Tacuma Ogunseye was once a Member of the
Executive Committee of the Guyana Peace Council during the late 1970's and
early 1980's.
At
that time, the Leadership of the Peace Council comprised of Cheddi Jagan,
President, Clarence Drayton, Vice-President, and Harry Ramdass,
Secretary/Treasurer.
Other Members of the Executive Committee were Khemraj Bhagwandin, David
Westmaas, Annette Ramrattan, Dalchand, Joshua Ramsammy and myself.
Ogunseye made very
useful contributions to the activities of the Peace Council.
He also represented the organization abroad.
Out of the Peace
Council emerged the Committee for Solidarity with the Peoples of Southern
Africa. Ogunseye was also active
in that Body. His Pan-Africanist
orientation, no doubt a result of
his upbringing in ASCRIA; The African Society for Cultural Relations with
Independent Africa helped contribute to the success
of the Solidarity Committee.
Incidentally, this
Committee was launched in the early 1970's during the visit of President
Samora Machel of Mozambique to Guyana.
Dr. Walter Rodney had just returned to Guyana and one of his first
speaking engagements was at a Solidarity Meeting with the People of Southern
Africa held at NACCIE Headquarters on High Street, Kingston.
Ogunseye and myself
worked together in the Solidarity Committee to realize this activity.
Later, Ogunseye
emerged as one of the key WPA negotiators within the Leadership of the
Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD).
He was instrumental in helping to finalize the draft PCD Joint Platform
on the assumption that the PCD would contest the 1992 elections with a
Consensus Presidential Candidate, a Joint Slate and a Common Programme.
But this was not to
be. Previous debates in the
letter columns of this newspaper and “Peeping Tom” revelations have dealt
expansively with this matter.
The lesson to be
drawn from these two experiences is that Ogunseye has demonstrated he can work
effectively in a multiracial organizational structure and can make
constructive contributions to the search for peace, economic and social
development.
With the assumption
to office of the PPP/C in 1992 and the winning of successive elections
thru’ 2001, Ogunseye adopted
a hostile position towards the PPP/C Administration.
He has publicly
espoused his philosophical, ideological and
political views time and again. I
need not repeat them here.
History is replete
with many examples that show how persons who once participated in mainstream
liberation struggles whether by virtue of their involvement in a political
party or a broad based movement, and having fought against a dictatorship for
the establishment of democracy, eventually change and adopt what would
conventionally be termed
“extremist “or “reactionary”
positions. Such persons
eventually end up opposing their
one-time ally now democratically
elected to office accusing them of
“betraying the goals of the liberation struggle”.
In many countries
where independence or national liberation struggles were fought and won by
organized Parties or Movements there are persons who were once active in
those parties and movements but who
subsequently developed strong differences either of a tactical,
strategic or opportunistic nature within the Movement or Party either
before or after victory. These
dissenters finally ended up opposing what
they once helped create, build or support.
We had this
experience with many in the PPP beginning with Burnham in 1955 and ending up
with Ranji Chandisingh, Vincent Teekah and others in the mid 1970's and more
recently, Khemraj Ramjattan.
Here in Guyana, the
PPP with an unblemished record as
a fighting party for national independence , peace, economic and
social progress came to
power in 1992.
But today,
considering the way the debate is
raging in certain circles, it appears that the biggest sin the Guyanese
electorate has committed on this Nation was to elect the PPP/C to Office.
Some have even
given a philosophical, socio-psychological and ideological twist to this
“injustice” thus laying an intellectual basis justifying
their thoughts and actions.
The intellectual
basis for this approach was laid by
Dr. Kean Gibson in her book; “The Cycle of Racial Oppression in Guyana”.
Afro-Guyanese are
now deemed “the African Minority” oppressed by the “Indian Majority”
who now control the economy, the State and Government machinery.
Those who preach this view are
seeking to replay the old colonial game of divide and rule.
The staunchest
advocates of this School
of Thought are Tacuma Ogunseye, Jonathan Adams, David Hinds, and Clarence
Ellis. The public will pass
judgement whether the actors who uphold this
controversial theory are following a settled rule of behaviour or
pursuing their own arbitrary desires.
According to this
School of Thought, Afro-Guyanese will never win political power through
free and fair elections even with a satisfactory voters’ list.
ACDA is a firm believer of this view and has called for a boycott of
the upcoming elections.
What is demanded
is Constitutional Reform before the elections to facilitate “Shared
Governance” based on a “Grand Alliance of all stakeholders”.
None of this is
likely to happen before the elections, not because the PPP does not want it,
but because there is no mood in the country for Constitutional Reform to
facilitate “Shared Governance”;
Secondly, because the opposition parties are disunited over the issue
of “Shared Governance” and thirdly, because there is a lack of interest in
any genuine pre or post electoral
“Grand Alliance”. So where does this take us?
From all
indications a political/military strategy seems to be unfolding
to achieve this objective.
Recently, a
caricature of Ogunseye’s “Grand Alliance” emerged at Cuffy Square
and declared that it will
“take to the streets” to press its demand for
verification of the Voters’ List.
