Finally succumbing to unrelenting pressure from individuals and organisations inside and outside of Guyana, as well as the expressed distaste of foreign diplomats, President Donald Ramotar yesterday fired Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran.
An action that would have taken a day at most anywhere else in the world and by any right thinking Head of State took President Ramotar 9 days to carry out, well 8 actually if one considers that the recording of Dr Ramsaran’s verbal abuse of Ms Sherlina Nageer did not come to light until the day after it occurred.
While citizens might feel some sense of relief at President Ramotar’s terse press release issued through GINA yesterday, the question that would now be asked is what took so long. According to the press release, the health minister was “relieved of his ministerial duties following a meeting with the President.
“The President reiterates his outrage at the verbal outbursts and insults uttered by the minister recently.”
Did it really take eight days of feeling outraged for the President to act?
It took eight days of protests by activists outside the Health Ministry and other government offices.
It took eight days of a campaign by letter writers to this and other newspapers.
It took eight days of 24/7 social media activism.
It took eight days of calls from several quarters for Dr Ramsaran to do the right thing and resign.
And in those eight days, several other things happened. The most egregious was Dr Ramsaran’s second outburst a day after he had offered a half-hearted attempt at an apology for what he said about Ms Nageer. In that second recording, Dr Ramsaran could be heard referring to himself as “Bheri Best”, calling Ms Nageer “rabid” and advocating that she needed psychiatric help.
It should be noted here that although Dr Ramsaran had abused Ms Nageer – telling her to “F- off” and calling her an “idiot” and “a little piece of shit” – he never aimed his apology at her. In any case, what he had said out of her earshot, about slapping her just for fun or having one of his women strip her, could never be apologized away.
In that period too, a few misguided persons sought to, as we say in Guyana, “take up Dr Ramsaran’s fire rage”. In letters to the editor, there were feeble attempts at cheerleading Dr Ramsaran’s claim of provocation. But it was on social media, hiding behind the anonymity provided there, that the kid gloves came off and the ‘Bheri-Besters’ whoever they are, subjected Ms Nageer and those who commiserated with her to the vilest of comments.
Ms Nageer, for her part, took a decision to file a formal complaint to the police on Monday, a full week after the incident.
It is therefore pellucid, whichever way one chooses to look at it, that Mr. Ramotar was forced into giving Dr Ramsaran the boot and that he did so reluctantly. The eight-day wait suggests that perhaps there was political strategizing going on behind the scenes; that the President and party were weighing the blow to see how much it would hurt to ignore the calls from civil society and retain Dr Ramsaran. One gets the impression that the President might have been waiting in the hope that the entire episode would blow over. But instead it got so hot he suddenly realized that he could no longer handle it. The signs were all there, too, that it would only get hotter.
It should be obvious to even the blind that the President gave every indication of being prepared to not do what was right; Dr Ramsaran’s sudden dismissal reeks of expediency. And given the government’s lack of action against its stalwarts in the past—the case of Kellawan Lall immediately springs to mind—there is every possibility that deal-making was at work here. Incidentally, too, Dr Ramsaran remains on the PPP’s List of Representatives waiting to be reincarnated as Health Minister or to be given some other portfolio if his party wins the elections come May 11.
The lessons taught by this appalling episode are many. It is evident that much of the talk as regards respect for women in Guyana is just that – talk. The fact that some men and women supported Dr Ramsaran and upheld his claim of provocation speaks to their lack of commitment to the anti-violence campaign, even though they may want to say otherwise. Talk is cheap.
It took Ms Nageer’s courage to expose the latent disrespect for women by some who can usually pull a good poker face. Depressingly, it is clear that there is still tons of work to do in relation to gender equity and women’s rights.
