The PPP/C could not for one moment have thought that it would have been politically where it is today when it took the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) (Amendment) Bill to parliament on 7th May 2013. Its dilatoriness over this matter, normal intransigence in governance and heavy reliance on propaganda have now taken the negotiations over the Bill into a cul-de-sac from which it can only emerge with a complete turnaround and in which one of the parties must lose an enormous amount of face. Indeed, the quarrel over this Bill is a classic case of the negative unintended consequences that usually flow from tardiness and/or the adoption of wrong/amoral policies.
The PPP/C’s problem began with its own procrastination: after all Guyana became a member of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) in 2002; the FIU was created in late 2003 to monitor and apprehend businesses and individuals involved in money laundering (but the less said about this institution the better!); the first country evaluation that spoke to the absence of money laundering legislation came in 2006; the regime tabled a Bill in the National Assembly in 2007 but it took two years (during which the PPP/C had a majority) until the Bill was passed in 2009. A CFATF evaluation in July 2011 criticised the government’s approach as essentially minimalist and insufficient if it seriously intends to fight money laundering. On 7 May 2013, the government tabled the amending legislation, over which there is still much wrangling.
Was the delay simply the result of the regime’s incompetence or was it being deliberately obstructionist in pursuit of a wrong and amoral policy? Thus, picking up on one of the widespread perceptions, M. Maxwell suggested in a recent article that: “Given the unchecked and unmitigated rise of drug trafficking in Guyana, along with the clear-cut evidence of the PPP’s inaction on combating the known disease of drug trafficking … did the PPP turn a blind eye to drug trafficking and was it done for reasons of perceived and hoped-for economic and political benefits and gains?” (“Did the PPP turn a blind eye to drug trafficking for economic and political reasons? SN 20/03/2013).
A corollary to Maxwell’s question is that many also believe that the reason the regime is now so determined to pass the Bill is not simply that its non-passage will adversely affect Guyana but because of the focused and sustained monitoring presently being placed on Guyana because the law is not in place. As this story goes, once the law is in place, the regime will be expected to implement it and will again do so in a minimalist manner, knowing full well, as we have seen above, that the usual casual pace of regional and international monitoring will leave much greater room than currently exists for those wishing to continue their nefarious activities!
Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that the government’s untimely behaviour has created an urgency that is sufficiently detrimental to allow the opposition to utilise it and link its support for the legislation to the resolution of various quarrels it has with the regime.
The government, its apologists and a few well-intentioned people have contended that linkages of this sort are harmful and will thwart Guyana’s development. The truth is that to be effective in most socio/political confrontations, an activity must have the potential to be detrimental to someone or some group.
But no one should have to tell this to the PPP: in its time in the opposition it had persistently taken action that was detrimental to Guyana’s development, only to return later to lay all the blame at the door of the PNC. Given the conditions on the American continent, our ethnic cauldron and Burnham’s control of the security forces, taking up arms against the PNC or even taking to the streets in any sensible manner were viewed by the PPP as suboptimal and downright dangerous. So the party resorted to what was at its disposal, destroying sugar cane, supporting squatting or encouraging rice farmers not to plant, using its trade unions to best effect and calling upon all and sundry, nationally and internationally, to remove the PNC regime.
Furthermore, linkages have historically been the stuff of international and national politics. Given Guyana’s small participation in the Southern African debacle (the PNC apparently allowed the Cubans to use Guyana as a staging post to send troops to Angola and a few Guyanese soldiers may even have fought and died there), it may be recalled that in the early 1980s, South African troops illegally invaded Namibia but the Americans and the South African governments were successful with their linkage of this illegal act to the demand that Cuban troops, which were in Angola at the request of that government, withdraw from Angola if South African troops were to withdraw from Namibia.
One example of using linkages in Guyana is when Forbes Burnham wanted the support of the PPP to nationalise the bauxite industry in Linden, Cheddi Jagan, quite apart from his ideological orientation, linked his support for nationalisation to, among others, the PNC’s government recognition of GAWU and the employment of those of his supporters who had studied in Eastern Europe.
The opposition’s linking of support for the AML/CFT Bill to demands that the Procurement Commission be established, local government Bills be passed, etc, is therefore far from unusual, and, in my opinion, quite justifiable in a politico/ethnic context that has closed almost every legitimate door through which the opposition could bargain with the regime. Some believe (wrongly I think) that our ethnic problem makes it impossible to organise other forms of peaceful extra parliamentary protests and maintain credible electoral political parties. Therefore, it is not surprising that political linkages of this sort are pounced upon by the opposition as perhaps the only door left open for it to act upon its dissatisfaction.
Whatever the motives or capacities (or lack thereof) that led the AML/CFT Bill and its combatants into the present cul-de-sac, it appears to me that the exit must be politically bloody: the conflict has become a zero sum game. It does not matter if the parties now agree on the content of the Bill; the linkages are on the table. As a result of a general propagandistic approach, the country is now well aware of the demands and counter-demands and is waiting to see who will blink first. Make no mistake, even if a general election is called, one party or another will not be spared a bruising.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
