Abolition of slave trade…
Lewis slams political parties for ignoring needs of African community
Kaieteur News
April 10, 2007
President of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis, has criticised political parties for their failure to address the pressing issues affecting the African-Guyanese community.
Two hundred years after the abolition of the slave trade, Lewis said, Africans are still struggling to be treated as equals.
Lewis made this disclosure during a conference last Wednesday, which was organised by the GTUC and included members of the African-Guyanese community and members of the political opposition.
The conference was held to explore the progress made by African-Guyanese since the abolition of the slave trade.
“We are second class citizens in a land our fore parents built with their blood, sweat and tears. We are still struggling for our rights to identity, expression, association, self determination and advancement,” Lewis lamented.
He said that Africans are being told that they are wrong to vote for the party/parties of their choice, that they are racist when they align with self and demand their rights to representation, equality and justice.
However, he noted that Guyana 's political history and reality are of race-based parties with each party having sprinklings of other races.
Lewis posited that the 2006 elections confirmed that there are two African- based parties - the People's National Congress and the Alliance for Change.
He said that the extent to which they are representing the African community continues to be troubling.
“It is public knowledge the African community's disappointment with these two parties in standing up and speaking forthrightly on Black issues. In other parts of the world, like the USA and South Africa , the issues and rights of race are frontally discussed. Yet in this the 21st century in Guyana we are refusing to honestly acknowledge the race factor, or to put in place mechanisms to ensure the equality and rights of all races,” Lewis told the gathering which included the AFC's 2006 Presidential Candidate Raphael Trotman and PNCR Leader Robert Corbin.
“We do not ask you to ignore your other constituents. What we have been asking is that you pay attention to the gravity of our situation,” Lewis said.
He noted that in the US , England and other developed nations, Black leaders represent African issues from various platforms.
Lewis gave the example of William Lucy, an African who is the International Secretary Treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the largest unions in the US .
He is the highest ranking African American in the USA labour movement, founder and president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), which body represents and articulates the interests of the African community by establishing linkages with leaders at the federal, state and local levels.
“We have to represent our interests for it is naïve of us to expect other groups to initiate our programme of empowerment. But we expect them to be decent citizens and hold any government accountable for acts of destruction against its citizens.
“To do so would be a noble human rights task…We invite rights' activists and advocates to be part of the solution for we cannot develop our beautiful country with half of its population oppressed and the majority in poverty as we keep afloat with narco-economic, narco-politics and narco-security,” Lewis stated.
On the business front, Lewis pointed out that the present regime has adopted a strategy to ignore the retooling and optimizing of any industry in the African community, preferring to let that industry fail.
“Millions are found to optimise the performance of the sugar industry, on the Skeldon Sugar Project and modernizing of Enmore factory, to name a few in a predominantly Indian-centered labour force.
“The government deliberately destroyed the bauxite industry's pension plan, the largest single pool of money ever owned by Africans in this country,” Lewis stated.
Compounding the situation, he said that while this is done the government instructs Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) to find money to sustain the sugar industry's pension fund in order to protect the pension of a predominantly Indian work force.
“Even the little that we have is being forcefully taken from us. This is a process of economic deprivation, of subjugation, of control, of enslavement and ultimately destruction. This is economic genocide,” Lewis claimed.
He also pointed to the criminalisation and demonisation of Africans in Guyana and the incarceration of Mark Benschop who is in prison awaiting a second trial for treason.
Lewis also expressed dissatisfaction that Commissioner of Police and his team cannot identify even one suspect in the execution-style murder of Ronald Waddell.
The GTUC president also called on the elected members to consult with him from time to time and anchor their presentation in parliament, based on issues that have direct benefits to communities.