200 Coalition supporters show of support for Govt
About 200 supporters of the APNU/AFC government gathered outside parliament yesterday for over seven hours. The National Assembly was hearing arguments both for and against the No-Confidence Motion brought against the government by the People’s Progressive Party.
Decked in green and dashes of yellow, the demonstrators were heard shouting “No, Jagdeo. No!” when the leader of the opposition began his speech in support of the motion.
When he ended, the crowd shouted, “Who we want? Granger!”
Coalition supporters outside of Parliament
Yvonne Ferguson, Councillor for Constituency 11 of Georgetown, said, “I am here today because I have no confidence in the PPP/C. They have killed our children brutally, and now they are coming to file a no-confidence motion against our government.
“I have 100 per cent confidence in our government, because we are carrying this country from now to 2020.”
Many demonstrators referred to extrajudicial killings while the PPP/C was in government. Heston Boswick, Chairman of the Justice for Jermaine Committee (JJC), told Kaieteur News, “It is an insult to the government to say anything about corruption, much less about the future. Under [Jagdeo]’s government, so many fathers died.”
Jermaine Wilkinson, Boswick stated, is one of the first men who died at the hands of the police under the PPP/C government. Wilkinson died on a hospital bed on May 22, 1996, after he was allegedly shot by Police Officer Robert Beresford, a member of a police Impact patrol, after he was apprehended in Albouystown.
There were days of street protests in Albouystown, before a magistrate charged Bereford with manslaughter and put him on $40,000 bail, pending the outcome of the preliminary inquiry into the charges.
In September of that year, K. Juman Yassin, the then Chief Magistrate, committed Beresford to stand trial for murder, reasoning that the evidence led during the PI substantiated the capital charge. A High Court Judge placed the policeman on $150,000 bail, pending the start of his trial.
Boswick told Kaieteur News that, to this day, no justice has been served for the life lost.
A woman was heard shouting, “Not one Black brother would support this government, because he killed too many people, he and Gajraj.”
Some government ministers greeting their supporters
Some coalition supporters from Region Ten showed up at the demonstration and said that the PPP/C government had ignored the cries of Linden, and that the APNU/AFC Government has spearheaded significant development in Linden in the last three years.
Devin Sears from Linden said, “The PPP/C had their turn and they didn’t do anything with it. The APNU/AFC government is the government of the day.”
He said that it’s impossible for the no-confidence motion to succeed and that PPP/C MPs who vote in favour of it would be voting against their own conscience because they benefit from the government’s changes as well.
At the end of the first recess of the motion, APNU/AFC supporters brought out drums, then started to play and dance, as they were met with cheers and handshakes from multiple Government ministers including Minister Ramjattan, Hughes, Williams, Daniel Patterson and the elusive Rupert Roopnaraine.
Later that afternoon, the crowd sent out a masquerade band to dance to the drums, including children dancing on stilts with Minister Hughes.
The crowd was incensed with the leader of the opposition and other opposition speakers, and were heard shouting, “Bring Jagdeo out, leh we beat he!”
The demonstrators consistently maintained that the government’s record far outweighs the work of the PPP/C while the party was in power. They said that Bharrat Jagdeo has failed to explain why the no-confidence motion was necessary.