Even though it never replied to her letter in December last year, the government is “actively reviewing” recommendations by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) Michelle Bachelet and assessing ways it could partner with UN entities to strengthen its human rights agenda, Foreign Affairs Minister Hugh Todd says.
“We received a letter from the UNHRC Commissioner outlining recommendations for a comprehensive human rights plan and we welcomed it. Human rights issues are of utmost importance to the government and people of Guyana and since the receipt of the letter, we have been in the process of addressing them [the recommendations],” Todd told Stabroek News yesterday.
The PPP/C government has not explained why there was no official reply to Bachelet’s letter and how that could be interpreted in international human rights circles. There has also been no public evidence of any attempt to implement the recommendations in Bachelet’s letter which was revealed in a July 15th Stabroek News column by Dr Bertrand Ramcharan, a former UN Under-Secretary-General. The letter later formed the basis of a news story in this newspaper.
