Positions from PPP General PPP will ‘never allow’ PNCR ‘fossils’ to denigrate role of Cheddi Jagan

Ano-holds barred General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Bharrat Jagdeo, wasted no time in rubbishing the attempt by the PNCR to “denigrate” the role of PPP founder and former President, Dr. Cheddi Jagan.

The PNCR’s Hamilton Green, seated next to leader of the PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition, during a press briefing on Thursday (March 23, 2023) morn - ing, took issue with a billboard at Rahaman’s Park, Georgetown, which hailed Dr. Jagan as “Father of the Nation.” Green claimed that the billboard is “obnoxious” and it is an “absurdity” since PNCR founder, Forbes Burnham, deserves such an acclaim. He went on to list a host of ‘reasons’ why Dr. Jagan should not be referred to as “Father of the Nation”.

The PPP General Secretary charged that there is no national designation called “Father of the Nation” and supporters can, understandably, want to hail the work of their Party’s founder. However, Green’s comments went further and sought to “denigrate” the role of Dr. Jagan in Guyana’s history and development. “But he wants to denigrate the role of Dr. Cheddi Jagan. We will never allow that to happen,” Jagdeo stressed.

Taking aim at Green, the PPP General Secretary said that “no good thing” can be associated with Green’s many positions, from Prime Minister of Guyana to Mayor of Georgetown. “He was at the center of stealing elections in this country…if Norton has to go to him for inspiration and support for his cause – it is a sad state of affairs,” he said.

Jagdeo also exposed Green’s duplicity in claim- ing that Burnham was a true Guyanese who was not aligned to the “West” or the “East”, before and after after Guyana attained Independence, Burnham was on the payroll of the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Declassified documents from the CIA, exposed the fact that a CIA committee, the ‘303 Committee’ said, “Prime Minister Forbes Burnham of Guyana, who has previously received co- vert assistance from CIA, requested that the Agency provide $10,000 a month for two years to support his efforts to build his party, the People’s National Congress (PNC), into an effective, permanently organized political party.”

The declassified documents can be accessed at the following link: https:// history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus196976ve10/d365

ThePeople’s Progressive Party (PPP) is the only truly multi-ethnic political party in Guyana, according to PPP General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo.

At a news conference on Thursday (March 23, 2023), he noted that the recently released report from the United States of America’s (USA) State Department, the 2022 Human Rights Report on Guyana, made clear that, “Members of both ethnicities held senior leadership positions of the government.”

Reality, he charged, stands in stark contrast with the misinformation peddled by the PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition about racial discrimination.

He said, “Race is another tool for the PNCR…the only multi-ethnic party in Guyana by practice, policy, philosophy and membershipp.”

Norton Exposed

The PPP General Secretary noted that as recent as Thursday (March 23, 2023) morning, PNCR leader, Aubrey Norton, parroted the claim that the PPP/C is a ‘racist party’.

However, he called attention to the fact that two women, who are Indo-Guy- anese, in less than a year of Norton being leader of the PNCR, have been removed as the Party’s General Secretary. PNCR stalwart, Amna Ally, was booted when Norton took the leadership of the PNCR and Geeta Chandan-Edmond was removed recently, without explanation.

Jagdeo also called attention to the PNCR-Coalition aligned, David Hinds, for referring to Chandan-Edmonds as a “slave catcher” because of her condemnation of the calls to violence by WPA’s Tacuma Ogunseye.

The PPP General Secretary stated too that the four other PNCR members, who are also Indo-Guyanese –Coalition Parliamentarian Ganesh Mahipaul, Coalition Parliamentarian Natasha Singh Lewis, Georgetown Mayor, Ubraj Narine, and Region Four Chairman, Daniel Seeram -also condemned Ogunseye’s comments are were visibly excluded from Norton’s engagement with the recent visit by a high-level US government team.

Further, he charged that Hind’s reference to the “use” of Indo-Guyanese from AFC was also telling. At a meeting in Atlanta, United States of America, Hinds stressed that the Coalition had no purpose after the May 2015 General and Regional Elections. He said, “What we were in was an electoral arrangement with the AFC, Nagamootoo and Ramjattan, and so on. And it was strictly for elections. When the elections are over, the Coalition is really over… we make electoral arrangements to win the elections.”

The Indo-Guyanese “who were Ministers in the last government,” according to Hinds were needed because “we needed some Indian votes and they brought some Indian votes.”

Challenge The Race Card

Acknowledging the danger that the Coalition’s play of the race card poses to the fabric of Guyanese society, Jagdeo made clear that as a society such actions must be called out. “We need to confront this matter frontally. We are prepared to defend our track record of working for all people…under every successive PPP/C government, all our of our people have made progress,” he said.

The past several months have seen incidents where persons have spewed unfounded claims of racism by the current Administration. Unsubstantiated and wildly irresponsible claims – all worded along lines to stir tensions among Guyanese continue to be peddled by leaders of the PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition. The issue of racist rhetoric by the PNCR-led APNU+AFC Coalition to stir tensions has been condemned repeatedly over the past several months by PPP/C leaders.

The PNC-led APNU+AFC Coalition’s expressed intentions to “un - dermine” the Dr. Irfaan Aliled PPP/C Administration, according to Jagdeo, in prior comments, has not gone unnoticed. Jagdeo, in prior comments, had said, “People like David Hinds, who for decades misled people into thinking they represent Afro-Guyanese, had no interest in development for Guyana, much less development in the interest of Afro-Guyanese…they are parasitic… when they came into office, they had no intention of supporting Afro-Guyanese…he is smarting from the person loss of privileges that he and his family enjoyed…the bitterness stems from there… it is a dead end if they don’t drop the racism…there is room for inclusion, providing that you work for the people…you can’t bully people and you can’t lie to people…. currently, we have an ineffective Opposition Leader… more often than not, he has a shallow understanding of crucial sectors,” he stressed.

Moving forward, Jagdeo noted that the APNU+AFC Coalition must drop racism as a tool and get on board with a national development agenda – all in the interest of all Guyanese across the entire country.