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WORLD

PNC regime ‘has skeletons

in its cupboard’ says Jagan

The People’s National Congress (PNC)
regime of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham
which has held office in Guyana by rigging
national elections since 1968, held a national
registration in February, 1985 in prepara-
tion for another ‘‘election’’ this winter. Its
present mandate expires in March, 1986.

Faced with another rigged vote, Guyana’s
progressive forces are already taking steps to
focus international attention on Burnham's
efforts to side-step democracy. In _ this
analysis, Cheddi Jagan, leader of the
People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and
leader of the Opposition in Guyana’s
parliament, examines the latest
developments:

*x* * *

““Cheddi, al’yuh got a helluva
government down there’. That was how
an official at Piarco airport remarked,
when I was on my way to board a BWIA
flight for Guyana.

Apparently, he had heard an interview
I had given about my visit to Trinidad
and Tobago. I had gone there at the head
of a delegation of the People’s Progres-
sive Party to give evidence before the
Chitnis Mission. It had been refused
permission to come to Guyana. So we
had to meet it in Trinidad.

It all started back in January, 1985. Six
progressive trade unions, the Guyana
Bar Association, the Guyana Human
Rights Association and six leading Chris-
tian Church bodies had issued an invita-
tion for an overseas investigating team. It
included the International Commission
of Jurists (ICJ) based in Switzerland, the
Americas Watch, based in Washington
and the British Parliamentary Human
Rights Group. They had been asked to
look at Guyana’s electoral laws and regu-
lations, made since 1967, and to say
whether they had eroded the powers of the
Elections Commission.

In refusing to cooperate with, and to
permit entry into the country of, the Mis-
sion, the PNC government resorted to a
diversionary manoeuvre. It did not deal
with the issue, namely, the electoral
laws. Instead, it said that Guyana as a
sovereign state had the right to decide
whether or not an organization could
enter the country for investigative pur-
poses. It insinuated that thefe was an
attempt at interference and subversion.

JUSTICE

What about interference? This state
right of non-interference in internal af-
fairs can be taken to extremes. Even ra-
cist/fascist South Africa invokes it. How-
ever, the international community would
be remiss in its duty if it were to agree to
stand aloof on matters of morality and
justice. After all there is a body of inter-
national law to which all civilized nations
subscribe.

Guyana incidentally is a signatory of
the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights and the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights. As such, it is bound to adopt
measures which give effect to the rights
recognized in the Covenants.

Article 25 of the Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights states:

“Every citizen shall have the right and

the opportunity, without any of the

distinctions mentioned in article 2 and
without unreasonable restrictions:

(a) To take part in the conduct of
public affairs, directly or
through freely chosen repre-
sentatives;

(b) To vote and to be elected at
genuine periodic elections
which shall be by universal and
equal suffrage and shall be held
by secret ballot, guaranteeing
the free expression of the will of
the electors.”

This Article has been grossly violated in
Guyana. Since 1968, elections have been
routinely rigged. The last more or less free
and fair election was held in 1964 under an
independent, Governor-appointed Elec-
tions Commission. And that election was
observed by a Commonwealth Observer
Team.

OBSERVERS

The PNC likes to bracket Guyana with
revolutionary-democratic Nicaragua.
But it fails to point out that the Sandinista

Government invited observers to its.

November 1984 elections, and five
hundred were present. Among them was
Lord Chitnis, who observed the elec-
tions also as a representative of the in-
vited British Liberal Party.

Recently, another independent Latin
American state, Peru, permitted the
United Nations Human Rights Commit-
tee and the Andean Pact Human Rights

_ Commission to send observers to look

into the question of ‘disappeared |

persons’’.

The PNC regime refuses to permit even "

the United Nations to observe the electoral
process in Guyana. On one occasion, it
sarcastically remarked: ‘‘The United Na-
tions has no vote in Guyana’’. This is why
it has refused to subscribe to the Optional
Protocol to the UN Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights. Had it done so, any

aggrieved Guyanese could have the right:

to petition the UN Human Rights Com-
mittee, and then an investigation could
be mounted.

