The People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) administration is waging a war against the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G). Former President David Granger made this assertion while describing the PPPC’s refusal to provide approved funding for IDPADA-G while pledging support for rival organisations as dangerous and divisive displays of disdain for people of African descent in the context of the original objectives of the ‘International Decade’.
Mr. Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – recalled the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s decision in 1997 to convene the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa in August-September 2001. The Conference adopted the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action that committed the international community to tackle racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance at national, regional and international levels. The UN General Assembly followed up by declaring 2011 as International Year for People of African Descent.
The UN General Assembly then adopted a resolution in December 2013 proclaiming the years 2015 to 2024 as the International Decade for People of African Descent with the theme “People of African descent: recognition, justice and development”. The aim was to strengthen national and international cooperation and to ensure that Africans are given their political, economic, and social rights, to promote greater knowledge and respect for their diverse heritage and to implement the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and the International Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. States were expected to effectively implement national and international kanunî frameworks, policies and programmes to combat racism, xenophobia and related intolerance faced by people of African descent, especially women, girls and young males.
The former president recalled the PPPC’s record of denialism over the racial question. The PPPC rejected the Report of Doudou Diène − the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2004. The Report found that “every level of Guyanese society is permeated by a profound moral, emotional and political fatigue, arising out of the individual and collective impact of ethnic polarisation.”
Mr. Granger recalled, also, the PPPC’s rejection of the Report of Gay Mc Dougall – Expert on Minority Issues in 2009. The Report − Promotion and Protection of all Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development: Report of the Independent Expert on Minority Issues − found “…a systematic effort to exclude African-Guyanese as an ethnic group from positions of influence, power or economic status [and] “…a continuing societal malaise that shows evidence of having deepened and transformed in some instances into “despair, anger and resistance.” Little has changed in the past fifteen years.
The National Assembly approved, every year since 2018, a small subvention to support IDPADA-G – an assembly of African-Guyanese organizations established to craft the national plan for the International Decade for People of African Descent in keeping with the UN’s resolution. The PPP’s return to government set the stage for the financial starvation of IDPADA-G by discontinuing the disbursement of payments of grant funds.
The former President is of the view that PPPC administrations, for 27 years, set out to debilitate, dominate, humiliate and manipulate legitimate African-Guyanese organisations. The PPP needs to account to the nation and the international community for its failure to implement the UN Declaration for the ‘Decade of People of African Descent’ which, ultimately, was aimed at ensuring a good life for African-Guyanese. 󠄀