Hey VVP,

I am going to share my comments regarding the issues you raised. However, my comments will be confined to those issues only. Sorry about the lengthy piece but I think it was necessary to put things in perspective.

For the record, lets clear the air about a few basic assumptions and premises, lest I be accused of being one sided:

1) There are no innocent races in Guyana- both the PPP and PNC leaders are responsible for our predicament and ethnic division...so lets not act morally righteous and try to argue that one side was more destructive to the other. To put it bluntly, Jagan, Burnham, Jagdeo and Granger have their skeletons.  I am sure the African triumphalist on this forum, like Carib, will argue otherwise.

2) Guyana, with its ethnic division, is not unique. We do share some similar characteristics with other ethnically diverse societies like Trinidad, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, Suriname, etc. So we can learn from the experience of these societies.

3) We can also learn about how other societies have addressed their racial problems, like some European societies (Belgiun with its conflict among Dutch and French speaking peoples, and Switzerland, with 4 major ethnic groups). However, we have to be careful when using European societies as models because, unlike these countries, our ethnic problem developed historically and were superimposed and aggravated by the European colonizers. 

4) Guyana’s ruling coalition is not a unity government as supporters would claim....maybe if they can pull a substantial chunk of Indian and Amerindian  support at the next election, we can revise this statement. Nevertheless, racial antagonisms and suspicions among the two largest ethnic communities still exist in Guyana…and this election did not do much to quell those attitudes.

Regarding the questions you raised, racism can be defined a la Malcolm X and Stokeley Carmichael (Black Power activists who changed their names) as having two sets of criteria, namely,  a) people who share a cultural dislike for others who are considered culturally different and, more importantly, b) racists are people who occupy a position from which they deliberately try to inflict harm and violence against those with whom they dislike.  This is a widely accepted definition of a racist…it is more than an attitude. In a similar manner, as in politics, power cannot simply be defined as the attributes possessed by a state, its complete definition includes the ability of one country to influence another country to take certain actions it would not otherwise do.

All Guyanese share a pride in their culture and race, and while some people may not want to admit this publicly, we all do hold stereotypes and "racial views" towards each other. The racial divisions in Guyana continue to reinforce these views. .."Blacks are criminals", "Indians" are corrupt, etc.

Jagdeo was simply referring to what was common during election time in Guyana, namely the "whispering campaign" which takes place at the non-public level (Ralph Premdas and J.E Greene wrote about this in their studies of Guyanese elections). Jagdeo was reporting what he was told and knew and he made that clear in his remarks, granted it was probably a very poor choice of words. He stuck to this defense during the press conference (check the link you sent me). This does not make him a racist, as per our definition above. People like Freddie Kissoon, Chris Ram, KN and SN, all with very personal grudges against the PPP and Jagdeo (and again, I am admitting Jagdeo and the PPP contributed to this acrimonious situation) were successful in promoting the "racist label" on the PPP and Jagdeo. GECOM’s leader, through which we now have the MMU report,  also was no friend of the PPP. Look at his behavior during the election when the PPP called for a recount. As Demerara-Guy reminded us, when elections are this close, it makes perfect sense to have a recount. From what I heard from my friends in Guyana, Surujbally also had his personal grudge because the PPP was accused of firing his wife from the job she held. The MMU also took the same position (believe they were the first to do so) regarding Jagdeo.  We have to remember though that this was during an election campaign and the words Jagdeo used were in poor judgment but the "racist" label in my judgment does not hold. Thus, I think the lawsuit, brought on by Ram, who was publicly humiliated by Jagdeo at Reepu Daman’s funeral (I believe), is based on frivolous charges.       

On the issue of "fearmongering",  the PPP was reminding its supporters, many Berbicians who departed from the party, about how dred things were during the PNC years (it’s a party grounded in history…an important element to the Marxist interpretation of events)  during the campaign.  Guyana was very militarized and the police and army played a pivotal role in civilian politics in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to mass exodus of a lot of Guyanese, mostly Indians (borne out by the Guyana census records). This was a time also when during the depredations of the 1980s when “kick down the door” bandits became more brazen. Many of them were generally either ex-military or army mem with guns. This was a new kind of crime phenomenon that gripped the country. The book, “Domination and Power in Guyana : A Study of the Police in a Third World Context (1982, Hardcover) by George K. Danns (an African Guyanese) traces this evolution of the military very well. Lets not forget that two notorious criminals, Blackie London was an ex GDF Special Force graduate and Andrew Douglas was a policeman. “Before he was killed in a shoot-out in 2000, he had robbed more that $150 million dollars and dozens had been killed, kidnapped or maimed by his gang. In 1998-1999 alone, over 30 businessmen had been killed. Yet the apostle of peace and reconciliation, Desmond Hoyte, saw it fit to drape London’s coffin with the flag of Guyana” (from Guyana Times). The Mash Jailbreak of 2002 was preceded by elections in 2001, which once again precipitated protests in Georgetown and the East Coast. It should be noted that the leader of the Mash Jailbreak Five, Andrew Douglas, was a lieutenant in Blackie London’s criminal gang. Douglas and his band of terrorists (some people called them “freedom fighters&rdquo took refuge in Buxton.

You may want to look at this site for more information regarding the events of the early 2000s in Guyana: http://www.guyanaundersiege.co...itancydeathsquad.htm

In Blackie’s case, he was made a ‘hero’ and Andrew Douglas was described as a ‘martyr’. This is the kind of background that formed the basis for those comments by Jagdeo. They were not pulled out of thin air. But people have a tendency to forget, with time.