PNCR Leader Robert Corbin said he found nothing that was said at a recent party meeting to be unacceptable and contrary to the party’s objectives or bordering on “racial statements”, even as he has hesitated to comment extensively on the reason for the resignation of Mervyn Williams.
MP Williams has given up his post as chairman of the party’s Region Three committee citing “discriminatory and offensive comments made at a party meeting which suggested a disconnect between him and members because of his ethnic origin”. He has since submitted his resignation to General Secretary Oscar Clarke. This was reported in yesterday’s Stabroek News. Williams had been contacted by Stabroek News prior to the publication of the news item on his resignation but he declined to comment on the matter. Stabroek News subsequently obtained a copy of his resignation from a source and this was used as the basis for the story.
“I saw nothing or cannot recall anything that was said that bordered on racial statements. There were strong views expressed, but I found nothing that was said there to be unacceptable and contrary to the PNC’s objectives,” Corbin told reporters at the party’s weekly press briefing yesterday.
Corbin said that as leader of the party he felt he ought to have seen the letter before it was carried in the media. He said that at the executive meeting last week, Clarke had reported that he had received a letter from Williams. Corbin said Clarke did not read the letter to the Central Executive Committee members present at the meeting since in his opinion it contained several inaccuracies and he said he could not tender it unless he spoke with Williams.
However, responding on the substance of what appeared in an article in yesterday’s edition of the Stabroek News, Corbin said the meeting to which the article referred was attended by both himself and Clarke. According to him, the meeting was called since several groups in Region Three had complained of problems they were experiencing. He said the complainants felt the region was not functioning effectively under its current chairmanship.
Corbin pointed out that complaints also centred on the problems being experienced by those groups in receiving congress documents; they also said that they were not seeing the officials who were supposed to be carrying out their duties. It was against this background, Corbin said, that the General Secretary called a meeting of all the groups to have an evaluation of all that was taking place in the region.
According to him, members were given free range to express views as is the tradition of the PNCR.
“But I have not seen the letter. I would have to see what is alleged to have been said that is so objectionable,” he said.
Corbin said the thrust of the complaints by members of those groups was that many of the villages in West Demerara were being discriminated against and neglected by the PPP/C administration and they were concerned that in the face of this discrimination they were not getting effective representation from their elected representatives.
He explained that the groups opined too that the majority of those areas which were being neglected and which were also support areas of the PNCR, were where persons of Afro-Guyanese origin resided. “And that is a fact… I don’t know that this is a racial statement,” Corbin emphasized.
He added that the party members also said that if their communities were being neglected by government, then the party has a duty to represent their interests. They said they were not satisfied with the current levels of representation in this regard.
Corbin said the members also tried to move a motion to have a new regional executive elected, but he chided them that they could not do so because they had not followed party procedures.
Since then, he said, the party has received a petition from the majority of those very groups calling on Clarke to exercise his right to have elections held quickly.
Corbin said certain allegations were also made and Clarke was mandated to ask the persons who were elected and about whom allegations were made to respond to what members said.
He said at this point Williams had an opportunity to respond to the allegations and to address the meeting if he was concerned with anything that was said.
“I didn’t see the need to comment on anything… It happened that those communities are mostly Afro-Guyanese… I saw nothing or cannot recall anything was said that bordered on racial statements,” he reiterated. Corbin said in the past he has chided party members that the PNCR is a party for all the people.
Corbin was to have seen the letter following yesterday’s press conference.
Corbin said he was concerned that there was no courtesy in sending the letter to him. He said too that he wanted to get to the motivation for the sudden release of the letter to the media at this time.
Asked too about his concerns on the implications of the report which publicizes Williams’s claims, Corbin said, “I am concerned because what this statement is doing is damaging to the whole image of the party. When I heard it had inaccuracies I spoke to him and invited him to see me today [yesterday]… So I am surprised to read what I saw in the press today,” Corbin said.
Meanwhile, he said this was what parties in opposition, not only in Guyana, experienced. He acknowledged that the PNCR had issues from time to time as with any other party, but cautioned that he “would not preside over the destruction of the PNCR.
“I have a responsibility to ensure that the party stays on course and that no attempt by anyone would allow the party to be derailed.”
In a letter to PNCR General Secretary Clarke, dated July 7, 2009, Williams offered his resignation with immediate effect, saying it was a regretted but carefully considered decision that he believed to be in the best interest of the party that he loved. In the letter, seen by Stabroek News, he explained that he had the first inclination to resign when a representative to the Central Executive Committee (CEC) told a meeting that “the PNCR is essentially an African Guyanese party voted for at elections by the African Guyanese population.”
According to Williams, the representative also argued that there was “a disconnect” between him, as chairman of the region and party comrades, rather than a disconnect between the latter and the PNCR. “He opined that being a non-African Guyanese, one could not relate to African Guyanese issues, and went on to recommend [an] early regional conference to elect a new regional executive to solve the problem of the region,” he wrote, adding, the views were endorsed by a regional councillor. At the time, he noted, he was the only person in the room who was not of African Guyanese ancestry.
The meeting with Region Three party groups was called by Clarke to discuss the upcoming PNCR’s 16th Biennial Congress. Williams, in his letter of resignation, also said he was disappointed by the “discriminatory, highly offensive remarks” which he said go against the letter and spirit of the provisions of the party’s constitution. “What, however, both shocked and surprised me is that the Leader [Robert Corbin] who was present during the two presentations and addressed the meeting subsequent to both presentations did not take the time to correct the situation,” he added. “The Leader proceeded instead to agree with some other points raised by comrades who spoke, while remaining silent on this grave matter leaving some comrades to assume that such offensive statements were appropriate, and that such a forum was the appropriate one at which such offensive remarks could be made and considered to be in order.”
The situation resulted in a series of developments within the region, he said, which reinforced his decision to resign. Further, he opined that his resignation was “necessary” to allow for the identification of a “suitable comrade of African Guyanese ancestry” to assume the chairmanship and provide the kind of leadership needed to make the majority of the support base comfortable. Williams added that his exit would allow for “the current aggressive internal campaign” to come an end, allowing for a refocus of the same energies to present “a real united challenge” to the governing party–the PPP/C – which he described as the nation’s number one enemy. He said too that his exit would allow for maximising of efforts to ensure a successful Biennial Congress and a sound local government campaign at which the party would be successful.
