THE AFC CANNOT PULL OFF A MASS PROTEST

The AFC is incapable of launching a mass protest in Guyana. It simply does not have the capacity to do so.
As a middle class party, the AFC does not enjoy the degree of mass support to pull off a major protest. As such, its political activism will inevitably have to be restricted to a few, small protests, comprising a handful of persons, often in conjunction with other groupings seeking the public limelight, or through the use of press conferences to make its case.
Given its lack of mass support, the AFC could not have been responsible for what took place at Agricola. The AFC does not and will never have that political reach. It can, however, piggyback on other protests or inflame tensions with its rhetoric.
The rhetoric is likely to be turned up as the AFC tries to deflect from its own internal problems. There is growing factionalism within the AFC camp.
On the one hand, there is a faction that believes that the AFC must stick to the rotational formula for the next election and hand over the presidential candidacy to someone else other than the present leader. This is being resisted by another faction that is interested in ensuring that the incumbent leader remains for the next election, since he brought greater success to the party by employing a strategic approach, which sees the party today holding the balance of power between APNU and the PPP/C.
In the face of this budding factionalism, there is bound to be some “playing to the gallery” by persons. Divisions also exist within the AFC over the approach being taken by the Speaker of the National Assembly. Then there is the fallout within the party over the divisions of the spoils of the last elections with former ROAR members, who had campaigned strongly in PPP strongholds, being sidelined after the elections.
It is not likely, however, that the differences, divisions and factionalism will cause the AFC to splinter. There is a limit to how much a small party can split, and any splitting of the AFC will render it non-existent.
In any event, the middle class, from which the bulk of the support of the AFC is drawn, will try hard to make the alliance work. The middle class has clearly found a party of its liking and the factions within the AFC know that should divisions become enlarged, the middle class will abandon ship like they did with the Working People’s Alliance when the Burnham dictatorship applied the pressures on that party in the late seventies and early eighties.
The finger pointing by the AFC is therefore part of political gamesmanship. The PPP is playing politics when it says that the AFC and APNU were part of what took place at Agricola, and the AFC is also playing politics when it attributes the events of last Thursday to statements made by the Head of the Presidential Secretariat.
This is not the first time that the PPP/C has indicated that it is ready to rumble with the opposition. And if that statement is deemed provocative, then those that have emanated from within the AFC can be said to be inflammatory.
From day one after the elections, the opposition has picked fights with the ruling party and government, and the government has been rumbling with them for close to one year.
The opposition has made a mess of trying to build political cooperation. They have fought the government from day one and the government has rumbled, tumbled, stumbled, jumbled and even at times mumbled, in its attempt to prevent the opposition from trying to dictate executive policy and action. It has resisted the designs of a power drunk opposition in parliament, in the negotiating rooms and in the courts. It has taken its blows and it has plodded forward with its developmental plans.
The other inexplicable excuse given for last Thursday’s mayhem was preferential treatment that was said to have been given to the police rank charged with murder.
Unfortunately, the media have to accept much of the blame for cultivating this idea of preferential treatment for police ranks charged and placed before the courts. For many years now, the media have been highlighting what happens to members of the force after they leave the courtroom. The media have shown scenes of ranks being held outside of cells in the court lockups and being transported in the cab of the prison vehicles.
The media apparently are not aware of the process of segregation of certain prisoners, which is standard practice in prisons in all parts of the world. What happens with police officers charged and remanded to prison in Guyana is no different to what exists in other parts of the world. This treatment cannot be considered as preferential treatment.
Recently, a police officer in the United States was found guilty of murder. He will be sentenced soon and will most likely get life without parole. This means that he will never be a free man again. Despite him not having the possibility of returning to civilian life, the prison authorities will have to keep him segregated from the rest of the prison population for his own protection.
When someone is convicted, that person does not lose the protection of the State. Even guests of the State have rights and prisoners enjoy protection of the State. Indeed, the prison authorities have an obligation to protect those who are jailed or remanded.
As such, certain prisoners, because of the jobs they had in civilian life, have to be kept segregated. The same thing happens with high-profile prisoners. They too enjoy what is known as protective segregation. Child molesters are likely to be brutalized in prison and therefore they are often also segregated from the rest of the prison population.
The fact therefore that a policeman charged with an offence is transported in the cab of the police vehicle does not constitute preferential treatment. That person, because of his job, cannot be placed with the rest of the prisoners. They would maul him to death. To place a remanded or convicted police officer with the rest of the prisoners would be irresponsible of the authorities and constitute a dereliction of their duty to safeguard those in their custody.
The Guyana Human Rights Association knows this all too well, but has never said anything in the face of media reports that have perpetuated this view of preferential treatment.