Submitted by Guyana Consul Norman Faria. The letter was submitted to the Sunday Sun in September 2008, we are not sure if it was published. In light of the ongoing debate on BU about the Guyanese issue we have decided to publish it.
Michelle Springer
Feature Writer
Sunday Sun newspaper
Fontabelle, St.Michael
Barbados
SUBJECT: GUYANA CONSUL SUBMISSION ON GUYANESE WORKING OVERSEAS FOR SUNDAY SUN (BARBADOS) FEATURE ARTICLES
Dear Ms. Springer:
The Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Guyana in Barbados presents its compliments and has the honour to provide you with Consul Norman Faria’s views on Guyanese working overseas, in particular Barbados, as you requested for part of your series of articles on the subject. Other contributors you mentioned will undoubtedly provide the basic demographic details and reasons (political or otherwise, correct or selective as the case may be) for so called migration. In the interests of time and space, I will confine myself to three falsehoods sometimes connected in the Barbados media to the most recent situation, let us say from the early 1990s which coincided with the democratic elections of 1992 which brought the PPP/Civic to power.
FIRST FALSEHOOD: Guyanese are fleeing their homeland because of the dire poverty there and that there is no hope for the future.
REALITY: No one denies that there is still people leaving Guyana including migrating to reside permanently. But why emphasise “dire poverty” and other misinformed worst secnario descriptions ? Guyanese, like Bajans, desire a wage level they hear and read about workers receiving in other countries. A main reason for leaving, against the backdrop of many manufactured items for everyday use having to be imported into Guyana and having to be paid for by externally influenced costs, is the lower wage levels in Guyana relative to othe countries such as Canada and the US and even CARICOM countries like Barbados. This desire to better oneself, to make more money to provide for families and buy a house and property, is the same. It is the same yearning which forces Bajans for example in more higher per capita earning countries to enter in farm and hospitality sector programmes which Barbadian Ministers of Labour from all administrations periodically promote. It reflects worldwide patterns. Such an economic imperative cannot be equated with the undeserving description of “Guyanese fleeing dire poverty”. Indeed, statistics do not bear this out. Though we need to be sensitive to Guyanese who vote for or support this party, the historical reality is that under the PNC’s undemocratic rule, Guyana’s economy was worse than Haiti’s. That was very real poverty. Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese both suffered. There were very real social problems. Since 1994, improvements in the economy mean that Guyanese of all races are living better lives in terms of higher wages, housing, health and educational services and other benefits and enjoyments. Life expectancy in Guyana, for example,should be 70 years old in 2011 whereas it was in the low 60s in the 1980s. Other advances are well documented including statistics from international agencies. This progress will continue to deepen, even more so when there is co-operation from all instead for example of organised elements supporting criminal acts to try (it is doomed to failure) and destabilize the country and divide people…
SECOND FALSEHOOD: The Guyana government, led by President Jagdeo, is deliberately sending Guyanese to Barbados. He even admitted it in a Nation article !
REALITY: As stated in the foregoing, the Guyana government recognises worldwide movement of peoples and the benefits to be obtained therein for our continued development and progress for all its peoples. Guyanese, like Bajans, have the freedom to travel overseas to work. Against the backdrop of ongoing pre-CSME situation, the Consulate has put proposals before relevant authorities for a more structured system so as to weed out parasitical elements such as some lawyers and immigration consultants preying on my people.
THIRD FALSEHOOD: Afro-Guyanese are “fleeing” Guyana because of racial persecution. “Indian government discriminating against black people” may be a mantra from some misinforned or wilful individuals.
REALITY: Though one may understand the temptation to pander to the sensitivities of the largely Afro-Barbadian population in Brabados, this view is not backed up by serious thought and statistics and indeed embarrases many decent minded and knowledgeable Afro-Guyanese in the island as well as Afro- Barbadians.
The political philosophy of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) presently governing Guyana is said in the party’s constiution to be Marxism-Leninism. Its theories have come out of the European Enlightenment which have impacted upon all the western liberal-democratic traditions as we know them today. The present Guyana government cannot therefore be discrimatory against any particular race, colour or religion.The party’s roots were when formed, and continue to be, in the Guyanese working people and poor farmers. It also fully supports the patriotic business sector and provides them with all available support. As a Marxist, I would not have accepted the offer of the PPP/Civic government to become Guyana’s Honorary Consul in Barbados in 1994 if I knew that I was representing a government with a discrimatory party having a majority.. Marxism is for the unity and happiness of all peoples, particularly the working class and its allies.No amount of selective and dishonest rewriting of history, including what happened in the Soviet Union, can change that.
