My readers will have to bear up. I know most of you want more of my take on the implications of the killing of George Bacchus. I have more to say but I cannot say it at this time because of the principle I uphold when it comes to the dead. But I do have much to say and when I say it this country is going to be shocked.

Today I want to deal with another issue, but one that is no less important: the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the PNCR and the main opposition in Suriname.

One of the things that I have always agreed with our President on is his position that a precondition for any shared governance arrangement must be trust. This critical ingredient has been lacking in our local politics, and not without justification, as could be seen from Friday’s protest action.

Friday’s closure of sections of the commercial area made a sham out of the Rule of Law marches and demonstrates that

there never was any real commitment to abide by a new standard. I have not heard Uncle Ravi as yet on this issue!

There are numerous examples where the PNCR has by its actions shown that it cannot be trusted. We can begin with just after the PPP came into office in 1992 and the parties had an arrangement in relation to the Mayorship of Georgetown. Later we had the situation in the 1997 elections where the PNC agreed to a voter identification card but after the elections, challenged the constitutionality of the card in its election petition.

When the PNC scraped home with a minor majority in the regional elections in 2001, it failed to demonstrate the principles of shared governance and gobbled up the power within that region. Then when leader of the Working Peoples’ Alliance (WPA), Dr. Rupert Roopnarine made a proposition that trust can be developed and tested by the sharing of power at the local government level, the PNCR rejected this on the grounds that what matters is power at the centre.

Throughout its engagements with the Guyanese people, the PNCR seems to be concerned with executive power.

Despite being snubbed consistently, the PNCR continues to call for shared governance. I am a bit surprised at the timing of Mr. Hamley Case’s recent letter in which he again makes a pitch for power sharing. Does the PNCR still want to share power with the PPP - the party that it accused a few days ago of murdering George Bacchus?

Trust is what is needed and I am afraid the evidence is not so good. The PPP simply does not trust the PNCR. If the PNCR wants its power sharing proposals to be taken seriously it will have to demonstrate that it has no designs on the unconstitutional usurping of power, neither will it use any concessions to outfox the PPP from power.

The PNCR must understand that deep in the psyche of the PPP lies the fear that if the PNCR is invited into the executive, it will cripple the government, force a constitutional crisis and unseat the ruling party.

This is the paranoia that grips the PPP and it springs from that party’s age-old experience with Burnham, Hoyte and now Corbin. Last Friday’s events in the city will only serve to confirm to the PPP that all along they were right about the PNCR.

As much, however, as the PPP is distrustful of the PNC, there can be no justification for the hyperbolic reaction to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the PNCR and the main opposition in Suriname, led by Mr. Desi Bouterse. This innocuous document that was signed between the two sides have had Stabroek News’ Sunday editor hitting the roof.

And perhaps the shock that the PNCR could be criticised in a Sunday editorial of that newspaper has driven the government to jump into the fray and fire all kinds of false accusations against the PNCR.

The reaction of Press Liaison to the President, Mr. Robert Persaud, to the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding reflects the paranoia that grips the PPP. The PPP is totally suspicious of everything that the PNCR does. If Corbin stretches out a friendly handshake to them, they may want to examine his hands first before accepting the gesture. This is how suspicious they are of the PNCR.

This mistrust between the two main political parties serves no constructive purpose when it leads to the type of hyperbole about the MOU singed between the PNCR and the opposition party in Suriname. There is nothing so far revealed about that agreement which compromises the sovereignty of Guyana.

There is nothing in that document that can justify the Stabroek News assertions about the PNCR conducting its own separate diplomacy across the border. There is nothing reported to suggest that the PNCR is pursuing a separate border policy and there is nothing to suggest that Corbin was, as the Stabroek News editorial contended, getting involved in the domestic politics of Suriname.

There is nothing, as Mr. Robert Persaud is claiming, to justify that the PNCR wants to articulate its own border policy. And even if this were the case, it is not unknown for government and opposition to have differences over foreign policy issues and approaches.

In the recent elections in Spain, the party which prevailed had indicated clearly that it would pull its troops out of Iraq and was at odds with the official policy of involvement in the war.

I simply do not buy into that theory that historically in this country government and opposition have always taken one position on various border initiatives. This is simply not true. Both sides may have always been in unison when it came to ensuring that we did not surrender an inch of our territory but approaches have always been subject to criticism from one side or the other.

So even if Corbin had articulated a separate border policy, there would have been nothing wrong with this.

The PPP and the Stabroek News editorial may be on more solid ground when it expresses concern over Corbin’s decision to forge relations with a man who was convicted in absentia in the Netherlands for drug trafficking offenses; a man whose human rights record is scarred by the execution of some fifteen persons, including trade union leaders, upon talking power in the eighties.

This is a more credible ground for criticism rather than raising phantoms about the Memorandum of Understanding.

The signing of the MOU represents an initiative that should be closely followed so that we can determine whether it represents an important policy departure by the PNCR. Having relations with other parties is nothing unusual, but as I indicated we need to assess this new dispensation by the main opposition to see what it’s driving it.

Rather than raising unjustified fears, the government and the Stabroek News should be asking whether this initiative, like the Bacchus affidavits, had the backing of the Central Committee of the party.

Were the members of the leadership briefed about these developments and did they consent to the MOU with Bouterse? And would it not have been much better if the party’s General Secretary had signed the MOU?