Dear Prime Minister Mottley,
After a hard day’s work I listened to the statement by Prime Minister Mia Mottley Chairman of CARICOM, regarding the elections which were just held in Guyana, and who was asked to use her good office to assist in the finality of the results of the March 2nd 2020 election.
Your statement Prime Minister, is one of blatant disregard for the respect which should be afforded a sister Caribbean state. Listening to you Prime Minister Mottley and knowing of all the details related to this process, you should know what occurred during the 80’s, when Barbados was against Caricom’s relations with the Republic of Cuba; You should know that Barbados was a leader in the gang of seven for the invasion of Grenada; you should know that this is not the first time that Guyana was threatened with expulsion from Caricom. Guyana has been down this road and we have the experience to withstand whatever you and the other members of the “cabal” may try to bring pressure on the Guyana Elections Commission. I am amazed that you would walk away from a process which you started but maybe you came like the Trojan Horse, but you must know that our steel is sharper.
Prime Minister Mottley you are an attorney, and have been the Attorney General of Barbados and hence should not be a stranger to truth. However, today your statement has raised serious doubts in my mind. You were in agreement with the gazetted order which had established the process which should be followed in the recount. The process examined the ballots and identified the irregularities which were executed in a transparent manner. Among the irregularities were votes cast by the dead; votes cast by impersonation; proxy votes cast without the requisite document and many more categories of irregularities. Now as far as I am aware Prime Minister your mental health is optimum. So why would you want to ignore the output of a process which set out to discover fairness and credibility? Why would you ignore the objective and the defined recount process established by a legal process? I am indeed saddened by your behavior as the Chairman of Caricom, in showing your umbilical linkage to gamesmanship and the willingness to ignore principles of truth and fairness. Your avoidance of these sacred principles must raise question marks in the minds of your political opponents. One does not know what a retrospective analysis might reveal for Barbados. I am sure that you are very familiar with the Order and understood the relevance of the Observation reports in the recount process. If they were not important why were the signatures of all parties required?
What is your message Prime Minister? Are you in fact saying that you have a comfort level with the inclusion of fraudulent votes in the electoral process of Guyana? This is indeed worrying that the Chairman of Caricom, and sitting Prime Minister would accept fraudulent votes in a democratic process. Would you accept fraudulent votes in your Party’s elections?
Guyana has its own Appeal Court, and of course its own Constitution. In a rather gross and disrespectful manner you issued a statement ignoring the ruling of Guyana’s Court of Appeal which in a most bizarre manner seeks to influence the Caribbean Court of Justice. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Prime Minister Mottley, you have ruled yourself out of the Guyanese Electoral Process and you are likened unto the families of Ananias and Sapphira and Judas Iscariot. Additionally your silence was deafening when your colleague Prime Minister Owen Arthur called for the expulsion of Guyana from CARICOM. But as the good book says “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”
Lastly as a University graduate and a person not wedded to mediocrity, you should not be guided by the report of your Caricom team of Observers/Scrutineers. The report was severely flawed in the sampling methodology, and filled with bias. No one who is serious will accept the report with the sampling frame and methodology. I am sure that if any of your professionals who work around you, were to submit a report of that quality you would deal with them condignly. Hence Prime Minister what is it that is in store for you? That is the million gram of MERCURY question?
Roxane Burnham Van West‐Charles
