One of the most disappointing outcomes of the past two years of the APNU/AFC Governance has been their failure to fulfil their promise in their Manifesto on “Ethnic Impact Statements”. For decades, I had been pointing out that, unlike what the PPP and PNC insisted during their heyday, Guyanese perceived and evaluated the actions of their governments through “ethnic” rather than “class” lens. This ineluctably followed from their own truth that, no matter what their public rhetoric, they had voted along ethnic lines.
Very early during the PPP regime, I wrote, “In Guyana, while the PPP Government attempts to discuss the impact of their policies on constituencies, their analyses are still couched in Marxist terminology. They insist on demonstrating that their policies help the “working class”. This doesn’t cut any ice with the ground constituencies, however, which generally categorize themselves ethnically and evaluate every policy from that perspective. The PPP has had to defend every single initiative – be it appointments and dismissals to and from the Public Service, downsizing of the bauxite sector, house-lot allocation, contract awards, against claims by the African Guyanese community, for instance, of discrimination against them and favouring Indians in the sugar industry, rice industry, gun-permits etc. In each instance, the PPP’s explanation have been too little, too late for the African Guyanese.”
I had hoped the APNU/AFC coalition would have learnt something from that experience: their governmental actions would be scrutinised for their ethnic impact by Indians and other groups that did not vote for them. I was encouraged, therefore, when the major African-dominated APNU openly conceded it needed Indian votes, which the AFC could bring to the coalition, and when they declared in their manifesto, under the heading “Equal Opportunity”:
“APNU/AFC recognizes that each citizen, regardless of race, class, creed, social status or gender, has the right to access opportunities and make an important contribution to nation-building. Failure to ensure ethnic balance in political, economic and social opportunities is counter-productive and a waste of our rich talents. Moreover, as a nation we must realize that all ethnic groups must be developed, and jettison the zero-sum mentality of the past.
“Everyone can be made better off, given our bountiful natural resources. APNU+AFC will reform and empower the Ethnic Relations Commission to provide Ethnic Impact Statements of Cabinet Decisions and Government departments, where necessary, and such findings will be acted upon in the best interest of all Guyanese.”
But today, not even the Ethnic Relations Commission has been constituted.
During my days in the Opposition benches, I had repeatedly discussed the need for an “Ethnic Impact statement” with the PNC, WPA and GAP. But I assumed the APNU/AFC’s touting of the policy was a recognition that the charges of “marginalisation” from the African community had been a primary fuel in the ethnic conflagrations since 1998. And they would not want a repetition from “the other side” if they didn’t make it clear that the pie would now be divided fairly.
I had written, “While we concede that the cause (and solution) of our ethnic problem goes beyond governmental actions, the fact of the matter is that we have to begin there. It is a simple matter of justice. No matter which party forms the Government, we accept that Governmental actions have to be conducted on behalf of all the people: the State is our joint venture.
“If such “Ethnic Impact Statements” could be crafted and issued before the announcement and implementation of policies and programmes, they would precipitate discussion and debate, which could be utilized to modify the policies or programmes before they become political mobilisational tools. To wait for the inevitable ethnic post mortems is to ensure there will be trouble. Big trouble. The old cliché still holds: justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.”
With the precipitate actions in the sugar industry, the slew of ethnic appointments, the neglect of rice, etc., it is clear the promise of considering the “ethnic impact” of governmental actions has been jettisoned, like so much else. This inevitably increases the likelihood of violence, as occurred post-1997 from the PNC’s constituency.
