The PNC’s insensitivity is nothing new

TIMES INT'L

Dear Editor:

The recent remarks by the Working Peoples Alliance (WPA) of not being consulted by the APNU coalition puts them behind the eight ball, so to speak. Respectfully said another way, to be part of a governing regime for two years without any knowledge as to their role points to a creeping bankruptcy within WPA’s political culture.

The PNC is simply being itself. The WPA and others were warned about a coalition with the PNC but they argued for it. Indeed, certain AFC advocates including its then party leader and a certain well-known newspaper columnist berated others for raising PNC history.

Voters were told that this is a different PNC. Voters were also told not to listen to those who preached about “rear view” politics. The coalition even used Mr. Barack Obama in a political advertisement to suggest that the past was dead.

However, this did not stop the PNC itself from announcing recently that under Mr. David Granger it was implementing Mr. Burnham’s vision and policies.

The WPA should never have united with the PNC. But having done so for the love of country, as one of its executive members once stated, the WPA should have resigned when the Walter Rodney COI was prematurely ended.

I for one grew up reading the WPA paper during those long Burnham days. I lived next to one of its loyal foot soldiers in Grove who worked tirelessly to sell that paper. The one defining characteristic of the WPA has always been its refusal to be disrespected.

What the PNC did with the aforesaid COI exceeded disrespect. It sent a message. The PNC stood its ground, the WPA did not. Having failed to do so, the WPA’s shield has been pierced.

It explains, for example, why the PNC willfully selected June 13 to announce the demotion of Dr. Rupert Roopnarine as the Minister of Education. It is to disrespect the WPA and its legacy. This PNC insensitivity is nothing new. This same PNC insisted on May 26 being the date for Guyana’s independence when that date is associated with the racial atrocities that occurred against Indians in Wismar in 1964.

In politics, the past is never dead.

 

Sincerely,

Rakesh Rampertab

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