Guyana Chronicle
March 30, 2001

A GROUP of concerned Guyanese has organised a walk for `Peace, Unity and Reconciliation' in Georgetown Sunday and is urging every member of society to join the procession.

The group, including several young people, plans to leave the Umana Yana near Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel at 16:00 hrs and interested persons are urged to clad themselves in colours of the Golden Arrowhead, the national flag.

In a press release yesterday, they noted, "...Guyana is a rich, beautiful and bountiful paradise that could easily provide for us, its citizens and guardians, the future that we are becoming afraid of even to hope for".

"We want a buoyant economy which gives us the opportunity to thrive, clean water, electricity, communication, a good basic education for our children, reliable health services, and personal security without guns", it said.

They said this will not be possible without urgent and meaningful attention to race-relations at the highest levels of the country's political life.

The group noted that with each election, race relations reduce Guyana to nought and that Guyanese have been known to live and work side by side without hostility.

"With each election, we stop being friendly and hospitable people that we know we are and are known to be all around the world. We become suspicious and narrow minded, and in the worst cases, unfeeling, hostile and violent towards each other".

It said it would like to work with other persons who share their concerns and would like to find solutions to the political, social and economic problems that confront the society since they would like to live in and bequeath a different Guyana to the coming generations.

"...one in which we can live in the assurance that when there are issues to be dealt with the leaders can meet, discuss, compromise and develop solution which would solve problems, benefit the people of Guyana and remove the obstacles to future development.

"All we ask, and it is not too much to ask, is that all those who have a responsibility, and who have been given the honour to manage this country, do so in a fair, responsible, capable, efficient, effective manner, always with Guyana's future and not personal and political power in mind".

The group's hopes include the leaders bringing Guyana back from the brink by finding a way to really talk and listen to each other; a programme of sustainable livelihood building on the National Development Strategy to be developed and implemented; an effective basic education system accessible to all Guyanese and a stable social and economic environment which can attract local and foreign investment and expertise.