President Irfaan Ali’s call for ONE GUYANA is not, and has never been, a call for assimilation. It is a call for integration, for unity of purpose, for collaboration among our people. It is an official recognition that Guyana is a country made up of diverse people with rich ethnic and cultural backgrounds, people with a history of struggles. It is a call for us to work alongside each other for the benefit of everyone who live in our country. It is a call that seeks unity in our fight against poverty and discrimination, against those things that divide us. It is a call to celebrate our diversity, and embrace it as our common asset. Some have dismissed the call for ONE GUYANA. But if Guyana is to reach its potential as a country, if Guyana is to take its rightful place as the leader in Caricom, we must unite as a nation.
While some people see ONE GUYANA as utopian, the majority of Guyanese have welcomed the aggressive push by President Ali and the PPP Government to achieve ONE GUYANA. Monday, July 4, CARICOM Day, was a crucial test. President Ali’s cabinet held an outreach in Buxton for the people of Buxton and adjoining communities. It was a day for the community to meet cabinet members and other high officials in Government, for them to talk of the issues they feel are important, to raise their problems, and to seek answers. In response, the Opposition and their sycophants called for a Day of Protest. Instead of supporting the people and joining them in articulating their issues and demanding Government responses, the Opposition and their sycophants decided to ask the people to protest and boycott the Government. Instead of proclaiming unity, the Opposition decided to promote division.
The people of Buxton and the adjoining communities answered back – they chose to engage the Government. They embraced the ONE GUYANA call. They rejected the Day of Protest called by the Opposition. The Government came to an Opposition stronghold. Outside of Linden, there is no stronger support base for the PNC than Buxton. The Opposition drew a red line, telling the Government it cannot come to Buxton, that the people will be in the protest line, leaving the Government by itself in the Buxton Community Ground. But this goal of the Opposition and their cohorts failed miserably. The people of Buxton and the adjoining communities flocked to the Buxton Community Ground, they left a handful of persons who were brought in from various other communities to hold placards. The Opposition had a lonely vigil along the roadside. It was a sad denunciation of the Opposition, as the people decided they chose unity and ONE GUYANA instead of confrontation.
The cabinet outreach has become an everyday occurrence in Guyana. Multiple Government ministers are on the ground in every region and every community. More people have chatted with, touched, and voiced their concerns with the President himself, the Vice President, the Prime Minister and other cabinet members than ever before. Bharrat Jagdeo had started cabinet outreaches when he was President. President Irfaan Ali has adopted that strategy and has built on it. When he was President, Bharrat Jagdeo started an engagement with faith leaders and faith groups. He made the faith community an important part of his consultation and engagement. President Ali has brought the faith leaders into a critical engagement with the Government. Sports organisations, the business community, social NGOs, and trade unions have all become a part of everyday engagement.
Last week, when protesters under the guidance of Opposition elements decided to enter the community of Mon Repos and attack Indo-Guyanese vendors and loot and burnt their stuff, the President and his cabinet did not respond with force. Yes, the Police had to do their job and restore quiet, but the President himself, without being surrounded by the mighty weapons of the Police and army, entered both the Mon Repos community where people were attacked, and went into Golden Grove and Buxton and other villages to talk about peace and to ask people to work together to solve our problems.
While the Government of Guyana is pursuing positive interaction and promoting unity among our people, The Opposition and their sycophants are pursuing division. The people of Golden Grove and Guyana have a right to question Police killings. A citizen was killed by a Police officer. An investigation has led to a Police officer being charged with murder and two other officers being charged for various other crimes associated with the killing.
Citizens should be, and ought to be, upset, but two wrongs do not make a right. When Opposition elements decided to support and promote a protest that damaged public and private properties, which led to looting and injuries to innocent citizens in what was clearly a protest targeting Indo-Guyanese, that protest deserves condemnation. Instead, the Opposition is defending the protest and blaming the Government.
The citizen killed was an Afro-Guyanese. The Police officers charged are Afro-Guyanese. Yet there are elements in the Opposition fringes trying to fool people that the officers were Indo-Guyanese. What would motivate them to make this a racial story? Clearly, these are people out to promote racism. Guyana is faced with a choice – the Opposition divide and rule and the Government’s ONE GUYANA. The Guyanese people appear to have chosen – ONE GUYANA.