Burnham’s split during the 1950s from the original anti-colonialist and Marxist PPP to form the pseudo-socialist PNC was engineered with the financial, ideological and other support from the Central Intelligence Agency in the US and British intelligence services aided by unpatriotic local elements including the leadership of the then Catholic church in the country and overseas.. This reality is at the root of any racial challenges presently facing us in Guyana.The split was supported and aided by sections of the Afro-Guyanese middle class (there were of course principled and courageous members who stood up against Burnham and his cohorts) who wanted Afro-Guyanese rule on a permanent basis, the statement in the Brabados press by my predecessor that the PNC takeover including rigged elections was necessary to “keep out” the Indians being symptomatic. This is all well documented by serious political analysts such as Jamaica’s Carl Stone, who described the PNC as “neo-fascist”, and US and British unclassified documents. Consul Faria cannot therefore be accused of being politically partisan. The Consulate cannot, and does not, discriminate on the basis of political affiliation or any other basis.
When the PPP/Civic was elected in 1992 after nearly three decades of rigged elections there was general discrimination against the majority Indo-Guyanese and causing them socio-economic and other hardships along with Afro-Guyanese. The civil service , including the armed forces and police, were almost all staffed by Afro-Guyanese. The Permanent Secretaries, like the majority of the Cabinet, were Afro-Guyanese. I was Publications Secretary for the Southern Africa Liberation Committee (SALC) anti-apartheid support group in Barbados in the early 1980s (we assisted the ANC and SWAPO) and during that time I went to Guyana as a delegate from the Caribbean Union of Teachers to a teachers congress. I took time out to visit some of the state-run institutions such as post offices. The only Indo-Guyanese I saw therein were customers. It was shameful.
After Burnham, his successor Hoyte made no difference. He rigged elections even more massively, as stated by democratic minded Catholic priest Father Andrew Morrison in his book. Hoyte was forced to bring about economic reforms and agree to free and fair elections because of growing national pressure and from international aid and other agencies. Sections of working class Afro-Guyanese had come to be embarrased by what was happening in Guyana.They were disillusioned as well with PNC pseudo-socialist economic policies which, unless they had government jobs, made them suffer terribly. They joined with their Indo-Guyanese comrades in voting for the PPP/Civic in the 1994 election. The PPP/Civic could not consistently win just over nearly 55 per cent cent on the basis of support from Indo-Guyanese who make up less than 50 per cent of the population and some of whom may vote for other parties. These other parties include the PNC and people have a freedom of choice to vote for it. I say this to pre-empt any cavalier retort which bleats: “That PNC period long done with, why you still harping on it ? ”
We move ahead but always bear in mind what went before so as not to once again suffer under it.
The ratio of appointment of Afro-Guyanese Ministers in the PPP/Civic administration along with other minorities relative to Indo-Guyanese members reflects the demographic makeup of the Guyanese population whereas under the PNC it did not. Budgetary allocations to Afro-Guyanese majority populated villages and towns such as Linden do not indicate marginalization of Africans. Without having resorted to any crude ethnic purging, there is also now more good governence, permitting freer and more varied media where people of all political persuasions may vent their feelings and make reports to be acted upon. Prior to 1994, the media was censored and heads of street protesters broken (some people like Catholic priest Father Darke assassinated).
The present Guyanese government does not discriminate. This bogeyman charge about “blacks suffering under the coolie man” is dragged up by opportunist politicians and their acolytes to retain their dwindling support base. This is called the politics of ethnic marginalization. It has no basis in everyday life in Guyana and certainly cannot be supported by realiable statistics and analysis.
Those overseas who bring up this unsubstantiated wild talk, including the handful of local xenophobes who should go and set up their own apartheid state where they won’t be bothered by the healthy intermixing of different races (spread the genes !), tarnishes the good image and investment climate of Guyana. If we are working towards the same goal, as stated, to deepen democracy and economic progress for all Guyanese, the very real achievements that have taken place should be highlighted and people should work constructively with the freely elected government in dealing effectively with the challenges which most countries worldwide are facing.
I thank you for giving me the space to make these observations. Accept Madam, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Respectfully Yours,
NORMAN FARIA
(Guyana’s Honorary Consul in Barbados)
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