More than the problems with the economy, crime and corruption, the ethnic problem needs to be solved, because it is at the root of everything, presidential candidate of the Alliance For Change Khemraj Ramjattan said.
Speaking at a fund-raising dinner in Toronto, Canada last Sunday, Ramjattan told his audience that the Raphael Trotman-Ramjattan team came together to heal the ethnic divide that stifles Guyana’s development.
“Since the 1950s when Forbes Burnham and Dr Cheddi Jagan split, the country has been divided. We want to heal that divide. Our goal and purpose is to transform the politics of the nation from race to issues,” he told his audience comprising 90 per cent Indian Guyanese migrants.
The event was organized by well-known Guyanese-Canadian political activist, Malcolm Cho-kee. Salaudeen Nasrudeen, the party’s campaign manager who resides in Florida, accompanied Ramjattan to Toronto.
Party Leader Trotman did not travel to Canada, but toured the US with the team. The party’s prime ministerial candidate, Sheila Holder, could not travel because of illness, Ramjattan said.
He was wrapping up a two-week long North American tour to launch his party’s election bid to govern the country. After travelling across the US from Florida to New York, Ramjattan ended his tour when he hosted 100 Canadian-Guyanese at the Toronto dinner.
The political leader outlined his party’s platform, and answered questions from the audience, while the AFC also launched its Action Plan and Manifesto to Canadian-Guyanese.
Ramjattan told his audience too that the government had refused to accept an offer from Britain to reform the security sector and for the US to set up a DEA office here.
He blamed the government for the alarming crime rates across the country, and for citizens living in fear. “If elected to office, within the first 100 days, we will bring in both Scotland Yard and the DEA. We will make security of every citizen a priority of our government,” Ramjattan said.
Ramjattan also offered a host of solutions to challenges facing Guyana’s development, and said that these solutions must be worked out with the active engagement of overseas Guyanese.
“Our party will reserve two seats in Parliament for representatives of overseas-based Guyanese. We want to also reserve ministerial positions for overseas Guyanese. You have an active role to play in the development of the country. And with us in government, you will finally get the opportunity,” Ramjattan told the audience.
He said overseas Guyanese were “of tremendous importance to take the country forward, as they had the technical and financial resources to offer the country. More than 900,000 Guyanese live all over the world. We must tap into this resource base.”
He said the AFC would “immediately” move to reform the constitution. “The country suffers now because of the constitution. I want to see the constitution changed to reflect a more democratic government. This is one of the first things we will do.
“People need to feel satisfied over the governance of the land,” he continued; “that satisfaction over how the country is governed, where everybody is satisfied, is lacking.”
Ramjattan said that although the country had enormous economic and social problems to overcome as it sought development, the main problem was the ethnic divide, “that has been with us for over 40 years. We must solve this ethnic problem. That is our party’s main goal.” He went on to say that this was the main problem which had caused “hundreds of thousands of people to migrate.”
President Bharrat Jagdeo “uses the Burnham constitution like Burnham used it,” he charged, noting that this enlarged the ethnic divide; “Even the United Nations came out with a report about ethnic divisions in, for example, the awarding of contracts by the state.”
Ramjattan said this country suffered from blatant corruption at the highest levels of government.
Noting that international reports ranked Guyana as the most corrupt country in the Caribbean and Americas, he said African and Amerindian Guyanese hardly won awards for state contracts.
“However, more than the economic problems and the corruption and crime, we need to solve our ethnic problem,” he reiterated, as it was at the root of the nation’s cancerous social disease.
He accused the two main political parties of harbouring “ethnic voting patterns” for their own selfish grab for power.
“The AFC is confronting these problems head on, and when we are in government we will deal with this head on. This is our purpose, to bring healing and reconciliation to the nation,” Ramjattan said.
“This is necessary to create a better Guyana. We have to be in the nation like we are as a cricket team, where Hooper and Chanderpaul, Butcher and Kanhai, Deonarine and the Crandons play together and work together to win.”
Ramjattan praised Trotman and Holder for their selfless service to the country. “Trotman asked the People’s National Congress to apologize to the nation for the decades of rigged elections. The party refused. I asked the People’s Progressive Party to keep its promise to reform the constitution. The party refused. So we came together. We are brothers. And our purpose and goal is to bring harmony and reconciliation to the politics of the country. The division came through Burnham and Jagan. We feel that harmony and reconciliation will come through Trotman and Ramjattan.”
