What next for Guyana?
(The following is a reprint from yesterday's `Our Caribbean' column by Rickey Singh as it appeared in the `Weekend Nation' of Barbados.) TODAY MARKS the completion of the six-month assignment of Mr. Maurice King, the former Attorney General and Foreign Minister of Barbados, as the Caribbean Community's Facilitator for inter-party dialogue between Guyana's two dominant parties, the governing People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/Civic) of President Janet Jagan, and the main opposition People's National Congress (PNC) of Mr. Desmond Hoyte. With the post-election dialogue process at a virtual stalemate for almost three weeks, King was expected to have his final separate sessions with President Jagan and Mr. Hoyte earlier this week before packing his bags for his homeward journey to Barbados tomorrow (today). Do not expect him to say anything publicly about the frustrations encountered in manoeuvring through the veritable minefield of Guyanese politics, with all its ugly manifestations of racial insecurity and the related evils of crooked elections and 'party paramountcy', or the complicated agendas, arrogance, vacillations and lack of trust and goodwill in efforts to keep the dialogue process on track. Especially if his assignment is to be extended, as is likely, following a meeting of the CARICOM Bureau. But if CARICOM is going to honour its pledge, made some 14 months ago, to "remain engaged with Guyana" in the search for solutions to political problems in that society so vital to the future of regional economic and political integration, then it will certainly have to do better than simply have in Georgetown a Facilitator for inter-party dialogue with very little, if any clout to move the process forward. The Community's leaders will also have to find a relevant, creative way to express their disappointments and disagreements when any political party or its leader violates the spirit and letter of the post-1997 election 'Herdmanston Accord' that was brokered by their three-member "peace" mission to Guyana in January 1998 under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Forde. Any objective assessment of developments since the 'Herdmanston Accord' will confirm that a repeated violator of that Accord has been the main opposition PNC - verbal and physical attacks, riotous behaviour, destruction to properties and what have you. And, as recognised, even after very significant gestures of goodwill by President Jagan's PPP. It would be most surprising to find ANY CARICOM head of government wanting to publicly dispute the contention that violations of the Accord have been largely the doing of the PNC that has so frequently demonstrated contempt of provisions in that Accord on language and conduct expected of the "dialogue" parties, but expediently spared a forthright rebuke. At the core of their "St Lucia Statement on Guyana" was the commitment by CARICOM leaders to "the peaceful settlement of differences and disputes within our region and states". The Guyana Police have made clear that there was certainly nothing "peaceful" about the latest eruption of political violence and destruction resulting from a PNC rally in Georgetown on March 4 -the day CARICOM leaders started a two-day meeting in Suriname. Facilitator King has been doing his best to end the impasse. Despite negative attitudes encountered, even after a meeting in which both Jagan and Hoyte participated for the first time, he is returning to Barbados still hoping not just for the resumption of the PPP/Civic-PNC dialogue process, but for a much more positive approach by both parties on the way forward. 
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