Indian heritage body says meeting with President Jagdeo disappointing
Stabroek News
September 3, 2002
Officials of the Guyana Indian Heritage Association (GIHA) met President Bharrat Jagdeo last Thursday and have assessed the meeting as “disappointing”, especially in the light of the further atrocities at Annandale the very next day.
Stabroek News had reported that last Friday during the funeral procession of notorious fugitive Andrew Douglas at Buxton, bands of gun-toting teens had rampaged through the neigbouring villages of Annandale and Strathspey, East Coast Demerara, attacking and robbing a number of persons of various valuables.
A release from GIHA’s press secretary, Narvan Singh, said that President of the association, Ryhaan Shah and Vice-President, Mark Gossai had an hour-long discussion with President Jagdeo on the current crime wave, and the issue of creating a new form of governance.
GIHA said it recommended to the President “everything from stepping up patrols on the East Coast, cordon and search of Buxton, to balancing the armed forces.”
The release quoted Gossai as saying that “the President gave the distinct impression that everything is being tried or has been tried and that he has done his best. The President was on the defensive throughout.”
According to the release, the GIHA officials said that the President “simply regurgitated all the excuses for the crime wave — it is a worldwide phenomenon, Caribbean phenomenon, new-millennium phenomenon — and even commented that when he visited Essequibo, people there were more concerned about their water supply than about crime.”
Shah observed that “at that point it was evident that the President did not see GIHA’s concern about the national crisis as urgent.”
“They left the meeting feeling dejected about a possible turnaround in the current crisis,” the release stated.
President Jagdeo told the GIHA officials, the release said, that he had asked other governments for help but they would only send advisers and no physical troops.
The President told them further that new weaponry had been ordered from Germany for the police but even at a government-to-government level, filling that order would take time.
Shah also observed that she was surprised that the President had asked nothing about the victims that were being helped through the GIHA Jahaji Fund. She said “he expressed no interest in our work with the victims. There was no human concern.”
GIHA said it indicated to the President that at minimum there should be an agreement on the principle of a new form of governance for Guyana where there should be inclusiveness for all Guyanese.
However, according to the release, Jagdeo said no one had come up with a plan of how that new form should work, but he underscored that the reformed constitution already offered inclusive governance. Shah added that “we will continue to give help to the victims as far as possible, but we had hoped to find that the President was so deeply concerned about the current situation that we would get some indication and assurance of a solution.”
GIHA said the meeting ended without a clear position from the President on a solution on the current national crisis, but Jagdeo assured the body that the government is doing all that is possible.
The association contended, however, that despite his claims, “GIHA, as all Guyana, can see the country is sliding further into anarchy.”
Meanwhile, persons who would like to make a financial donation to the association, or any victim of the current crime wave who needs help, can call the GIHA hotline: 231-7626, the release added.