Many voices

In the Press Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders last year, Guyana secured a commendable 34th place out of the 180 countries reviewed. “Guyana … saw substantial improvement in the 2022 Index, thanks to its robust media landscape, as well as the fact that journalists generally operate in a safe environment without fear of violence or physical attacks,” RWB said. Whether it will maintain that ranking this year remains to be seen, but what can be said is that the atmosphere in which local journalists and government critics in general function at the moment feels a bit less secure than it did.

It is not that the formal press is subject to direct censorship – the state paper being a special case – it is that a climate of insecurity can be created for journalists and in fact all critics via means which were never available to earlier authoritarian-inclined governments. The untamed beast of social media where news and views are transmitted unedited through the agency of iPhones and computers have far more impact on citizens nowadays than do the newspapers. And what the proposed draft cyber law might involve has yet to be studied.

Despite all President Irfaan Ali’s glib assurances about a preparedness to listen to “constructive criticism” the reality is that this government is hostile to all forms of criticism, and after more than two-and-a-half years in office no contrary viewpoint has been expressed which it has deemed ‘constructive.’ It seems to believe that the country can speak with one voice, a concept which is inherently anti-democratic, since the whole notion of democracy encompasses the concept of many voices. If the entire nation thought alike, there would be no need for a democratic framework at all.

The PPP’s problem has always been that it has a very narrow definition of what constitutes democracy. It regards it as being a matter of free and fair elections, and then untrammelled power to the winner of these, even if that winner has only a one-seat parliamentary majority as is currently the case. Since it is not in a position to forcibly suppress what it regards as irksome opinions, the ruling party resorts to contumely, belittlement and misrepresentation of both a direct and indirect kind in a bid to intimidate independent speakers into silence. It is not, as has been observed before in these columns, a method which recommends itself as having the potential for success, although if the hogwash on the internet and elsewhere is inflammatory enough it could potentially incite the more extremist supporters of Freedom House to act outside the limits of the law.

It may be that government reactions are even more intemperate than usual because local government elections are due, and the ruling party wants to demonstrate that it has sweeping support

across the land, including in traditional opposition areas. It might be noted that even under normal circumstances, the PPP/C takes the bulk of the local government seats for the simple reason that its support tends to be found in rural areas where there are more councils, while that of the PNCR/APNU is more concentrated in urban centres. This time around, of course, with the utter incompetence of the opposition and oil money sloshing around the government feels itself in a position to woo the African voter. While it is impossible to say just how many of these votes it will attract, one suspects that turn-out in African locales will be low, a reflection less of support for the ruling party, than disillusionment with the performance of its political opponents.

Certainly while speaking at Babu Jaan at the end of last month Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo urged supporters to use the internet to defend the party. “So today when we fight the naysayers, many people think we are intolerant of criticisms,” he said. “We are not intolerant of criticisms, we don’t hate NGOs… We are just fighting to defend our records. We will fight tooth and nail every single day to speak about the record and achievement of this party and if we don’t do it, if all of you who are here don’t set up a Facebook page or Instagram page or something else and join that fight, they will succeed again… They have some in the media who support this narrative.” It seems many have taken note of what he wants.

In a letter to this newspaper three days ago, 26 environmental and human rights activists, as well as members of a grass-roots NGO decried the “verbal attacks, denigrating comments, erroneous accusations, name calling and threats against journalists, NGOs, environmental activists and human rights defenders” over the past month. These, they wrote, “originated from several sources, including senior members of Government, individuals who appear to be paid or unpaid advisers, social media personalities, columnists and anonymous Facebook page operators,” and some of the comments included threats. They singled out the recent cases of smear campaigns against Davina Bagot, a Kaieteur News reporter, and Nazima Raghubir, President of the Guyana Press Association.

Dr Randolph Persaud, an advisor to the President, wasted little time in expressing his contempt for the group of 26, as he called them, in the state newspaper. While the PPP/C was “busy doing actual work for the people of this country” the group “only engage in letter writing”, with the confidence that they will be published in Stabroek News in particular. He continued on in this vein, alleging that the group had no contact with the grass-roots of the country, (never mind that Red Thread members have always worked among grass-roots women), that they were “urban politicos”, that they were only concerned about foreign conferences, and most significantly, that they were “innovative” about “grabbing the attention of the diplomatic corps, who incidentally is their main audience.”

And here, perhaps, lies the government’s primary concern: it does not want the critics to influence the diplomats. It is not unaware that the representatives of Western nations stationed in Guyana have a different perspective on the matter of democracy and the importance of freedom of expression. It will not be insensitive to the fact that such representatives are unlikely to be persuaded by the administration’s position, which is another reason why it will be doubly anxious to demonstrate it has a significant following among APNU voters. This, the PPP/C hopes, will show the international community that the whole country stands behind it. In addition, the party might be banking on the fact that Guyana, as a new-found oil state, will not be leaned on too heavily by the foreign heavyweights. When the actual safety of critics is put at risk, however, it will undoubtedly find it gets no sympathy.

As the 26 signatories to the letter indicated, this is taking place while the Conference of Parties to the Escazú Agreement in Argentina is underway. This is a treaty which includes provisions to protect human rights defenders in environmental matters, and Guyana has signed it. Of course the ruling party is something of an old hand at signing international agreements whose provisions it then subsequently ignores, and so it is in this case. In the event it never bothered to read it before, perhaps it and Dr Randolph Persaud might now like to cast their eyes over Article 9, which is summarised in the letter and deals with the necessity of a “safe and enabling environment for persons, groups and organizations that promote and defend human rights in environmental matters …”

And while they are at it, they might also look at Recommendation 6 on the International Press Institute’s list for what democratic governments must do to better protect press freedom. We published it in an editorial on World Press Freedom Day last year: “Attacks on journalists and media workers are the most serious form of censorship — and are an attack on democracy itself. Democratic governments should therefore demonstrate their commitment to protecting the work of the press by vigorously defending journalists from verbal harassment, online and offline, and from physical threats, assaults, and harm.” It seems Mr Jagdeo, at least, is not familiar with it.

No government is perfect, and this one in its previous incarnations has some serious mistakes to its credit. It is now operating in a very much more complex environment of which it has little experience and it needs to listen to outside views, whether these be from environmentalists, human rights activists, independent economists or whoever. And the duty of the press has not changed in this more complex environment; it must still act as a watchdog for the public, and to do that it must be free to ask questions and provide a forum for those who have a rational position to set forth.

All governments are irritated by criticism, but all governments try to silence it at their peril. Guyana lacks the protections in the form of autonomous institutions that more mature democracies have, so it is especially important that the press be allowed to perform its functions unhindered by any attempts at intimidation from official sources.

As a caveat it might be added that what applies to the government also applies to the opposition. APNU has now issued an apology following the verbal abuse and cursing of a state news reporter by its chief scrutineer Carol Joseph. It doesn’t matter that the reporter worked for the the principle is the same.