IMPACT ON GUYANA

Jagdeo ran from ‘jumbie’ but met with coffin — PNCR

Despite leaving Guyana for the Conference of the Caribbean in New York President Bharrat Jagdeo could not avoid the consistent picketing exercise by the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR).

Jagdeo was greeted by a protest demonstration in New York two Thurs-days ago as he arrived at the Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street in the busy downtown Brooklyn, New York area.

The picketing demonstration was carried out by a group of concerned Guyanese in the Diaspora, including members of the PNCR groups in New York and New Jersey, and also attracted a crowd of curious New Yorkers.

Speaking to the media, a spokesperson for the organizers stated that the objective of the exercise was to highlight major issues affecting the citizens of Guyana including, but not limited to, the 16 per cent VAT, human rights violations and torture of citizens by the army and police, the spiraling crime situation, incarceration of political prisoner Oliver Hinckson, state-sponsored murder of over 200 citizens, Government-sponsored narco trade, the Roger Khan issue, and the suspension of CNS TV 6 licence, among others.

The group claimed that they were fed up with the inaction of President Jagdeo on those matters, his misrepresentation of those matters when he visited abroad and the rising dictatorship in Guyana.

The group indicated that it had received the required permission and full co-operation from the New York Police Department to carry out the picketing demonstration.

Jagdeo later participated in a Diaspora Forum which included the Heads of CARICOM Governments, Consular Corps, Secretary General of CARICOM, Director General of OECS, President of the CDB, Governor of the ECCB, Vice Chancellor of UWI, CARICOM Delegations and their Ambassadors, Professor Cardinal Ward of MIT, Queens Borough President and other elected officials, Caribbean Diaspora academics, NGOs and the general public.

According to a release from the PNCR, it was evident that President Jagdeo, who had chosen to engage in numerous trips abroad during the rising tide of marches and demonstrations in Guyana, had made a reality of the Guyanese adage, "Run away from the jumbie but meet up with the coffin".

(Kaieteur News)