Situation in Guyana worse than envisaged
-international labour group
Stabroek News
July 11, 2002
ORIT, an Americas labour group, will take up the issues its fact-finding mission has found to be affecting the political, social and economic well-being of Guyanese with international institutions for them to urgently come up with proposals for solutions.
ORIT’s General Secretary, Luis Anderson, told reporters yesterday that the delegation was leaving Guyana with a worse picture that what it had envisaged from reports received from the international media and its affiliates. ORIT is the Inter-American Regional Association of Workers with affiliates from as far as Canada to the north and Argentina to the south.
Anderson said one of the major concerns was the breakdown of dialogue between government and the opposition and government and civic organisations like the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC). He said there was consistency in all the discussions ORIT had with the various bodies over Monday and Tuesday.
The delegation met various bodies including political parties, some members of the diplomatic corps, unions, the Guyana Bar Association, and the Guyana Human Rights Association. The request to meet government received neither an acknowledgement nor a response, he said. Anderson described this as unfortunate since ORIT would have had a clearer picture of the situation in Guyana.
The general secretary said an image of the deterioration of the economic, political and social situation in Guyana had emerged from the evidence gathered.
He said the increased violence by what he described as paramilitary forces acting with impunity had led to this and the government seemed unconcerned.
He noted that this type of activity in Latin American countries had led to it being expanded from being perpetrated against criminals to other groups such as trade unions and political parties.
Anderson said ORIT would be sensitising the Organisation of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the situation in Guyana. He pointed out that Guyana was a large beneficiary of loans from the IDB and ORIT would be raising the issues at its next meeting in September.
Anderson stated that a meeting was held with the Auditor General and his report painted a picture of the mismanagement of funds accessed both nationally and internationally.
"The international financial institutions could pressure the government if they found that their resources given to government were not being applied in a democratic and productive way," he stated. "We will have the IDB look into how their resources are being used."
Anderson said the International Labour Organisation would also be invited to check on whether its conventions were being honoured in Guyana.
The delegation noted the deterioration in the dialogue between government and the unions representing workers and stated that this would only deepen civil strife in the country.
The socio-economic conditions would also worsen and developing countries like Guyana needed private sources for investment and would not be seen internationally as having a good investment climate, Anderson said.
He said employers had complained about the long delays in the judicial system, with cases sometimes taking as long as five years, and this also would not go down well with investors.
Anderson said ORIT met Opposition Leader Desmond Hoyte and one of Hoyte’s main concerns was the distribution of land in a manner in which, he claimed, Afro-Guyanese were being excluded.
General Secretary of the GTUC, Lincoln Lewis, said ORIT was called in after the local body lost the capacity to bring government to the table for discussions on the national situation.
Lewis said political parties and even private companies had complained about government failing to honour agreements it had signed. Government had agreed to a round table discussion on the situation proposed by GTUC in March 2000 but did not follow through to actually have the forum.