Carrington refutes charges of interference in Guyana's internal affairs
CARICOM Secretary General, Edwin Carrington, has refuted charges by the People's National Congress (PNC) that he has been meddling in the country's internal affairs. In a letter to the General Secretary of the PNC which this newspaper has seen, he said that it was unfortunate that the article [please note: link provided by LOSP web site] which had appeared in the Guyana Chronicle on June 1 and which had attributed certain remarks to him, had not managed to portray those remarks in the substance and spirit in which they had been made. He also said that his comments had not been intended for publication in the media. The Chronicle story, captioned "CARICOM Secretary General concerned at violence" had said that Carrington's remarks had been contained in a letter sent in response to one from Minister Shree Chan. The latter, it said, had sought Carrington's "counsel and understanding" concerning the politicisation by the PNC of the strike. The newspaper had quoted the Secretary General as telling Chan that while workers had the right to strike for a just cause, it was "regrettable if violence is perpetrated by anyone under the guise of advancing that cause." It went on to quote him as stating that the CARICOM Secretariat was "troubled" by what had taken place at the Georgetown Hospital on May 21, and that it shared the Minister's concern that "any further unrest would be disastrous for Guyana." The PNC General Secretary in a letter to Carrington dated June 9, of which this newspaper has also seen a copy, said that his party had been perturbed that Carrington "should have allowed himself to be snared into an inappropriate and unwise course of action by replying substantively to Mr. Shree Chan." Carrington replied that his remarks did not at any point "link any side with the violence which was beginning to rear its head." In explaining the context of the remarks attributed to him in the Chronicle, he noted that his exact words in relation to the national industrial relations matter were "we see the current industrial dispute ... as a national industrial relations matter and hope that it is treated as such by all parties concerned." The CARICOM Secretary General went on to observe that he was sure that the PNC would not criticise him for referring to "the right of workers to strike for a just cause" nor for advocating that violence be eschewed by all." "None of us ... who live and work in this country, even though we are not Guyanese, would wish to see a situation as reported on the front pages of today's two daily newspapers develop," he wrote. Also Carrington said that he was surprised that any reasonable person could accuse him of interfering in a member state's national affairs on the basis of his encouraging an "embrace of the principles of compromise and realism" and by expressing "the hope of an early resolution of the dispute," - a dispute, which he said, was also affecting the conduct of the Community's affairs. With regard to the matter of Shree Chan seeking his advice, Carrington said that this related to his allegation that the PNC had been guilty of an offence against the Herdmanston Accord and St Lucia Statement. "Even so," he told Clarke, "I gave no endorsement to his allegation, and therefore, did not criticise any political party as you claimed in your letter."
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