Unhappy with a resolve clause, government MPs yesterday voted against a request for the suspension of the Standing Orders to allow a motion in the name of Opposition Leader Robert Corbin on the Lusignan massacre to proceed, resulting in PNCR-1G members boycotting the rest of the sitting.
At around 3.30 pm, after a division was called for, the government benches voted against the motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders to permit Corbin’s motion, mirroring a sharp public divide between the two sides since the massacre.
The Government side also argued yesterday that the time required for Corbin’s private member’s motion to be placed on the Order Paper – 12 days – was not met.
Corbin had written the Speaker of the National Assembly on February 5 asking that the National Assembly be convened for the purpose of a motion on the January 26 Lusignan killings.
Rising to speak, Corbin said “I was under the misapprehension that my adjournment motion would have been the one to be considered. I did write asking that a special sitting [of the National Assembly] be called to discuss the motion in my name [to speak on] the killing of 11 people and one GDF corporal”.
Corbin added “Following my receipt of a reply on February 5, I thought that we would have been having an opportunity to address the motion. I sought to have Government agree to suspend the Standing Orders to have the February 5 motion debated. But last night (Wednesday) I received an interesting response from the Prime Minister saying that Government was not inclined to suspend the Standing Orders. I resorted to Standing Order 11 (2),” he said.
Corbin stated: “I understand that the motion of sympathy we would like passed cannot be put, but we can discuss the issue, with no resolve clause – no formal motion of sympathy.”
After seeking the Speaker’s leave to move the motion for the suspension of Standing Orders 31 and 111 for the House to dispense with the required notice to debate the motion in his name, the votes were loud and a division was called for.
The Government benches were in the majority and Corbin’s motion to suspend the Standing Orders was disallowed, meaning that his substantive motion would not be considered. The customary adjournment was then taken.
After the tea break, a debate on the Lusignan killings (see other story on page 11) began minus the PNCR-1G members who chose to disassociate themselves from the activity which they described as futile and nothing but more of the nightly “NCN” programmes since the gruesome killings.
Speaking to the media outside of the Chamber, the Leader of the Opposition called the debate a mockery. “All we sought was a suspension of the Standing Orders. They could have allowed the motion and then proposed amendments,” Corbin said while speaking to reporters afterwards.
In a comment during the tea break, Prime Minister Sam Hinds said that the Government had reservations about some of the statements made in the resolve clauses of Corbin’s motion, among them that the National Assembly’s calls on the Government to “implement a definite plan of action to arrest the downward spiralling of our country’s security.” In response to this statement, the Prime Minister said: “This is not so,” and insisted that a security plan was in place.
“We did say that we wanted more time to work on the motion,” he said, adding that he thought the motion to be cleverly crafted to make the Government look bad should they not support it.
The motion noted that the “brutal and horrific” killings have caused untold pain, grief, anger and despair to the surviving family members, villagers and the entire Guyanese community. It noted also that the killings have evoked unequivocal condemnation from all political parties, religious organisations, business and civic organisations and all Guyanese living in Guyana and in the diaspora.
The motion said that the security situation in Guyana continues to be “tenuous.” It called for the National Assembly to condemn the killings and that the National Assembly extend its “deepest and sincerest sympathies to the family of our eleven citizens and the corporal of the Guyana Defence Force who were murdered.”
Also in the National Assembly, two new bills – the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2008 and the Guyana Presbyterian Church Act (Amendment) Bill 2007 were introduced and a number of questions to Ministers asked and answered.
