Introduction
Nearly six years ago in late 2002, in response to a breakdown in the dialogue process between President Bharrat Jagdeo and the late Leader of the Opposition, Desmond Hoyte, a civil society grouping calling itself the Social Partners was formed. Its members included the Private Sector Commission, the Guyana Trades Union Congress and the Guyana Bar Association.
On September 11th of that same year, after two months of preparatory work, the Social Partners arranged a Joint Consultation between the President of Guyana, the Leader of the Opposition, all political parties in Parliament and the Social Partners themselves. The suggested objective of this Consultation was to devise a cooperative framework for addressing current constitutional, security, political, economic and social concerns and to propose a mechanism for the monitoring of implementation of any agreed decisions.
However, in response to an earlier outbreak of uncontrolled and murderous criminal attacks on innocent persons, the Consultation specifically tasked the Social Partners to examine the “Prevailing Security Environment.” The group was asked to prepare a draft “Joint Communiqu
