Hinds must be specific on discrimination charge

Dear editor,
David Hinds, in his column in the Guyana Chronicle of Sunday, June 19, 2016, commented on my articles exposing the terrible racial and political discrimination in Guyana, stating that I was contradictory because I spoke about the Government’s discrimination against Afro-People’s Progressive Party (PPP) supporters and the Indo-Guyanese population.
I know Dr Hinds has a Phd and it is unlikely that he has misunderstood what I said.
I, therefore, can only conclude that he is deliberately trying to use his skills to mislead his readers.
For clarity, let me repeat what I have always been saying, that is, the regime is purging the public service of Indo-Guyanese. More than 95 per cent of those persons dismissed by the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) regime are Indo-Guyanese.
They are also dismissing and harassing African Guyanese, who are members and supporters of the PPP and PPP/Civic and/or suspected supporters of the PPP/C. That is why I speak of racial and political discrimination.
Let me give you a concrete example.
Nine persons have been dismissed from the Legal Affairs Ministry by the AFC/APNU regime. All are Indo-Guyanese. This is the pattern in all or most of the Ministries. Almost all the Indo-Guyanese Permanent Secretaries have been fired, one Afro-Guyanese, known as a PPP supporter, was also fired.
The Afro-Guyanese public servants dismissed are suspected PPP supporters. Those not in the public service and are being harassed are Bishop Edghill, an Member of Parliament dragged before the Privileges Committee on frivolous charges. They intend to make life difficult for him.
Carville Duncan is also being hounded because of his suspected PPP/C sympathies.
Kwame McCoy has been harassed, injured and castigated. He was arrested on trumped-up charges and spent a weekend in prison and taken to court in chains. The idea was to humiliate him. Why? Because he is a black PPP member.
We have many other cases like this.
It is disgusting to hear Hinds talking about PPP/C Afro-enforcers. He should be specific. This is insulting to black PPP members to be described like that by Hinds. Are Luncheon, Edghill and Mc Coy, Robeson Benn to name a few, enforcers? Is Belgrave an enforcer?
This is racism too to paint black people as “enforcers”.
All Hinds is trying to do is to create hostility to those persons who oppose the regime.
Hinds sought to give the impression that the PPP/C controls the public service, suggesting that the PPP/C employed PPP supporters only in the service. The intention here is to justify the dismissal because the PPP/C Administration had packed the public service. This attempt at misleading the public is so transparent.
The PPP/C, when it came to office, did not go on a dismissal spree. The then Government worked to professionalise the public service.
Dismissals were very minimal. The PPP/C believes in a professional service that is why no main dismissals took place.
Indo-Guyanese were never in the majority in the public service. It is true that during the period of the PPP/C Government, the proportion of Indo-Guyanese improved from less than 10 per cent to about 25 per cent over the 23 years. Let me say up-front these are approximate figures.
With the dismissals of Indo Guyanese taking place today, the proportion must be back to the pre-1992 days to about 10 per cent.
Hinds’ point of the PPP/C controlling the public service is a feeble attempt to defend the practice of racial and political discrimination by this People’s National Congress-led APNU/AFC regime. It is baseless.
Dr Hinds, in trying to deal with the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) issue, said that Ramotar should give reason for the dismissals.
I did. I said it is racially and politically motivated. It is public knowledge that one of the dismissed managers has taken the matter to court on the grounds of wrongful dismissal.
Let GuySuCo state why they dismissed etc those whom I mentioned.
Hinds, in his defence of the position of the regime, sought to counter charge with hearsay. Some security workers at GuySuCo Head Office complaining of discrimination. He spoke about some workers in Government complaining about discrimination by the PPP. Finally, some workers in Buxton complaining about discrimination by GuySuCo supervisors.
In these things, we cannot be general. We must be specific. Hinds must reveal concretely what he is talking about. He should not hide behind generalities this is a practice to create false perception.
These tactics are the low dodges employed by those who have given up principles. They have to resort to his half-truths and distortions to justify their changed position. After all the PNC/APNU have still not apologised for Rodney’s murder. They are still very hostile to Rodney.
So while Hinds continue to pay lip service to Walter Rodney, he is actually supporting the Party he and the WPA accused of assassinating Rodney. He has departed very far from Walter Rodney’s anti-racial politics and defending racial and political discrimination against Afro-PPP/C supporters and Indo-Guyanese in general.

Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar