Youth group says not targeting Indo-Guyanese in boycott call

-urges citizens to take community action

Last week the organization, the youth arm of A Partnership for National Unity, issued a call to it supporters to boycott businesses which are in bed with the PPP/C administration.

YCT noted in a statement yesterday that it will soon release a list of the businesses. It has named the Kashif and Shanghai group which promotes a football tournament as well as entertainment group Hits and Jams as businesses which are closely linked with the government and do not give back to neglected communities.

The YCT’s statement was in response to an article which appeared in yesterday’s Guyana Times newspaper. The youth group said that the news item has misconstrued its message as meaning a boycott of Indo-Guyanese businesses. It stated that the organisation has encouraged the boycott against all PPP/C supported businesses and against “businesses which live parasitically off of the poor and disenfranchised members of society and make no contributions to those neglected communities”.

The statement read, “indeed the loudest calls for boycott are against (the) Kashif and Shanghai organization”, which it said is operated by two Afro-Guyanese businessmen. The K&S organization has issued a statement denying political partisanship but not indicating specifically who it was responding to.

YCT deemed malicious and erroneous, sections of the Guyana Times article which said that it was blackmailing businessmen for money to support the protest action in exchange for their businesses not being targets of its boycott calls.

“The YCT challenges Guyana Times to reveal the names of the APNU or YCT members who issued these threats. We challenge the Guyana Times to privately reveal the names of these perpetrators if they exist by emailing our organization or any other news organization. To be clear, the YCT is NOT asking for the names of those businesses that complained”, the group said.

It also slammed the Guyana Times as a mirror     of the government-biased Guyana Chronicle and a mouthpiece for the PPP/C.

The YCT says it deems as racist any attempts made by sections of society to paint “disenfranchised citizens who are fighting for their democratic freedoms and human rights as hooligans”. The body  said that it will not be distracted, intimidated, swayed or pressured into ending its struggle for equal rights and justice in the Guyanese society.

YCT stated that it advocates a boycott of Christmas shopping, with the exception of necessities. The organisation said it also advocates that all disenfranchised citizens return to their communities  and carry out self-motivated activities  such as the planting of community gardens, start up of small businesses and to shop locally.

It stated too that the communities should launch programmes to clean community waterways, playgrounds, centres and to assist each other in building homes.

The group stated that it is a movement which supports unity, justice and equality and it will continue to welcome the assistance and support of persons who “long for change in Guyana”. On Friday evening thousands turned out at the Stabroek Market Square following a peaceful march by the supporters of YCT and APNU as the leaders of the body reiterated their call for members to spend less this Christmas.

Last Tuesday several supporters and leaders of the movement sustained injuries about their bodies after police opened fire on them as they marched along Hadfield Street in the city.

The police later stated that while the march was illegal, the actions of the officers were unfortunate. Attorney James Bond, Brigadier (ret’d) Edward Collins and their colleagues were later placed before the courts for leading an illegal march.