St Lucia PM due tomorrow - talks with Jagdeo, Hoyte, civil society scheduled By Patrick Denny Stabroek News October 21, 1999 When he arrives here tomorrow, Prime Minister of St Lucia, Dr Kenny Anthony, will have the unenviable task of trying to put the CARICOM-brokered Herdmanston Accord and St Lucia Statement arrangements back on track. Dr Anthony has been assigned the responsibility for monitoring the political developments in Guyana which CARICOM undertook to oversee when it brokered the Herdmanston Accord in January 1998 following elections unrest. In his efforts to determine what progress is being made towards political stability, Dr Anthony will be meeting President Bharrat Jagdeo, PNC leader Desmond Hoyte, representatives of the PPP/Civic, the PNC, other political parties and key civil society organisations including the Guyana Trades Union Congress. It is not known whether he will try to get President Jagdeo and Hoyte to meet and talk with each other. In July 1998, he was able to stage-manage the handshake between then president Janet Jagan, and Hoyte after they had signed the St Lucia Statement. Dr Anthony's visit could be the window of opportunity for the meeting since President Jagdeo had said that he had not inherited the responsibility of being his party's representative under the Accord. However, he claims that with the annexation of the two agreements to the laws of Guyana, as Head of Government, he has that responsibility. The PNC does not accept this position as it says that agreements were signed between two political parties and not between itself and the government. It also does not accept the position advanced by the PPP/Civic that with the resignation of Jagan as president, the responsibility rested collectively with the party. The main Herdmanston Accord measures--the audit of the results of the December 1997 general elections and the dialogue process--which should have contributed to solving some of the issues which led to the intervention of the Caribbean Community have been signal failures. Neither the audit nor the dialogue process has produced the results they were intended to bring about. To date nothing has been achieved in the dialogue either before the talks broke down in February or since their substantive resumption in August. The gulf between the parties remains as wide as ever with the PPP/Civic's refusal to discuss issues which would force it to comment on governmental policies. As a consequence, no agreement has been reached on land allocation and house lot distribution, a priority issue for the PNC nor on claims of discrimination. However, despite the lack of progress neither side is prepared to break off the talks. A © page from: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples