GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Apr 5, CMC – Government has described as “ intellectually dishonest” and “politically motivated” a statement issued this week by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) that come out in defence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and their important social responsibility which includes being the conscience of society.
The GHRA was responding to what it perceives to be relentless attacks by the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) describing the latest statement by Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo as antithetical to the legacy of his party’s founder, Dr Cheddi Jagan and his call for “freedom from poverty and inequality in a new world order”.
The GHRA noted particularly, Jagdeo’s attack on NGOs which it said is based on an invented rationale of ‘hate for the PPP’. It said also that Jagdeo’s version of the purpose of NGOs goes back to the 1990s that saw the emergence of NGOs in numbers coinciding with the growth of welfare initiatives to ameliorate the Structural Adjustment programme.
According to the GHRA, this approach left the way clear for donor influences on government to be virtually unchallenged and shifted accountability of governments away from citizens in the direction of financial institutions.
It said service delivery was established as the norm of civil society organisations and NGOs which engaged in policy advocacy were viewed as an irritant to this process which effectively reduced policy matters to “technical” issues which belonged in the domain of “experts”.
The GHRA is of the view that the marginalising of NGOs from policy matters reflects the PPP’s “obsession with control of organisations of all descriptions.
“The recent onslaught against NGOs that surfaced once again at Babu Jaan was prompted not by criticisms of the government, but of ‘hatred to the ruling party’. Despite being few and intermittent, critical voices have become visible and audible sources of irritation to an increasingly authoritarian ruling party,” it said.
But in a statement, the Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister, Kwame McCoy, said that the GHRA’s statement is a “clumsy attempt to mischaracterise the forthright and justified remarks,” of Jagdeo, who is also the general secretary of the ruling party.
“To deliberately twist Dr. Jagdeo’s statements into an indictment of the entire NGO community is both intellectually lazy and politically mischievous. The General Secretary’s remarks were clearly directed at a specific pattern of conduct by certain actors, not at those NGOs that work tirelessly and objectively in the service of communities, and who continue to enjoy our respect, our partnership, and our unwavering support,” McCoy said.
He said that the GHRA, among others, “has over the years displayed a persistent and well-documented bias, the roots of which are traceable to its leadership, its origins, and its consistent alignment, both in tone and in action, with the political opposition….”
McCoy said that it is entirely within the rights of any democratic actor, including Jagdeo “to expose and call out this duplicity for what it is”.
He said that the ruling party from since its founding in 1950 “has stood as the very bulwark of democracy and constitutional reform in Guyana” and that successive PPP governments created the “very political space that organisations now use, some productively and others manipulatively, and it is precisely because we value civil society that we are compelled to defend its integrity from political infiltration.
“Our economic and social recovery strategy post-1992 was built on inclusion, openness and consultation, with civil society as a recognised partner in the process, from the design and implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme to the moral rearmament initiatives to the creation of independent rights commissions such as the Ethnic Relations Commission, the Rights of the Child Commission, and the Women and Gender Equality Commission,” McCoy added.
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