Dear Editor,
The mere fact that the news item, ‘There should be apology for past wrongs, Van West Charles says’ (SN May 24), engendered 119 responses and reactions in the ‘Readers Comments’ section, tells me that there is a huge interest in what is happening in the PNC, but especially any new direction it may choose to go in order to either be a far more effective opposition or even to retake political power at the polls.
The public interest and responses, aside for the moment, Dr Van West Charles’s call for the PNC to apologise, is similar to that made a few years ago by former PNC executive and current co-chair of the Alliance For Change, Mr Raphael Trotman, and also fits in with a bland statement made by the late Desmond Hoyte that the “PNC has made mistakes,” even as he sought to chart a new direction for the party that was different from his predecessor.
The problem is, there seems to be an unwillingness so far to identify the specific mistakes for which specific apologies should be made, and so the call for an apology or even the blanket admission of mistakes does not go far enough in taking responsibility for what specifically happened under the PNC regimes (Burnham and Hoyte), nor does it appear convincing enough to inspire the public to trust and support the party now or in the near future.
Let’s assess the import of these words by Dr Van West Charles: “Members of the PNC have done things that are wrong to people and because they are members of the PNC, the PNC has to take that blame. It is not the PNC, as an organization, that goes out and says I am going to do evil.” Is he is not being completely disingenuous and should be stopped now before he winds up alienating many of those who might be looking for an alternative PNC Leader?
When members of the PNC intimidated or beat up members the public who dared to disagree with the party, and the PNC did not take disciplinary action against such members, the conclusion was that the PNC supported it. I specifically recall the beating up of striking Guyana Stores workers (CCWU members) by a group of thugs who were seen in the company of a leading PNC official. I specifically recall the rounding up of 42 striking bauxite workers and that they were ‘teargassed’ in a holding cell in the McKenzie Police Station. I specifically recall Guyanese being fired for not showing up at the PNC-sponsored people’s parades, so that even if Dr Van West Charles denies that victimization was part of the party’s policy, it was seen by many as at least part of its practice.
But I am not the only one with recollections of the horrors meted out by the PNC and its goons to Guyanese. Dr Van West Charles needs to know there are thousands of Guyanese, both at home and abroad, who will never forget, even if they might be willing to forgive, the PNC for what it did to them and their beloved country. It might surprise him how many overseas Guyanese have cut their umbilical cord from Guyana and refuse to even talk about Guyana, let alone think about returning to either visit or live. It’s that bad!
But beside the ill-treatment of Guyanese, the PNC also rigged elections and a referendum to consolidate its hold on political power, ensuring the party was paramount over everyone and everything, and allowing the party to pursue its ill-advised socialist experiment that helped shipwreck and bankrupt Guyana. ‘Party paramountcy’ literally meant control of the legislative and judicial branches of government, which were supposed to serve as counterbalances to the executive branch, so when Dr Van West Charles talks about apologizing, he has to be specific about which area of wrongdoing he is talking about, because there are many. And so it is not as cut and dried as he thinks it is when he says, “…the party has to take blame, apologise as a principle and move forward.” Not so fast, doctor!
I also don’t buy into his argument about the effects of the Cold War on the banning of flour or on the harsh conditions imposed by lending institutions in the MMA project, because the PNC’s assumption of power in 1964, in the first place, was the result of the effects of the very Cold War that saw the opportunistic PNC coalescing with the capitalist-leaning UF to oust the communist-oriented PPP. If anything, the PNC failed to capitalize on the goodness of the West to it by relying on the West to help develop Guyana in a pragmatic way; instead, the PNC bit the very hands that led it to power.
And if Dr Van West Charles labels as terrorist action the “destruction of the cane fields and the strikes aimed at destroying the economy of the country,” then what does he think of the PNC’s ill-advised economic polices that destroyed the economy of the country? Guyanese employees in a country where the state was the major employer had a right to agitate against an autocratic regime that refused to respect the rights of (people and) workers, and this is one of the mistakes for which the PNC should be apologizing.
Meanwhile, Mr Vincent Alexander’s position that all parties need to atone is almost equivalent to President Bharrat Jagdeo’s penchant for always seeking to spread the blame for mistakes, so that he or his party would not stand alone uncomfortably under the harsh glare of the spotlight, but at the end of the day this collective blame stance still does not absolve of individual responsibility and accountability.
And this is where the rubber is not hitting the road to allow for needed traction so the PNC can actually move forward, because as long as there is a propensity for playing politics with people’s feelings, people will tune out politicians and the parties they represent. Pay attention to the people and not just your party, Mr Alexander.
Since denial is the biggest hindrance to repentance, I dare the PNC, whether under current or new leadership, to be specific about the areas where it has screwed up in and out of government, and then take steps to rebuild the party around ideas that people of all races can resonate with, instead of old school personalities, and watch the party evolve into a new creature with passion and purpose. Some people are actually watching and waiting because they don’t like what they are seeing under the Bharrat Jagdeo-led PPP regime and believe that the PNC, as the main parliamentary opposition receiving taxpayer-funded salaries and benefits, should be doing more to keep this regime from running amok.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