Firstly, this
tactic seems linked to achieving the strategic goal of Constitutional Reform
and “Shared Governance” before
the elections which is in keeping with ACDA’s and Ogunseye’s call to the
Parliamentary Opposition Parties and all other Parties contesting the
elections. Secondly, we now know,
based on statements made by Ronald Waddell in October 2005 and as recent as
April 2006, in a letter by Ogunseye
that there exists clandestine
military organizations in Guyana called the “African Guyanese Armed
Resistance” (AGAR) and the “Buxton Resistance”.
Waddell had spoken
about the “Buxton Resistance
who are fighting to defend the African nation in Guyana”.
He described this group as the “Armed African descendants”.
We do not know whether Ogunseye and
Waddell were speaking about the same group of armed persons because Ogunseye
in his letter said he wanted to “distinguish AGAR from the other forms of
African Resistance to the ruling PPP Administration”.
What is clear
however, is that there is now a public admission that there is a politically,
ideologically and philosophically motivated
armed group or groups waging low intensity warfare against the democratically
elected PPP/C Government.
This is the
military dimension of a political
strategy to overthrow the PPP/C Government.
But the matter does
not end here, because Ogunseye makes a rather revealing statement in his
letter;
“Given the ethnic and political history of our security
forces it is very
unlikely that the PPP/C Government can militarily defeat an African Armed
resistance”
The degree of
confidence here is remarkable. Does
Ogunseye mean that the
disciplined forces of this country provides “AGAR” with
an institutional base from which it can replenish it ranks, and that
Afro-Guyanese villages will
provide safe havens for
“AGAR” and its likes irrespective of the dangers such support will expose
these villages to?
The Joint Services
should take note of this.
Both Waddell and
Ogunseye have sought to establish a moral basis for appearing to act morally.
Ogunseye has stated five pre-conditions to a solution he claims is the
answer to the Nation’s problems. Interestingly,
these pre-conditions are based on the claim that an “oppressive
dictatorship” is in power in Guyana, thus by introducing this notion of
an “oppressive dictatorship”,
Ogunseye in effect provides the State with the justification to defend itself
since the initiation of force of arms to
remove a democracy is wrong and
may be justly resisted.
In seeking to
establish moral grounds for the
actions of the “Buxton Resistance”, Waddell for his part not only invoked
God he claimed that they are “fighting to protect the African Nation” and
that what they were doing was “good and
righteous”. Thus good and righteousness is advanced as sound moral grounds
for pursuing whatever means
necessary to achieve victory or to punish the enemy viz; the “Indian
Majority” and the PPP/C.
It is as if a moral
case has been made out to convince the public that both the “AGAR” and the
“Buxton Resistance” are fighting a just war.
This brings us to
the serious debate on the question of just and unjust wars in which
Augustine and later Thomas
Aquinas discussed the moral legitimacy
of war.
In Augustine’s
view:
“A just war is one which seeks to redress or avenge
injuries”
Aquinas for his
part went along with Augustine’s thinking and summarized it in the three
familiar “jus ad bellum criteria”. i.e., legitimate authority, just cause
and right intention”
This is the subject
of an intense debate which
continues to this day. And in the
Guyanese context the question arises whether “AGAR”
and the “Buxton Resistance” have a just cause and whether the State
will be equally just in responding militarily
to actions by armed clandestine organizations.
In this regard, it
is important to recall
Constantine’s words;
“The real evil in war is love
of violence, revengeful
cruelty, fierce and
implacable enmity, wild
resistance and lust
of power, and such like”
No one knows
whether it was the “AGAR” or the “Buxton Resistance” that executed the
attacks at Agricola and the killing of several civilians including Minister
Sawh.
The point is that
whoever committed these acts of terror and murder, such actions were
unfair and unjust because those
persons were non-combatants and innocent people, who as far as public
knowledge is concerned, were
not known to be involved in
military or state security activities.
Regrettably,
whoever is waging war against the State seem to be targeting civilians and
civilian projects and not
military targets.
Turning weapons on
non-combatants is not a legitimate act of resistance .
What if an Indian extremist group emerge calling itself the “Indian
Guyanese Armed Resistance”, Then what Mr. Ogunseye?
We in the PPP had
this experience in 1973 when the Army intervened in the elections and two of
our Comrades were killed on the Corentyne.
Some of our supporters
called for an armed uprising.
In the 1974-1976
period when we extended Critical Support to the PNC Government some of our
supporters deemed this a betrayal. And later, following the 1997 elections,
President Janet
Jagan’s five (5)
year term was reduced to three (3) years.
Many of our supporters were very upset.
What if Indo-Guyanese
were to declare they can take no
more and oppose militarily any
“truce” with “AGAR”?
In such conditions,
albeit hypothetical where would we be heading Mr. Ogunseye?
It seems to me that
the Ethnic Relations Commission, Multi-Stakeholders’ Fora currently in train
is the way to go. These
fora should be used more effectively as
a tool to ensure the bottom up approach to
Good Governance and to initiate alternative strategies and programmes
for poor rural communities.
Finally, it is
apposite to recall the advice Martin Luther King Jr gave when he said;
“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence adding
deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars”.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that.
Hate cannot
drive out hate; only love can do that”
Take note Mr.
Ogunseye, I have already.
Yours sincerely
Clement J. Rohee
Member of the
Central/Executive
Committee of the
PPP
