Stabroek News
April 11, 2001

President Bharrat Jagdeo is still willing to meet PNC REFORM (PNC/R) leader Desmond Hoyte, despite Monday's fires in the commercial district and other incidents, which he said were inevitable as a result of the `slow fire' and `more fire' slogans of the PNC/R.

"You can't say to a group, a mob sometimes, `slow fire'; you can't say `more fire'; talk-show hosts can't say to people go out and burn without this happening because many of those people, even if you mean it in a figurative sense, they take us literally," Jagdeo told reporters.

He said too that he had seen no condemnation of the criminal elements who had beaten and robbed innocent citizens many of whom were of East Indian descent.

But PNC/R General Secretary, Oscar Clarke, said that his party would not talk as long as the PPP/Civic administration sent out the police to act in the manner they did on Monday outside the Office of the President. Nor, he said, would it deal with Dr Roger Luncheon in any role in which he has leverage over the public service.

The PNC/R accused the police of shooting at unarmed protesters outside the Office of the President and of using excessive force in arresting its chairman Robert Corbin and national candidate, Jerome Khan. Both Corbin and Khan had to be taken for treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital for a fractured tibia (shin) and fractured rib respectively.

Clarke pointed to the march which the PNC/R organised through the city yesterday, explaining that despite the size of the march, and the relative absence of the police, he had no reports of any incident save a complaint by Roshan Khan of RK Security Services. Khan complained to Clarke that the marchers had smashed a glass door at his Regent Street office. Clarke said that he would be writing to Khan to apologise for the incident. (See other story on page 17.)

He observed that if the police had behaved yesterday as they did on previous occasions and had shot at the people, the whole city would have been burnt down.

Speaking with reporters after the signing of the Maritime Law Enforcement Agreement with the United States of America yesterday at the Office of the President, Jagdeo said that he was still prepared to talk with Hoyte as an equal partner.

But he stressed as he did on Monday that he would not give in to pressure and that the PNC/R could not come to the table while there were still people on the streets.

"I saw that the PNC indicated one of the reasons that it had to come out this week was because the PPP [only] responds to pressure and therefore they have to mount the pressure. Now that's not going to work. While I am still inclined to talk and the invitation is still open, pressure will not work."

About the appointment of Dr Luncheon as Head of the Presidential Secretariat and with which the PNC/R and the Guyana Public Service Union have a problem, President Jagdeo said that he was willing to sit down and discuss the creation of a new post of Head of the Public Service.

He explained that at present there was no such post and that the PPP/Civic administration had continued the practice of acknowledging the HPS as head of the Public Service. "I agree that we have continued the practice but if you want change we sit down and talk about it. Then if we agree then we make the changes. It is the process that I am speaking about. But you can't say you want someone appointed to a position that does not exist."

President Jagdeo said that Dr Luncheon was in effect his chief of staff and that every president had the right to appoint his own chief of staff. About his competence and integrity, President Jagdeo asserted that Dr Luncheon "stands towering over many, many people who I know are criticising him."