POLITICS-GUYANA: Trouble on the Horizon

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, May 20 1998 (IPS) - The signs are clear that trouble is once again brewing in Guyana despite the determination by Caribbean Community leaders to ward it off by intervening at the highest level in this racially divided country.

A team the regional leaders sent to recount the ballots cast at last December’s elections and to conduct a thorough probe of all electoral systems, is about to wrap up its work and the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has lost no time telling the country and the outside world that the main opposition People’s National Congress (PNC) is preparing for violence.

The PNC has, however, denied these allegations.

Word here this week is that outgoing Caribbean Community (Caricom) Chairman Keith Mitchell who is also Prime Minister of Grenada, will be coming to Guyana to present the report of the audit team to government and other political parties by the end of the month. He is expected to be joined by Prime Ministers, Basdeo Panday of Trinidad and Tobago, Kenneth Anthony of St Lucia and possibly Owen Arthur of Barbados.

These three have been to Guyana in the aftermath of opposition- organised street demonstrations that spilled over into full scale clashes with police when angry and sometimes over enthusiastic youth joined with party supporters protesting the results of the Dec. 15 poll.

Whether their presence will have an impact on what takes place in this South American republic in the next few weeks is left to be seen, but the feeling among political parties, labour unions and some ordinary Guyanese is that trouble is ahead in this country which is now attracting little foreign investment and whose economy is on the decline.

Even as Mitchell was announcing his intention to visit Guyana for the third time in five months, the second most powerful labour union in the country was preparing for a showdown with government in the annual battle for better wages and salaries for 15,000 public servants.

Hardly in the last 15 years has the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) been able to call out workers to strike for any issue, be it wages, government policy or lack of public transport to get them to work.

But this time, the mood appears to be just right with daily talks in the media about doomsday, political executions and violent clashes between the East Indian community, backers of the PPP and Blacks, supporters of the PNC.

The GPSU staged a huge rally at the Square of the Revolution Monday evening to say that talks with government about a 30 percent increase have broken down. Government says it will not pay more than nine percent.

Public servants are among the lowest paid workers here earning an average of 70 dollars per month, less than the price of a mountain bike many need to get to work.

“Either we settle this matter by arbitration or conciliation or we settle it in the streets,” declared Patrick Yarde, the head of the union. If government needed a sign to indicate what is coming, it could have judged from the fact that about 5,000 workers braved pouring rain to listen to union leaders and Opposition Leader and former President Desmond Hoyte issue threats to the Janet Jagan administration.

The union has traditionally touted its political independence, but the state-owned Chronicle newspaper story headline on the rally Tuesday painted a different picture. It read: “Hoyte joins GPSU platform.”

All this came a day after a prominent PNC executive member and respected attorney Raphael Trotman made what conservatives described as a rather disturbing disclosure of the type only seen on television in recent months.

He charged that the PPP leadership is preparing supporters for a worse case scenario with the PNC, or more particularly Blacks with whom it has a score to settle. Information, reaching the party, he says point to an assassination plot against several of its top leaders.

“They are talking about a doomsday plan, the mutilation of, I think, seven key members of the PNC,” said Trotman. He hails from a middle class conservative family of attorneys and is a budding politician not known to be careless with words.

On the other hand, Freddie Kissoon, a controversial University of Guyana Lecturer agrees that there could be trouble of the worst kind if the audit shows the PPP did, in fact, win the election.

“If it is perceived that the opposition has no reason to take to the streets and force businessmen to close their stores it could be different this time,” says Kissoon referring to demonstrations in December and January that virtually paralysed business life in the country.

Kissoon also suggests that the audit findings will embarrass the PNC in such a way that it could be forced to change current tactics and take some face-saving action.

“A crisis will have to be engendered, strikes at ministries to deflect from the findings of the report. And this time the PPP will find it difficult to hold back its people from going to the streets,” says Kissoon an unapologetic supporter of the PPP.

To prepare the security forces for any eventuality, President Janet Jagan last weekend ordered a special three-day exercise for the police, but it was called off in 24 hours after Finance Minister and heir apparent to Janet Jagan, Bharrat Jagdeo refused to release about 20,000 dollars needed to facilitate the programme.

For his part, Hoyte has done his best on the political platform to soothe fears that his party is planning violence, but at the same time he has warned the PPP not to think he would be caught napping if a violent attack is launched on his party.

Any reaction to the audit report will be based on the “dynamics of the time” he has said repeatedly.

Meanwhile, some older observers say the current state of affairs bring back memories of the 1950s when late PPP leader Cheddi Jagan won internal self rule from Britain and went on to win the elections of 1953. His administration lasted only 133 days.

Concerned about his communist leanings, Britain suspended the constitution and installed an interim government until elections were held again in 1957. Jagan and several of his supporters were either jailed or placed under house arrest. Those included his wife Janet, now head of state.

Jagan won the elections in 1957 and again in 1961. This led to disputes between the PPP and the PNC which turned into racial strife.

More than 150 people were killed, thousands left the country for Britain and the US, and millions of dollars of property damage resulted.

By the end of it all the country had been thoroughly divided racially, the seeds of division having been sown in the 1950s when Jagan’s government was toppled and after the PPP was split and Forbes Burnham formed the PNC in 1955.

By the 1964 election, the PNC and the United Force formed an alliance in order to keep the PPP out of office. They changed the electoral rules which guaranteed that they won every election until 1992. But the racial divisions continue to this day.