Demonstration outside the Chronicle
Written by
Friday, 06 July 2012 20:36
Source - Guyana Chronicle
POLITICAL activist Mark Benschop, Kaieteur News Columnist Freddie Kissoon, union leader Lincoln Lewis and Alliance For Change Executive Member Gerhard Ramsaroop were among a ‘handful’ of persons (the usual suspects!) who staged a demonstration exercise in front the Guyana Chronicle complex in Bel Air, Georgetown yesterday, shouting snide remarks aimed especially at the newspapers’ Editor-in-Chief Mark Ramotar and Heads of several other government led agencies, including the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN) and the Government Information & News Agency (GINA).
‘USUAL SUSPECT’: Freddie Kissoon demonstrating outside Chronicle complex yesterday.
The placard-bearing demonstrators chanted that ‘Chronicle is racist’ and called for a boycott of the newspaper, among other things. Written on some of the placards were the words: ‘Political propaganda for power and control’ and ‘Is Chronicle Office of the President mouth piece?’
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It is understood that the demonstration activity was sparked by a hard-hitting Editorial published in this newspaper on Tuesday July 3rd, 2012 under the caption, ‘Opposition rampages to sow disunity in the country’.
Lincoln Lewis bears placard.
The Editorial started off by saying: “When the opposition goes on a rampage during its intermittent forays to make the country ungovernable, innocent people get hurt – badly. People who sacrificed much and worked hard all their lives to build and sustain businesses lose everything in minutes.”
The Editorial sought to put in context the seriousness of what the racial strife sown by politicians over the years to divide Guyanese of Indian and African ancestry, has done to destroy this country with its myriad debilitating effects on the psyche of the citizens as well as the Guyanese economy.
It was also an effort to forestall a repetition of what happened in the past and what is happening now.
‘FUN IN THE SUN?’ – Mark Benschop, Gerhard Ramsaroop and another demonstrator seem to be enjoying their exercise in the hot ‘mid-day’ sun yesterday.
The conclusion of the Editorial in question stated:
“That the government’s developmental and people-empowerment initiatives have been re-generating confidence in the administration, to the extent where communities in the opposition enclaves are reaching out with trust and hope to the administration for improved living conditions and enhanced lifestyles, is inimical to their self-interested and self-centred agendas for self-aggrandizement and self-empowerment, and they are attempting to destabilize this budding unity in the Guyanese nation, and the people’s trust in the administration by whatever way possible, even to blaming the government for things which they (the opposition) are culpable
Mark Ramotar yesterday reiterated Chronicle’s quest to strive towards national unity and assure readers that their suggestions and proposals in that direction are welcomed and would find accommodation within our pages.
Yes, too much is at stake, and care needs to be taken by the people in the country that the opposition forces do not succeed in their evil intentions by sowing seeds of strife in the land once more, because it is the Guyanese people whom they are hurting.”
It should be noted, and appreciated, that the Chronicle newspaper cannot please all of its readership all of the time and unfortunately, the Editorial about which the demonstrators protested, even though well-intentioned and factually correct, was a regrettable slippage that does not represent set policy.
The Guyana Chronicle wishes to reiterate its quest to strive towards national unity and, in keeping with that goal, wishes to apologise to those who, wrongly, think that the publication intended otherwise.
We still would like to assure readers that their suggestions and proposals in that direction are welcomed and would find accommodation within our pages.
