Caribbean & Central America - January 2023

The issue of race continues to dominate the politics of Guyana, with the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) particularly concerned about the attempts by the opposition A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (Apnu+AFC) to draw the US into the debate.

The main split in Guyana is between descendants of slaves who originated in Africa (about 30% of the population) and the descendants of the indentured labourers from India who came to Guyana as slavery ended (about 40% of the population – the rest is mixed race or Amerindian). Guyana politics has often been a struggle between the two main communities for resources. Under the previous Apnu+AFC government, many state-owned sugar farms, predominantly employing Indo-Guyanese, were closed or downsized due to poor performance, which infuriated the Indo-Guyanese community. Now the shoe is on the other foot, with many Afro-Guyanese complaining that sugar-growing communities are getting major investments while Afro-Guyanese neighbourhoods are neglected. And the country’s newfound oil wealth has greatly heightened awareness of any perceived unfairness.

The latest escalation came with the writing of a letter dated 17 November to US Vice-President Kamala Harris signed by over 80 influential Guyanese, including legislators, lawyers, community leaders, and trade unionists. The letter urged the US administration to intervene to help stop the country’s “escalating social, racial, economic, and political injustices” inflicted on the Afro-Guyanese community.

The letter also accused the Indian-supported PPP/C government of depriving the Afro-Guyanese community of its share of the fruits of Guyana’s oil wealth. It said: “Sadly, the vile acts of discrimination adopted by the government have shut out a large portion of the citizens from enjoying the benefits of the nation’s oil wealth and national patrimony.” The letter accused the government of “economic genocide”, saying that “those unwilling to ‘toe the line’ in adherence of the regime’s autocratic governance are ostracised, marginalised, and victimised”. As an example, it said that private businesses are penalised for advertising with media outlets that are unsympathetic to the government, and that “organisations that rely on State subventions and contracts are punished and defunded if perceived to be non-compliant with the ruling PPP and its political objectives”.

Most alarmingly, the letter claimed that Guyana was “on the brink of civil unrest”. It warned that “the government is deliberately setting the stage for civil unrest, an occurrence that may only serve to compromise our fledgling democracy and create chaos and loss of innocent lives”.

The letter included a statement dated on 9 November and signed, among others, by opposition leader Aubrey Norton, declaring: “We, the undersigned, hereby call on the United States Government, the US Congress and Congressional Black Caucus, Caricom Heads of Government… the United Nations, Commonwealth, Organization of American States, African Union and all African Heads of Governments [to address] the untenable crisis of racism and corruption in Guyana. We propose an urgent Washington DC conference on Guyana’s future to ventilate and resolve the matters laid out herein”.

Guyana’s prime minister, Mark Phillips, responded to the letter by warning that the Apnu+AFC was “on a treacherous road that they hope will create civil unrest and allow the breakdown of democracy in Guyana which happened under the PNC in the 70s and 80s”. The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) is the descendant of the PNC and the main component of the Apnu coalition.