been revived in the 1960s and cost some 3,600 lives.
Northern Ireland has a population of about 2 million and like Guyana is a multi-ethnic bicommunal society of some 0.8 million with two large ethnic groups comprising over 70% of the population. Though not as ferocious, political disputes over the last 70 years between ethnic Africans and Indians have not only kept the Guyana relatively poor but have cost much loss of life and property. In his The West on Trial, Cheddi Jagan claimed that in 1964 alone a total 176 people were killed, and former President David Granger stated – perhaps with some exaggeration – that there were some 1,431 deaths between 2002 and 2009 (SN: 30/01/2018) and the tally of extra-judicial/political killings have continued since then!
Few can deny that Guyana badly needs an ethnic rapprochement that could lead to the establishment of a sustainable, inclusive, democratic state, and recent international and national developments may have opened a window for one. Today, we have the Biden doctrine that views authoritarianism as the principal global threat: he wants to replace ‘the existing international system because its foundational liberal principles are antithetical to their illiberal domestic practices.’ As a result, Biden intends to solidify and strengthen the cohesion of the democratic world and this must begin in the USA’s sphere of influence (VV: ‘Guyana’s democracy in US and World politics;’ 05/06/2022).
Secondly, as a senator, Joe Biden was intricately involved in the establishment of the Good Friday Agreement and, I suspect, is more aware than most Guyanese that, as per the quote from George Mitchell above, ‘there’s no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended’. Thus, as the PPP continued its normal autocratic ways, in 2020, in a rarely blunt statement, the US State Department country report on human rights reminded Guyana’s political establishment that it does not represent the kind of democracy that is required in the present era and called upon it to end the present winner-takes-all system and establish a functioning liberal democracy.
This was clearly insufficient, so the State Department felt compelled to invite President Irfaan Ali and Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo to Washington, and impressed upon them that their behaviour results from a dysfunctional state system that is not sufficiently transparent, inclusive and thus democratic, and that this needs to be fixed (VV: ‘The PPP now knows;’ 30/07/2022).
The system needs a radical overhaul and given the history of conflict and mistrust between the two major parties, I suggest that as with Northern Ireland, an international facilitator of Mitchell’s calibre is necessary. He had behind him the political reach, institutional memory and necessary gravitas. Yet still, ‘When Mitchell was first introduced as a likely person to chair the peace negotiations at Stormont, there was a good deal of hostile reaction in unionist ranks. Not only was he an American, but he seemed to be part of the Irish American lobby, friendly with the Kennedys and close to a President who was far too sweet on Irish nationalists’ (https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/irishamerica/good-friday-agreement-george-mitchell).
In the process, beginning with the decommissioning discourses, Mitchell developed the so-called ‘Mitchell Principles’: preconditions to the negotiations that included a commitment to nonviolence, open communication and democracy. The negotiations took nearly 2 years with over a year spent just outlining procedures and the agenda and at the end of the process both sides were voluble in praise of him. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, expressed the views of most Irish nationalists and republicans.
‘Senator Mitchell’s role was indispensable to the success of the negotiation process and to the securing of the Good Friday Agreement. There can be no doubt that without his patience and stamina the outcome could have been very much different.’ On the unionist side, David Kerr, press secretary to Northern Ireland’s protestant First Minister claimed ‘He was extremely capable and fair: a very genuine person who gave everything he had to making the process work. He acquitted himself very well and did the American people proud. I don’t think anybody else could have done what he did, it was a remarkable political balancing act’ (Ibid) .
As indicated above, there is now an opening for change and while we must hope that the leaderships on the various sides behave appropriately in the interest of Guyana, these people tend to be sidetracked by the day to day hurly-burly of ethnic politics with the result that sustainable, inclusive democratic governance has eluded Guyanese for far too long. The initiative that led to the Good Friday Agreement began with the Irish diaspora, and perhaps it is time for the Guyanese diaspora to unite and use what leverage it has to persuade the powers that be in Guyana and the US government to help find an equitable solution to Guyana’s decades’ long political crisis. Guyana needs another George Mitchell!
This article first appeared as “Guyana’s Long Crisis Shows the Urgent Need for an Independent Peace Facilitator”
August 14, 2022
