Dear Editor,
Women Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods (WECAN) condemns the recent attacks on Ministers of Government the Honourable Priya Manikchand and the Honourable Onidge Walrond. Mr Duncan’s utterances in his Facebook broadcast In the Ring demonstrate unintellectual, tasteless, vile attacks on anyone who does not support the positions of the APNU+AFC.
Mr Duncan’s primal attacks have been aimed at Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, and US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch, among countless others.
Duncan’s outbursts demonstrate his complete lack of professional respect for his colleagues in Parliament, an entrenched attitude of chauvinism that finds favour with his comrades, and a total absence of even the most basic standards of decency and humanity. Unfortunately, his actions fail to attract repulsion and condemnation from his leaders and followers, many of whom are themselves women.
Mr. Duncan continues to behave as though he escapes all accountability for his words. Duncan has repeatedly and cantankerously attempted to denigrate the character of these women in a callous and reckless manner, although they have done nothing, nor could they have possibly done anything, to have become the victims of such primal attacks from a sitting Parliamentarian.
However, it is generally accepted that ad hominin attacks emerge from those whose reason has failed them.
We call on the APNU+AFC to hold Mr. Duncan to higher standards of leadership that more closely align with goals of national unity.
We also call on the Ethnic Relations Commission to investigate and sanction Mr. Duncan for his calling Minister Walrond a ‘house slave’, a ‘cross’, a ‘devil’ and ‘an incompetent devil’ on his September 7, 2021 Facebook broadcast of In the Ring. In a society where violence against women is rampant, behaviours such as displayed by Mr. Duncan must be condemned in the strongest terms. We therefore call on all women’s organisations to condemn Mr. Duncan’s behaviour.
Finally, we join the rest of the nation in condemning Mr. Duncan’s vile and contemptible attack on Minister Manickchand, on his broadcast of In the Ring.
Sincerely,
Women Empowering
Communities and
Neighbourhoods
(WECAN)
