Submitted by Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID)
[Port of Spain] The New York Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) is calling on the Obama administration to “strengthen relations with the Caribbean region and resolve outstanding issues that stand as barriers to good relations, and to focus on Guyana’s failing democracy”
In a statement to leaders attending the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, CGID said it hopes that they will devise strategies to alleviate poverty and developmental disparities affecting poorer countries in the Americas; bring about a more peaceful, democratic hemisphere, and engender human prosperity, energy security and environmental sustainability.
In a swipe at the Guyana government, CGID published a full page ad telling summit participants that “There is a crisis of governance in Guyana which has burgeoned from unparalleled corruption, bad and despotic governance and the abrogation of the rule of law. Guyana’s democracy is tenuous at best and the nation stands at the threshold of failed statehood.”
It noted that President Bharrat Jagdeo heads a repressive ethnocracy which utilizes the resources of the State mostly for the East Indian ethnic collective and strangles the minority African-Guyanese population with a noose of economic, social and political subjugation. The Institute charged that the Jagdeo government “Engages in torture, murder for hire and massive corruption, as delineated in the February 29, 2009 United Nations Report on Minority and Human Rights in Guyana.”
“President Jagdeo’s government gives succour to known and/or convicted drug barons, death squads and money launders. US 2009 Narcotics Control Report states that “Reports of corruption reaching to high levels of government go uninvestigated and unpunished.” Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Index ranks Guyana among the 54 most corrupt countries in the world,” CGID declared.
The Institute observed that President Jagdeo uses the power of the state to sadistically vilify the press, citizens, political opposition, international agencies and diplomats who criticize his regime. It noted that Journalist Mark Benschop was charged with treason and jailed for 5 years without a trial; President Jagdeo revoked the license of CNS TV Channel 6 and journalist Ronald Waddled was brutally executed allegedly by a government backed “Phantom Death Squad” – a UNESCO designated political assassination.
It contended that “President Jagdeo refuses to account to the Guyanese nation. He indulges in political bullyism and suppression. He is an autocrat who engenders political instability in Guyana. This has resulted in further capital flight and brain drain to the region; a consequence which could lead to destabilization of in the wider Caribbean.
CGID called on the Heads of State and Government, dignitaries and the regional, Washington and international press corps to focus on President Jagdeo and Guyana. Zeroing in on the Caribbean media, the Institute said that Caribbean press fails to engage in investigative reporting, and urged reporters to inquire into the emergence of despotic and ethnocratic governance in Guyana.
Ratcheting up the pressure on Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo, CGID President, Rickford Burke demanded that the Guyanese leader explain to the Hemispheric Heads:
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Why known drug transporters, wanted by the Unites States and North American law enforcement agencies are only apprehended outside of Guyana?
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Why persons who have been indicted by the United States Justice Department on drug and money laundering charges live in luxury, openly and in plain view the Guyana government?
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Why he promoted Steve Merai to Assistant Commissioner of Police, although Merai’s was accused of involvement in several extra-judicial killings, caught on tape shaking down a known drug dealer and has acted as a money collector for a cocaine distributor, and reportedly being excluded from Canada by Immigration authorities?
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Why he and the PPP regime repeatedly defended convicted drug baron, Roger Shaheed Khan, and condemned his apprehension by the US DEA “rendition” and “kidnapping?”
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What is the extent of his association with convicted drug dealer Roger Khan who, in March 2008, pleaded guilty in US Federal Court to importation of drugs to the US, conspiracy and attempting to kill a witness?
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Why he personally signed a Government Order allocating a large concession of public land to Roger Khan although this transaction was condemned in the US government?
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Why, in spite of verifiable allegations of torture by the Guyana Police and Defense Force, President Jagdeo opposes a criminal investigation into allegations of torture?
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Why, although United States federal District Judge Dora Irizarry ruled on May 13, 2008 that Roger Khan’s “Phantom Dead Squad” killed over 200 persons, with impunity, and United Nations Special Advisor on Minority Rights, Ms. Gay McDogall has reported that there have been over 400 extra judicial killings and executions of Afro Guyanese young men, President Jagdeo opposes a criminal inquiry into extra judicial killings in Guyana?
Burke stressed that Guyana must be imbued with good governance, political stability, economic progress for all, good governance that is free of ethnic bias and strictly adheres to the rule of law.
He posited that President Bharrat Jagdeo’s leadership is repugnant to these democratic values, and called on the Summit to embrace political reforms in Guyana.
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