National reconciliation urgently needed --Dr Roopnaraine Stabroek News April 13, 1999 Alliance for Guyana Member of Parliament, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine, is appealing for national reconciliation and the upliftment of the local political culture, which he said will lift the clouds of depression hanging over Guyana. During his contribution to Friday's budget debate, Dr Roopnaraine said it was with despair that people were looking upon the impasse now existing with the dialogue process between the PPP and the PNC. He is of the opinion that the process has reached a dead end. This is regrettable because Guyana would not move forward without national reconciliation, he stated. He noted that if the major political forces in a country make it clear that their priority is the people and not power, it would then be possible to make the most beneficial arrangements for economic and cultural cooperation with the relevant agencies including the private, governmental and multilateral ones. "Our power play has come to such a sad pass that even when we think there is an issue which should divide the parties, it is left to the foreign diplomats concerned to pour oil on trouble waters and say it was a genuine mistake," Dr Roopnaraine told the House. "It is sadly true that we are not a nation. That is why our divisions are so deep and so counter-productive. We not only keep behind our fences, but throw what Bernard Shaw described as dead cats across the fences at one another. These verbal `dead cats' ought to be humanely buried and not used to add stench to the atmosphere." Dr Roopnaraine recalled that the Working People's Alliance (WPA) had called for dialogue with all social forces in 1989, which was unanimously passed by National Assembly in support of the dialogue. Unfortunately, political reform was struck off the agenda and the WPA withdrew from the national dialogue and the process died, he said. Touching on the Herdmanston Accord signed by the leaders of the two parties, Dr Roopnaraine said the PPP made a historic concession by giving up two years of its term of office. He said, too, that the PNC made a tactical concession by withdrawing from the streets. "In my view, neither of the parties were acting out of weakness but they were acting out of concern for the country." The parliamentarian asserted that the process of disintegration of the nation is moving along quite forcefully but that of reconciliation is haltingly being advanced. When situations like these arise, "extremists" will arrive to sow division among the people, he stated. He told the House that those who have been involved in the struggle for the betterment of the people for a long time need to act together to defeat the "separatists". To loud hand thumping from both sides of the House, Dr Roopnaraine declared that the people of Guyana hunger for togetherness not for separation.