The second meeting of the national stakeholders with President Jagdeo at the Office of the President on March 12 produced the following agreements:
i) Establish as a matter of urgency a new parliamentary standing sectoral committee on national security;
ii) Expedite the appointment of the six constitutional commissions “which are key features of the governance framework within 90 days”;
iii) Activate the parliamentary constitutional reform committee;
iv) Ensure the effective participation of civil society in these parliamentary processes;
v) Explore a mechanism for the continuation of the national stakeholders forum.
This result was greeted with much exultation by the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Luncheon who was moved to tell his post-Cabinet press briefing “things will never be the same” and that the outcome was awesome. We disagree strongly.
As we said in a previous editorial we believe that the civil society component at these confabulations has failed to secure results that deepen their participation in decision-making and loosen the stagnating political stranglehold on these processes.
It is Lusignan and Bartica and the horror of their bloodletting which mean that things will never be the same not the pallid outcome of this stakeholders meeting. When the savagery of the two events is considered, the only reasonable expectation that the rest of society could have of their civil society brothers and sisters is that they would ensure some immediate movement towards the improvement of the security situation, the apprehending of the murderers and justice for the victims.
Unfortunately, there is no such gain to the public from the input that civil society has made in these tedious fora at the Office of the President. The political directorate has once again dominated proceedings which no doubt explains Dr Luncheon’s abundant joy.
Civil society should have been acutely aware that an enduring failing of this government and its political opponents has been their painful inability to co-operate in parliament and to maturely cut through their differences. It was this same government and parliament that agreed to urgently activate two parliamentary committees headed by PM Hinds on the UK-funded security plan and the Disciplined Forces Commission (DFC) report and which committees never met for months even though grave security threats faced the country and followed in the form of Lusignan and Bartica.
Yet, as its premier mode of intervention, the civil society members added their collective imprimatur to another parliamentary committee. They agreed for a standing sectoral committee on security. Have they assessed the performance of the other four standing committees and whether the government took their work seriously?
They have also secured commitments for the six constitutional commissions to be appointed in 90 days and the standing committee on constitutional reform to be activated. This is even more astounding. The government and the opposition are being allowed to get away with their intransigence over these commissions under the guise of doing something significant about the pressing security crisis. What a sham.
Without a doubt, these commissions which would include the long-awaited human rights commissions and the procurement commission are crucial to governance as pointed out so eureka-like in the release. However, since the Burnham constitution was reformed eight years ago in an exhaustive process that involved many of the same civil society groups that appeared so meekly at the Office of the President not a single one of them have had life breathed into them. What a disgrace. The procurement commission has been quite shockingly suppressed by the unwillingness of the ruling party to properly apply the qualifying requirements for membership and the one commission that has functioned – the Ethnic Relations Commission – is now under a constitutional cloud as the President utilized an unknown mechanism to keep its commissioners in place because the parliamentary parties could not agree on the way forward.
Under these circumstances one would be a masochist to willingly entrust their fate for one day much less 90 to this current chamber of paralysis. Yet, that is exactly what civil society has so thoughtlessly done without any assurance of performance or a mechanism for disentangling Guyana from the parliamentary impasse. The last two of the five-point pact are so trite and woolly that they are unworthy of mention. Why couldn’t there have been a defined mechanism to tap Article 13 which has been discussed by civil society for years and years. Who was negotiating for civil society and why have they failed so disastrously?
While at least good governance issues are now on the table at the Office of the President, none of the five points addresses the security crisis that Lusignan, Bartica and every other community in this country is now staggering under. None. Civil society may now say that the minutiae of the security plan is the forte and purview of PM Hinds’ committees, the Joint Services, the Defence Board, the Ministry of Home Affairs etcetera; in normal, functioning societies that may be the case but not in this one. Civil society does have a stake in these details especially when those with the established responsibility for security show no inclination to innovate within the legal framework or to act expeditiously.
The proliferation of guns is a case in point. The crime wave and its bloodiness have been pumped up by the easy availability of weapons. Yet, nothing has been done about it by PPP/C government in 15 years. The country has been besieged by drug lords and organized crime yet the government adamantly refuses to solicit expert international assistance. In the midst of the supposed heightened security alert, the sister of Guyana’s most wanted man was brutally cut down in a ward of the capital. Yet, the Joint Services were unable to intercept the vehicle in the immediate aftermath of the crime and a week later has made no evident progress in the search for the killer. These are some areas where civil society could have pressed for assurances and explanations but failed to in these rounds of talks with the President.
Ninety days will now meander pointlessly while the crime pressure cooker steams. Even if all of these commissions are in place by the end of the designated period how does that exactly improve security? The signatories to this five-point programme and the political directorate will have to answer these questions.
Lusignan and Bartica must bring the country together. It doesn’t however have to be the conclave of the obsequious while the political directorate continues with business as usual.
