Dialogue impasse a 'national nonsense'
Stabroek News
July 12, 2002
Peace councils prepared to tackle East Coast strife if given support -Donald Trotman
Retired judge Donald Trotman is of the view that the current impasse in the dialogue process between President Bharrat Jagdeo and leader of the PNC/R, Desmond Hoyte is nothing short of "a national nonsense."
Trotman, who is the president of the United Nations Association of Guyana (UNAG) Community Peace Project, questioned how peace could be introduced and prosper in Guyana if other parties and persons from civil society were not allowed to participate in a dialogue which was now only for the "deaf and the dumb."
Trotman was speaking at the closing ceremony of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)-funded phase of the first stage of the project, convened at the Georgetown Club.
Through this funding UNAG established ten community peace projects in Region Two, Adventure to Devonshire; Region Three, Windsor Forest to Meten-Meer-Zorg; Region Four, Georgetown and from Victoria to Enmore; and Region Six, Number 19 Village to Auchlyne. Prior to the setting up the ten groups, there were three existing groups in Berbice, Essequibo and Demerara.
Trotman said that the groups had given their time and energy to integrate the ideas of the United Nations and the objectives of UNAG so that persons in the different communities could live in harmony.
He said that they were also working on reaffirming persons' faith in fundamental human rights regardless of race or gender.
He added that the country's present state was "deplorable" and there were many parties and sectors that did not come out when things were peaceful to give support to programmes designated to peace building. He was of the opinion that the regional bodies and the municipalities having regard to what happened in the country should set up special committees to deal with peace building.
Trotman said that the UNAG committees had been working in the communities and have been involved in family disputes, misunderstandings between neighbourhood democratic councils (NDCs) and residents, land disputes and landlord and tenants disputes. He said that recently the councillors had been engaged in a special reconciliation programme. "...You will notice that most of the areas if not all,... straddle ethnic barriers and so this programme of reconciliation is having inter-cultural, inter- communities activities. [This is happening] particularly in areas where there have been ...racial, ethnic and cultural differences, like in the days of the sixties," Trotman said.
Giving an example of a particular dispute the councillors had been able to settle, Trotman, who is a member of the Victoria/Enmore Peace Council, said that a resident of Victoria went into Enmore and complained that he had been violently assaulted by a group of persons. He said that they brought the parties together along with other residents in different villages and kept a meeting in an effort to prevent such an incident from happening again.
Over the past few months there have been numerous confrontations between the two ethnic groups living on the East Coast Demerara. Last week there was an incident where residents of Buxton had gone into the village of Strathspey and assaulted residents after one of their villagers had been nabbed by the police for allegedly robbing a resident of Strathspey. This was put to Trotman and he was asked what his organisation would do to try to quell the disturbances in the villages. He had this to say, "We will move into those areas if we get funding... financial funding as well as support, moral and open support from national leaders, government and opposition... We will be able to tackle the problems and hope to resolve them in those areas. If the government and opposition leadership come out in full support of our project and peace activities that will go a far way in resolving those problems. So far they have not done so even though we have been calling upon them and inviting them to our activities."
Vice-President of UNAG, Dr Martin Boodhoo, reviewing the project, said that if there was a time for stability and peace in Guyana, "it is now more than ever!"
He pointed out that aside from the unwarranted and unjustified threats to the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, the most intimidating hazard in Guyana today was the instability and a general feeling of uncertainty and insecurity. "With few exceptions, there is an atmosphere of mistrust, unfair treatment and being short-changed," Dr Boodhoo said.
Dr Boodhoo said that Guyana was one of the many countries disrupted by social, ethnic and political conflicts, which wasted resources and destroyed lives.
He noted that UNAG, during the past four years, had organised programmes for Guyanese adults and children on the need and advantages of avoiding conflict and settling disputes peacefully by way of organised community efforts rather than resorting to the formal judicial system, which he said more often than not was costly, inadequate and unable to resolve conflict expeditiously.
The process is known as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and has been practised by communities, especially rural communities in many countries around the world.
It is projected that in the second phase the other councils would focus mainly on strengthening and deepening mediation skills and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
Head of CIDA in Guyana, Murray Kam, in brief remarks, said that UNAG had applied for more funding for the second phase of its peace project and revealed that while his superiors overseas had not contacted him he was optimistic that there will be more funding.