Activist Guyanese lawyer claims Afro-Guyanese increasingly ‘alienated’, discriminated against by incumbent government

An activist Guyanese attorney has claimed that Afro-Guyanese are increasingly being “alienated” and discriminated against by the incumbent People’s Progressive Party (PPP) administration of President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali in Guyana.

“Every school boy and girl know that Afro-Guyanese are alienated by the policies of the PPP in various ways,” Dawn Cush – who has practiced law before all of the courts in Guyana, the Turks & Caicos Islands, Anguilla, Barbados and St. Kitts & Nevis – told Caribbean Life exclusively on Wednesday.

“It is an open secret that all of the main contracts for infrastructural projects are given to the supporters of the PPP,” added Cush, who claimed she was terminated, under the incumbent PPP administration, as director of the Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission (CCAC), a semi-autonomous body with a board of directors. “Boards of various agencies tend to go to Indo-Guyanese. The Public Service, which is dominated by African-Guyanese, is starved for increases in wages and salaries, while monetary handouts are lavishly given to supporters in PPP strongholds. Public servants in Guyana are among the working poor.

“Every Guyanese knows that the PPP guts or seeks to control all of the institutions of the state, so that they can bend them to their will,” she continued. “As for party democracy, the PPP is known for rigging internal elections in order to get what they want or expel those who advocate democratic practices in the party.

“The PPP only believes in electoral democracy, because their main constituency is from the Indian community, who are the majority,” the attorney charged. “They are not principled adherents of the concept.”

She said there are several allegations of discrimination by the government on the grounds of race and support for the main opposition APNU/AFC Coalition.

“In my case, I was appointed the director of the Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission (CCAC) in June 2015. However, on Oct. 15, 2020, when I was serving my second contract from July 2018, I received a termination letter giving me one month’s salary in lieu of notice and my other benefits were pro-rated,” Cush said. “No reason was given. I can only assume that the government was of the view that I supported another political party.

“My own view is that this was a violation my rights under Article 149 of the Constitution and the Prevention of Discrimination Act 1997,” she added. “The latter act forbids the discrimination against persons (who) hold a particular ‘political opinion.’ There were many contract officers who were terminated using one month’s salary in lieu of notice.”

Cush, 58, said “there has been a lot said and written on the service of a summons issued by a magistrate and attempted to be served on Mr. Rickford Burke in Brooklyn, NY, USA.

“This summons is a summons to a defendant, Rickford Burke, to attend court at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court on March 28, 2024.  The summons states Burke’s address as Lot 1 Fellowship, West Coast Demerara,” she said.

But Cush added that Section 68 (1) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Magistrates) Act Cap 3:05 states: “All summonses, warrants, orders, judgments, writs of execution or other process or proceedings, whether civil or criminal, issued or taken by or by the authority of any magistrate respecting any matter within his jurisdiction shall have full force and effect and may be served or executed anywhere within Guyana  by a bailiff of the court by the police or other constable to whom they are directed, or by any other police or other constable, as the case may be.”

The lawyer said “there is no ambiguity in the legislation,” stating that “a policeman has a duty to carry out a lawful order; in this case, it would’ve been service on Burke at the address stated in the summons, if that is where he resides.

“A policeman who attempts to have a summons served on a defendant out of Guyana is not carrying out a lawful order and is doing so at the expense of the taxpayers,” she asserted, adding that “there are many pending charges against former officials of the previous administration.

“All of those charged are Guyanese of African descent, who were formerly associated with previous administration,” continued Cush. “There have also been charges brought against former ministers and senior government functionaries of A Partnership of National Unity/Alliance for Change Coalition (APNU/AFC Coalition). One matter was dismissed so far. and that was the case against former Minister of Finance Mr. Winston Jordan, who charged with misconduct in public office. There is a common perception that the charges preferred against former Minister Jordan were political in nature.”

In addition, she said several senior officials of the former David Granger administration (APNU/AFC Coalition) are facing charges of “one kind or another.”

Among them, Cush said are: Former Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson; Ralston Adams MP, a  former general manager of the Guyana Harbor Bridge; Former Minister of Health Volda Lawrence; CEO of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited Colvin Heath-London; former People’s National Congress Attorney-at-Law James Bond, MP; and political activist and People’s National Congress member Carol Smith-Joseph, “who faces charges of  fraud during the recent National Elections, misconduct in public office and conspiracy to defraud.”

“These matters, after approximately more than three years, have not been concluded,” she said, adding that court cases against three senior officials from the Guyana Elections Commission are also yet to begin.

“The saying that justice delayed is justice denied applies with particular force to these citizens whose personal lives have been adversely affected by these cases and especially by the length of time it is taking for the charges against them to be heard and concluded,” Cush stressed.

“It may be timely for us, as Guyanese, to remember the words of the 2nd and 3rd stanza of the Guyana National Anthem: ‘Green land of Guyana, our heroes of yore/Both bondsmen and free, laid their bones on your shore/This soil so they hallowed, and from them are we, All sons of one Mother, Guyana the free/ Great land of Guyana, diverse through our strains/We’re born of their sacrifice, heirs of their pains/And ours is the glory their eyes did not see/One land of six peoples, united and free.’”