GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The Guyana government says it will not participate in talks with a 13-member unofficial United States delegation that arrives here on Monday on a “fact-finding mission.
“The purpose of this visit is to engage in constructive dialogue with various leaders, community groups, business owners, and Guyanese citizens,” said the former chair of the Georgia Black Caucus, Dee Dawkins-Haigler.
She said the delegation, expected to spend seven days here, intends to use the insights gained from those meetings to inform and guide discussions with relevant leaders in Congress and the White House upon their return to the United States.
But in a statement, the Guyana government said the mission appears to have stemmed from a conference organized by a fierce anti-government critic.
“The Government of Guyana will not be engaging this delegation acting in their private capacities as this is a clear interference in Guyana’s domestic politics with a bias towards the political Opposition in Guyana,”’ the statement said.
Referring specifically to the Guyanese-born US-based resident Rickford Burke, who played a central role in organizing a conference in Guyana last month, the Irfaan Ali government said the team seemed to have already concluded its outcome.
“It is clear that Burke has not only determined the Terms of Reference of this “fact-finding mission” but has also essayed the findings of this mission even before it has commenced,” the Government said.
Burke had organized the conference under the theme, ” “Promoting Inclusive Governance and Economic Growth, Equal Justice, Social Equality & Sustainable Development for all Guyanese in the Era of Oil and Gas” in Washington DC from September 27-28,
Dawkins-Haigler said that during its stay here, the delegation also intends to advocate for positive change and promote inclusivity and equality at national and international levels.
She said it is not a formal US government mission but an independent, unbiased fact-finding mission.
The delegation is expected here in response to concerns raised by legislators linked to the main opposition, A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC). It will meet with Shadow Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Roysdale Forde, General Secretary of the People’s National Congress Reform Dan Hastings Williams, and executive members of the AFC David Patterson and Cathy Hughes.
But in its statement, the Government said, “This is nothing but a politically driven and orchestrated design by opponents of the government which seems to have ensnared certain office holders within certain a few States’ Legislature in the US.”
It said it was never allowed to participate in the September 2023 conference that was attended by members of the opposition who used the platform “to spew concocted and fabricated narratives” about the administration, including their “usual diatribe about racial discrimination and extrajudicial killings, without any fact-checking mechanism and without the Government being afforded a hearing or the facility of a response.
“It is obvious that these jaundiced, baseless, and unfounded narratives of these Opposition Politicians, unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, have influenced this delegation,” the Government added.
It said that any delegation that is interested in a “fact-finding mission” of the problems that Guyana and Guyanese have faced historically and in the recent past must enquire into fraudulent elections in 1968, 1973, 1980, and 1985, the massive violations of human rights and freedoms of the people of Guyana during 28 years of dictatorial rule from 1968 to 1992; the abuse, violence and killing of persons opposed to the Government, including, the assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney, a world-renowned historian and a black political leader among other concerns.
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