Rejecting GHRA’s distortions & false claims

Dear Editor,
The statement from the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), as referenced in an article dated Thursday, April 3, 2025, is not only intellectually dishonest, but politically motivated in its clumsy attempt to mischaracterise the forthright and justified remarks of the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.
To deliberately twist Dr. Jagdeo’s statements into an indictment of the entire NGO community is both intellectually lazy and politically mischievous.
The General Secretary’s remarks were clearly directed at a specific pattern of conduct by certain actors, not those NGOs who work tirelessly and objectively in service of communities, and who continue to enjoy our respect, our partnership, and our unwavering support.
Let there be no ambiguity: the GHRA, among others, has, over the years, displayed a persistent and well-documented bias, the roots of which are traceable to its leadership, its origins, and its consistent alignment, both in tone and in action, with the political opposition, particularly elements of the WPA, the PNCR, and their coalition creation, APNU+AFC.
It is entirely within the rights of any democratic actor, including the General Secretary of the PPP, to expose and call out this duplicity for what it is.
The People’s Progressive Party, from its founding in 1950 to the present day, has stood as the very bulwark of democracy and constitutional reform in Guyana; and this has continued following the return to democratic rule in 1992, which the GHRA itself acknowledges gave rise to the flurry of NGO activity and civil society expression previously stifled under PNC authoritarianism.
Successive PPP governments created the very political space that organisations now use, some productively and others manipulatively, and it is precisely because we value civil society that we are compelled to defend its integrity from political infiltration.
Our economic and social recovery strategy post-1992 was built on inclusion, openness, and consultation with civil society as a recognised partner in the process, from the design and implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme to the moral rearmament initiatives, to the creation of independent rights commissions such as the Ethnic Relations Commission, the Rights of the Child Commission, and the Women and Gender Equality Commission.
All these constitutional commissions require and involve NGO consultation and participation through parliamentary processes, and these mechanisms remain evidence of our party’s ongoing commitment to pluralism and participatory democracy; not as slogans, but as policy in practice.
It is therefore nothing short of appalling that organisations such as the GHRA, Red Thread (born out of the WPA), and the Guyana Press Association, now under the influence of individuals with long and verifiable links to opposition politics, would seek to wrap themselves in the sanctimonious cloth of civil society while engaging in open political partisanship: issuing statements that echo the opposition line, remaining silent during the 2020 attempted electoral heist, and then having the gall to present themselves as moral arbiters of the national discourse.
No organization is above critique, and just as civil society has the constitutional right to scrutinise Government, political parties have the democratic responsibility to scrutinise those NGOs that distort the truth, that operate with dual agendas, and that trade in political activism under the guise of advocacy.
We will not be silent in the face of hypocrisy masquerading as principle. The PPP remains resolute in its mission to build an inclusive and progressive nation rooted in truth, justice, and development; and that truth demands that we expose those who claim to be neutral while advancing partisan interests from the shadows.

Sincerely,
Kwame McCoy
Minister within the
Office of the Prime
Minister