http://www.demerarawaves.com/i...t-for-lindeners.html
AFC to Seek Sugar Belt Support for Lindeners
Written by Kwesi Isles
Monday, 23 July 2012 14:06
The Alliance For Change (AFC) says it will be going to the heart of the PPP/C government’s support base seeking solidarity for Lindeners who are protesting against an electricity tariff increase and the killing of three protesters in clashes with police.
This is according to party executive member Gerhard Ramsaroop who was speaking to reporters during a picketing exercise at the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday. Prime Minister Samuel Hinds has responsibility for the energy sector.
About 30 persons were on the picket line and Ramsaroop was responding to a question on why the visible support was not greater.
“It is a result of leadership; I mean I will have to take some responsibility in that our political leaders have been failing us over the years. Persons have become very apathetic, persons believe, especially with all the events past, that it’s just going to blow over.
We intend to keep up the pressure and we’re going to take the message into the sugar belt,we’re going to remind the sugar workers how workers traditionally stood by each other in Guyana dating from since 1924 when you had the Ruimveldt massacre. The Indian sugar estate workers from Ruimveldt came to Georgetown to support Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow’s strike and 13 of them were gunned down, 22 were injured,” Ramsaroop stated.
He added that in 1971 bauxite workers from Linden marched to Georgetown to support the sugar workers against the then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
"We’re going to go with a message of unity out to the sugar belt and into the other regions of Guyana to spread that what is happening in Linden is a human rights issue."
The AFC official acknowledged that it would be an uphill battle against the PPP/C information machinery but added that they could not allow the issue to just slip away.
We’re at the precipice …our people must finally stand together," .
Ramsaroop declared
Also addressing the issue of solidarity political scientist of the WPA David Hinds who posited that the society had become "numb" and that the government had "criminalised" protests.
"People are fearful of losing their jobs, people are fearful now of being killed and so we understand that. Those of us who are out here are here to dramatise to them that they need to come out and that it is possible to protest in this country," he said.
According to Hinds, any further action on the part of those protesting in solidarity would depend on the lead of the Lindeners and what happened over the next week or two.
Linden has traditionally been a stronghold of the PNCR which forms the backbone of the opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity while the sugar workers’ votes have gone largely to the ruling PPP/C over the decades.