Sovereignty and dictatorship

There wasn’t any talk about sovereignty when the PPP, as an opposition party, went around the globe begging governments and international organizations to intervene to pressure the Burnham Government. There wasn’t any talk about sovereignty when the PPP begged Jimmy Carter to monitor the 1992 elections. There wasn’t any talk about sovereignty when the IMF insisted that the PPP Government, after 1992, continue the structural adjustment programme originally demanded of the Hoyte presidency. There isn’t any talk about sovereignty when all Guyanese know the IMF sets the targets for the Guyana Government and those targets have to be met.

What is the difference now with a British-funded security programme and the loss of sovereignty that the Guyana Government is now crying about? Here is the explanation. The IMF, IDB, USAID, World Bank, Caribbean Development Bank, the British, American and Canadian Governments give financial assistance to Guyana, but they do not touch the way the Guyana Government runs the country. These aid donors have never demanded a role in governance so as to ensure that the Guyana Government adheres to the principles of democracy. So the Guyana Government takes international aid but never reciprocates on the issue of good governance and it gets away with elected dictatorship. The last debt relief package was championed by Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister of the UK and his position and that of then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, was that in return the recipients would practice good governance. Those were the exact words of Mr. Brown.

Since then, the Jagdeo presidency has expanded its dictatorial base. Now we come to the so-called loss of sovereignty. Did you notice that the rallying cry of Dr. Luncheon is that the if the British are allowed to implement the security sector reform the way they want to, it means that Guyana’s sovereignty would be compromised, but he does not explain in what ways. He went on to talk about the Guyanese ownership of the agreement but he stays far away from defining what he means by that and how Guyanese ownership would be in conflict with what the British want. Dr. Luncheon and President Jagdeo, I predict, will not tell the nation what the British proposals are that would undermine Guyana’s status of a proud, sovereign nation.
They will not do that because the Guyanese people will reject their arguments. Under the security sector reform agreement, the British have opted for the stationing of a few of their people on the ground here.

In other words, they will send British security personnel to work with the Guyana Police Force. This is the nightmare that the Guyana Government saw and bolted away. Why? First, the British Government is not comfortable with entrusting the programme to the Guyana Police Force because of its suspicion of a few top cops. Secondly, the British want to expand the arrangement to include a civil society component. Thirdly, they want their people to be on the ground to assess the ongoing status of the arrangement. If allowed, Guyana will join some of its Caricom neighbours in having foreign-based security personnel in the upper echelons of the police force

The nightmare for the Guyana Government is that the Guyana-based British consultants will have access to information and people that the Government under no circumstances wants them to have. Is it not interesting to hear what the American Ambassador asserted when asked about the contents of the Roger Khan file? He emphasized that after sentencing, then, the files will be shared with Guyana’s security people. It is simple to understand. The Americans do not want the information that relates to the Roger Khan confession to be in the lap of Guyana’s security officials for the same reasons that they have sealed indictments for about ten Guyanese alleged traffickers that they have kept away from the police force here.
All this talk about loss of sovereignty is a mask to hide the reality that the British consultants will know sooner than later which politician is compromised and which police officer may not be a holy man.