The recognition, which Dr. King has received, is very well deserved. He led the movement for equal rights for Afro-Americans, in particular, and all people in general. Dr. King was among the foremost freedom fighters of the last century.

The movement, which he led, is relatively very recent. Today, it is hard to believe that only forty short years ago the U.S. had a virtual apartheid system.

The Civil Rights movement destroyed that.

The movement was so powerful that it has made a powerful impact on U.S. society. It opened the doors to many important social transformations in the country.

While the U.S. is one of the latest countries to recognise equal rights for all, it is also true that that society has gone a far way in advancing inter-ethnic relations.

Of course, this does not mean that racial discrimination has been totally eliminated in the U.S. Such a statement, if made, would surely be challenged.

However, what is extremely impressive is the great advancement that the U.S. has made in its race relations in a short period of time.

The experience of the U.S. is therefore very important to study for societies that have multi-ethnic populations.

Without being able to exhaust the subject and at the same time without pretending to have all the answers, it is clear that the open, constructive way that the issue has been dealt with contributed to the progress that has been made.

A second reason was of the quality of the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King. He did not allow resentment or hate of the system to cloud his judgements. He did not allow the discrimination to blind him from seeing the importance of promoting national unity.

It was a measure of his greatness that he inspired and involved the more progressive and democratic minded sections of the white population in his struggle for equal rights.

Another indisputable fact is that it was progress in this area that laid the foundation of the great progress which the U.S. has accomplished since the 1960's.

This example must inspire us in Guyana.

One of the pillars of the People's Progressive Party since its inception is national unity among all our peoples.

We have achieved a lot. Even before the U.S., we disbanded the colour bar in travelling on our public transport. The PPP government of the 1960's removed some of the symbols of privileges in Georgetown, making the schools open to children of working people and turning what was a golf-course, where the bosses of Bookers and Sandbach Parker alone dwelled, into a National Park. We won the right for all adults to vote in 1953, well before the U.S.

A lot of the gains were reversed by the PNC regime. During the period 1964 to 1992 one of the main methods of rule was the practice of racial and political discrimination.

Since 1992, the PPP has been reversing all those trends.

Now the government's efforts of putting mechanisms in place to fight racial discrimination is being realised by setting up an Ethnic Relations Commission.

Unfortunately, the process is being slowed down by the tactics of the PNC of not participating in Parliament and preventing the formation of the committees and Commissions.

What Martin Luther King demonstrated with the leadership he provided was the great progress that can be made when we work honestly and dedicatedly to bring improvements in the quality of life. He never sought to use the tremendous influence he had to promote any personal or hidden agendas; his focus was on upliftment of all his people.

Many in Guyana who call themselves leaders should spend a few moments to reflect on Martin Luther's work.

We are sure that Martin Luther would never have used criminals to attain any political goals. The thought of glorifying criminals would have never crossed his mind.

Of course, he would have been totally incapable of doing anything to criminalise youths.

Those were things that would have been completely alien to him for he understood that on such foundations nothing good could be built. Clearly, we would never be able to attain lofty goals with dirty hands.