Our relations with India should not be at the expense of our core values as a nation

Dear Editor,

I am seriously troubled by the perceived direction of this country’s foreign policy in relation to Guyana’s dealings with India. Whereas we need to build ties with foreign partners capable of assisting Guyana’s development, these relations should not be at the expense of our nation’s core values – Social Cohesion and Race Equality. In other words development which is holistic; social as well as economical. How can Guyana’s Government pursue such a blinkered foreign policy agenda when race relations in Guyana are in such a perilous state and need to be strengthened not weakened? What say does its African Guyanese citizens have in the matter? None it seems. Or is the PPP stating that if it’s good for Indo-Guyanese it is automatically good for the rest of Guyana. India’s principal qualification for such close relations is that the ancestors of some of Guyana’s citizens came from there almost two centuries ago. I am an admirer of India’s economic progress but note that it is still to effectively address caste discrimination, child slavery, and female abuse. Are these concerns ever aired by our government, especially as these problems are particularly pronounced in the state of Uttar Pradesh where many Indo-Guyanese ancestors come from and where caste discrimination and child slavery is still rife?

No conscious and serious minded Guyanese wants Guy-ana to be India’s 29th State no more than they would want us to become America’s 51st or Nigeria’s 37th. On that subject, if we all followed the logical extension of the government’s position then we could, on the basis of being diasporans, forge closer bilateral ties with Nigeria, Ghana, China, Portugal, etc. Where would it all end? With racially exclusive programmes and scholarships for every separate ethnic group in Guyana? And what of the Amerindians? So much for “One People, One Nation and One Destiny”. Guyana would be reduced to an international playground for competing foreign powers hoping to build on spurious links to further their own interests. We would be like puppets on a string.

We have Buddy’s Hotel seeking to directly employ Indian nationals to work here even though it’s part funded by the people of Guyana. We have our government represented on official business at the racially exclusive fifth annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in India accepting a scholarship programme for Indo-Guyanese only. We’re then being told by their ‘Cheerleader-in-Chief’ Vishnu Bisram that this is good for all of Guyana (Stabroek News January 8, 2007). Really what this means in effect is that African Guyanese are being asked to accept the crumbs that fall from this table while not being allowed to sit at it.

Perhaps our President has forgotten how he benefited from a scholarship under the PNC Government of 1984. The education policies that President Burnham pursued at the time was beneficial to all Guyanese. We have seen blatant attempts at historical revisionism which have provided the ideological underpinnings for this foreign policy agenda. Should not all Guyanese and specifically Afrikan Guyanese be concerned at what appears an odious foreboding that arises from the following comments:-

“We, as a nation, especially people of East Indian descent have every reason to be proud and celebrate these achievements, because you have contributed in a great way to making Guyana what it is today”, (President Jagdeo 5th May 2001)

Freddie Kissoon in a letter captioned “Dr Gibson’s book is unscholarly, apparently unedited and a work of propaganda” (03.09.28) wrote as follows: “In comparison no Hindu country has practiced genocide, and with the exception of Suriname, Fiji and Guyana all other Hindu countries have been stable democracies