GHRA calls on major political parties to stop fueling ethnic insecurity

Warning that the country is on a path towards “ethnic confrontation” in the aftermath of the vote on the noconfidence motion against the government, the Guyana Human Rights Association yesterday called for an agreement by the two major political parties to stop fuelling ethnic insecurity.

“…Both parties are beginning to mobilise in ways that do not inspire confidence. The scenario for generating ethnic insecurity has played out so often in the past that its phases are well-known,” the GHRA Executive Committee said in a statement, having noted that the parties have repeatedly “exploited the ethnic faultlines” of the society for electoral advantage for the past 70 years.

The statement pointed to recent bomb scares as being the start of a ploy to unnerve the population in general and to discourage ethnic solidarity. The GHRA said this will inevitably be followed by prolonged controversy from both sides over the state of the voters’ list, which it described as “the tool of choice” for pressing ethnic buttons. “Television programmes fueled by righteous indignation of party political programmes cultivate intransigence and confrontation, projecting compromise as cowardice. All of this hypocrisy should be condemned and repudiated,” it added.

The GHRA further said that a serious contributing factor to the situation is the failure by successive governments to implement the major electoral reforms legally approved under the 2001 constitution reform process.

According to the statement, the call for a major agreement by the parties is intended to avoid “another dysfunctional, ethnicallydriven election,” especially since it believes that young Guyanese have a right to a future driven by as honest a political response as possible to the realities of Guyanese life. “Anything less is major inter-generational injustice,” it added.

The GHRA further noted that in sharp comparison with the political disillusionment of the older generation, young Guyanese show up in large numbers at any meeting about the future of Guyana, not only for self-interest in jobs and education but because they also have most at stake and most to lose. And as the older generation becomes more entrenched climate deniers, rejoicing over every new oil strike, it said, the younger generation looks with foreboding at a future of climate crises accelerating floods, mega-storms and drowned coastlines.

It added that although the younger generation is better informed it lacks leadership. In this regard, it said religious, professional, business, cultural and sports organisations should address that vacuum by being more pro-active in public life. “This obligation is not met sufficiently by complacent calls for peace and harmony that cost them nothing. Nor is it enough to take refuge in public conformity and private dissent. Rehabilitation of political life requires more people expressing themselves freely and plainly in a common effort to shape the principles and standards that must govern public life and the qualities we should look for in those seeking political office,” it further said.