That was my instant reaction upon learning last week that the Guyana Government of President Bharrat Jagdeo had instructed cessation of placements of its advertisements in the privately-owned `Stabroek News’.

It is the newspaper against which the government has often complained about consistent political bias and misrepresentations of its policies and programmes, and with which relations seemed to have worsened during last year's general election.

The decision to cut off advertisements must be reversed as soon as possible. It is an unnecessary burden for a government in Georgetown that, whatever its real or perceived shortcomings, cannot honestly be accused of being opposed to press freedom or the wider freedom of expression.

No, not even in the ongoing scenario of having to routinely suffer the attacks from opposition-linked and privately-owned television stations, among them those owned and/or operated by political elements who contest parliamentary elections and seem to take pride in their anti-government programmes, some quite vicious.

My deep disappointment in the decision to cut off the flow of advertisements to the Stabroek News is rooted in my own awareness that whatever real or perceived "bias" there may be, the right to dissent is at the core of freedom of the media in a functioning democratic state -- which Guyana is internationally recognised to be.

So long as that right is expressed within constitutional parameters and not abused to violate the freedom of others, it must not be stifled in any section of the mass media.

In the case of the Stabroek News, whose Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, David de Caires, has long been known to be a strong defender of press freedom, it may not be easy to dismiss the government's claim of political bias, or to ridicule the government's stated commitment to press freedom.

The public sector-owned Guyana Chronicle, of which I am a regular columnist and contributor, has also often been accused of bias and misrepresentations by the political opposition and its media competitors, though, like the Stabroek News, it argues against such attacks.

Much of this controversy about media bias -- a charge that often erupts also in other CARICOM jurisdictions -- has to do with party politics in a multi-party parliamentary democracy. But in the current controversy over withdrawal of advertisements from the Stabroek News, it is clearly a misguided decision that should never have been made.

By this ill-considered act President Jagdeo's administration has shot itself in the foot. It is a move that smacks of the tactics associated with the old, discredited "Burnhamist doctrine" of the late President Forbes Burnham.

It was a doctrine that had reached into all aspects of governance, including crude interferences, and worse, in functioning of the country's media under the rule of the PNC.

That long 'Burnhamist' dispensation finally ended in October 1992 with the return of electoral democracy which guarantees the independently-supervised verdict of legitimate voters with their expectations for democratic governance and observance of established human rights norms, including freedom of the press.

Today's governing People's Progressive Party (PPP), currently in its fourth successive term, and with a proud record of significant recognisable economic, social and cultural achievements, has now tarnished its reputation with that inept, short-sighted decision to cut off advertisements to the Stabroek News.

"Economics and impact maximization" was the official reason initially advanced by the Government Information Agency (GINA) for withdrawing advertisements from the Stabroek News and to continue placing them in the two other daily newspapers. These are the public sector-owned Guyana Chronicle and the privately-owned Kaieteur News. The latter is reputed to have the largest circulation.

Not unexpectedly, the newspaper's Editor-in-Chief, David de Caires, lost no time in rejecting what he has dismissed as a "contrived and fictitious" explanation for what he feels to really be a "politically motivated" decision.

As one of the Guyanese-born journalists who had been dislocated by the "party paramountcy" doctrine of the Burnhamist era, and had to leave Guyana back in 1974 to continue my profession, I am distressed by this "advertisement politics" of the Jagdeo administration. I would like to strongly disagree with it, and good judgement must lead to its speedy reversal.

To start with, as President Jagdeo's advisers should know, there is a difference in reducing or varying the amount of advertisements to any section of the print or electronic media by a government and withdrawing such advertisements altogether.

There is indeed an economic argument in placements of advertisements by either a government or private sector enterprise. Advertising agencies usually provide marketing guidance to clients, using circulation and other relevant data. Regional newspapers, for which I work, including the Jamaica Observer, Barbados Nation, Trinidad Express and Guyana Chronicle, know a lot about this.

But the Guyana Government's decision seems to have resulted from unrestrained emotionalism grounded in claims of "sustained anti-government politics" and misrepresentations of its policies and programmes by the Stabroek News -- a position rejected by the editors of that newspaper.

I hope that on reflection, the Jagdeo administration, having made a point against the Stabroek News -- rather clumsily, in my view, would take the matured step of reversing the decision to ensure resumption of advertisements, whatever variations there may be.

Further, the dialogue being sought with the government by Stabroek News, and specifically with those directly responsible for the decision to cut off the flow of advertisements, should take place -- the sooner the better for all concerned.

However strongly the government feels about the role of the Stabroek News, I feel that while, at times, we may reflect differing perspectives on the governance politics of Guyana, that newspaper has evolved, under de Caires' professional guidance and well supported by the commitment of Editor Anand Persaud, as a vital social partner in the development of Guyana.

Since GINA has been at pains to explain -- expediently or not -- that it was ITS decision to vary the placement of government advertisements in the Stabroek News and NOT a politically motivated act of the government as being claimed by the newspaper editors, then the way is clear for the intervention of President Jagdeo to resolve the problem.

The President could choose to remove this strange shade of 'Burnhamist' tactics in governance, in the same spirit of cooperation that drove him to recommend changes in the provisions of the Value Added Tax (VAT) legislation in the interest of all stakeholders, foremost being the Guyanese consumers.

Frankly, I find it difficult to appreciate that either a Permanent Secretary, in the person of Dr. Nanda Gopaul, or head of GINA, like Dr. Prem Misir -- both highly qualified and experienced technocrats -- could have been so irrational in recommending an end to government advertisements to the Stabroek News.

In the absence of an identified Minister responsible for Information -- as exists elsewhere in CARICOM -- it is perhaps politically correct for the President himself to arrange for a meeting with the Stabroek News' de Caires to resolve differences and work for improved relations -- without either having to sacrifice basic principles at the altar of expediency.