Submitted by Rickford Burke

I am constrained to express strong objection and profound disappointment at comments made by Co-Chair of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Ms. Sheila Holder, on Sunday April 11, 2010, on Demerara Wave’’s internet radio program, “Periscope on Politics.” On several occasions during the interview with Messrs Dennis Chabrol and Lloyd King, Ms. Holder contemptuously inferred and stated that the 1997/1998 street protests in Guyana were designed to “terrorize” and have caused “injury and grievous harm to our ethnocentric society.” Ms. Holder then dismissively and derisively argued that “taking to the streets to terrorize and force the PPP to act is an exercise in futility, Mr. Hoyte tried it but what did it deliver?”

I hold Ms. Holder is good regard. However, for her, as a leader of the AFC who seeks the support of the said people, to denigrate them as “terrorists,” is appallingly ludicrous and abominable. Moreover, for her to state that former President of Guyana and Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Desmond Hoyte, tried “terrorism” to force the PPP to act is opprobrious and irresponsible, and must not be allowed to contend.

The period to which Ms. Holder refers is the days immediately following the 1997 elections, when the then Chancellor of the Judiciary, Mr. Cecil Kennard, knowingly violated the order of then Chief Justice Desire Bernard, and unlawfully swore in Mrs. Janet Jagan as President of Guyana, even before all of the votes were counted and before the election results were declared, in violation of the Guyana constitution.  The law requires that the votes be counted and the election results declared before the President is sworn in. This is fundamental in any modern, democratic society that upholds the rule of law.

This notwithstanding, the Guyana constitution also states that once a President has been sworn in, no court shall inquire into the election of the President, except pursuant to an election petition challenging the validity of that election, brought in the Supreme court. Faced with no immediate legal recourse, Mr. Hoyte decided to apply political pressure on the PPP government, and took his supporters to the streets to protest this electoral crime and grave injustice that was perpetrated against the Guyanese people.

As a former Special Assistant to President Hoyte, I took time off from school and traveled to Guyana for the 1997 elections. I was at the side of Mr. Hoyte, along with the leader of Ms. Holder’s Party – Raphael Trotman, then a PNC executive, when he took to the streets to fight for justice, equality and the human dignity of the people of Guyana.

These sustained, massive protests brought business and governance in Guyana to a halt, and led the Caricom Heads of Government to intervene. A delegation of Caricom Heads, led by then Caricom Chairman and Prime Minister of Jamaica, P. J Patterson, came to Guyana to attempt to ease tensions. Their intervention led to negotiations and the consequent signing of the “The Herdmanston Accord” in 1998 between Mr. Hoyte and Mrs. Jagan, as well as to the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry, headed by former Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. Ulric Cross, to inquire into the elections, recount the votes and audit the ballots.

Mrs. Jagan was also forced to agree to cut her term in office in half and to join with the PNC in the Parliament to enact major constitutional reforms, to bring about more fairness in the electoral and constitutional processes, and to broaden the powers of the political opposition, as a stakeholder in the governance of the country.

The Cross Commission found major irregularities in the elections, including the issuance of over 42, 000 extra identification cards more that the actual electorate; i.e the Elections Commission had issued 42,000 more ID cards than the total number of people eligible to vote.

The political instability was exacerbated, and the protests became violent, when upon instructions from Mrs. Jagan, the Guyana Police shot, injured and killed some of the protestors. As a result, both Mrs. Jagan and Mr. Hoyte were invited to attend the Caricom Heads of Government Conference in St. Lucia later in 1998, where the St. Lucia Statement was signed, mandating further reforms.

However, before Mrs. Jagan departed for the St. Lucia summit, she conspired with the Commissioner of Police and clandestinely declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in Guyana, without announcing this to the public. This allowed the Police to enforce marshal law and to shoot at citizens who unknowingly violated the curfew. This Stalinist tactic was repugnant to the fundamental constitutional rights of the people and the values of a democratic society and therefore raised the ante and enraged the population.

What was even more egregious is that, when confronted in St. Lucia about the state of emergency which she had declared, Mrs. Jagan denied doing so. I was therefore tasked with forwarding a copy of the instrument imposing the state of emergency to the then Deputy Secretary-General of Caricom, Dr. Carla Barnett and the then Prime Minister of St. Lucia, Dr. Kenny Anthony.

Most important, however, the PNC later filed an elections petition in the Supreme Court. On January 15, 2001, having heard submissions, Justice Claudette Singh ruled that the 1997 elections were unconstitutional and “vitiated” the results of the elections. Later on January 26, 2001 Justice Singh further held that the incumbent Government would remain in office until new elections were conducted.

I have elaborated on the facts and circumstances that led to the street protests in 1997 /1998, not only to demonstrate how wrong, misinformed and misguided Ms. Holder is, but to emphasize that, contrary to her elitist , inflammatory postulations, those protests were justified and exceptionally effective. Apart from the benefits I enumerated above, the protests also led to the reconfiguration of the allocation of Parliamentary seats and other constitutional reforms; some of which Ms. Holder, as a Member of Parliament, and her party – AFC, are beneficiaries and enjoy to this day.

It is also instructive to note that the PPP regime remains intransigent to this day, and has maliciously refused in institute some the reforms agreed to in the to in the “The Herdmanston Accord” and St. Lucia Statement.

It is distressing that Mrs. Holder castigates as “terrorist,” the people of Guyana who protest against PPP marginalization and ethnocratic governance, corruption, governmental injustices and abuses, government-sponsored death squads, extrajudicial killings and mass murders. These are the same people whose votes she and the AFC seek. It is this level of capriciousness and superciliousness from politicians that have engendered the malaise, cynicisms and apathy that permeate the Guyanese society today and diminish the hopes and dreams of the nation.

Ms. Holder’s comments are an unfortunate manifestation of her stunning gullibility with respect to the narrative of the nefarious PPP ethnocracy, which remains intransigent to the principles of a multi-ethnic democracy, and constitutional guarantees that reject marginalization based on race. I wish to proffer to Ms. Holder that if there were any acts of terrorism during the period to which she referred, those acts were perpetrated by thugs in the PPP regime, who committed and continue to commit grave atrocities and injustices against the Guyanese people.