And there is nothing to substantiate
the insinuation that the ICJ, the
Americas Watch and British Parlia-
mentary Group were bent on interfer-
ence for subversive ends.

The ICJ is a prestigious body, of which
S.S. Ramphal, Guyana’s one-time For-
eign Minister and Minister of Justice and
now Commonwealth Secretary-General,
is amember. It came to Guyana in 1964 at
the invitation of the PPP government and
the British government to enquire into
imbalances in the security forces. Inci-
dentally, its recommendations, though
agreed to by the PNC government, were
not implemented.

NICARAGUA

As regards the elections campaign in
Nicaragua, Lord Chitnis, who had pre-
viously also observed elections in
Guyana and El Salvador, stated that the
government, in relation to the 28-month
old state of emergency, made relaxa-
tions. These ‘‘meant that political cam-
paigners were free to travel to every part
of the country, hold outdoor rallies,
speak and write openly about every sub-
ject except on national defence ... in
every relevant aspect, the situation in
Nicaragua provided the necessary condi-
tions for all political parties to participate
freely. This was not the case in El Sal-
vador ... the state made available to
each of the registered parties irrespective
of their national strength, nine million
cordobas (approximately £225,000)
which must make some parties in this
country green with envy. It also was al-
most insufferably pious in describing
proper electoral conduct (in a Chapter
entitled ‘‘Electoral Ethics’’) — one pro-
vision for example said that ‘It is pro-
hibited to denigrate or slander candidates
presented by the political parties or al-

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

JAGAN: Burnham is managing a fraud to
perpetuate his rule ..:

liances’ ... Parties were free to buy time
signed to the parties both on radio and
television in a way similar though greatly
in excess of that used in Britain.

Lord Chitnis concluded: ‘‘The Presi-
dent of the United States and the British
Prime Minister have no doubt at all that
President Duarte was validly elected in
El Salvador. If that is so, they cannot
argue that Daniel Ortega is not the validly
elected President of Nicaragua, demo-
cratically chosen by his people.”’

Chitnis also mobilized ‘a petition of
European parliamentarians to oppose
the U.S. Government’s help to the
‘‘contras’’ and to support the Contadora ~
Group ‘‘Peace Plan’’ for Central Ame-
rica.

SKELETONS

That the ICJ/Chitnis/Americas Watch

Mission was not allowed entry to Guyana
has nothing to do with interference and
destabilization. It has to do with skeletons
in the cupboard. The PNC has many of
them; it does not want them exposed. The
Lord Avebury Observer Team for the
1980 elections, of which Chitnis was a
member, had pronounced: “‘we conclude
that the worst fears expressed by the
Guyanese people regarding the viola-
tions of the electoral process have been
confirmed.’’ In a personal release, Lord
Avebury stated: ‘These elections were
not a free and fair test of the opinion of
the people of Guyana. They were a clum-
sily managed and a blatant fraud de-
signed to perpetuate the rule of President _
Forbes Burnham.”

Gorbachev, Brandt hit Star Wars threat |

MOSCOW — The Political Bureau of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union, as reported on May 30, bear-
ing in mind the strained and dangerous world situation,
has called for continued and developed contacts bet-
ween the CPSU and the Socialist International, Social
Democratic and Socialist parties. In this connection, the
recent talks between CPSU General Secretary, Mikhail
Gorbachev and Willy Brandt, Chairman of the Social
Democratic Party of Germany and Chairman of the
Socialist International, were described as positive.

Both sides had identical positions in respect to the
existing international situation, the inadmissibility of
space militarization and the need to achieve genuine
progress at the Geneva talks between the USSR and the
USA, with the observance of the principle that the prob-
lems of space and nuclear arms must be seen as inter-re-
lated.

The position of the two parties, according to the Polliti-
cal Bureau, are similar on the subject of guaranteeing
security in Europe, returning to détente and developing
normal relations between the countries of Europe, in-
cluding the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany.

The talks between Gorbachev and Bendetto Craxi,
Italian socialist politician and Chairman of the Council of

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 19, 1985

From Moscow
Jack Phillips

Ministers of Italy, were also assessed positively, ‘‘de-
spite different stands on a number of important problems
of the international situation. Both countries, according
to the Political Bureau statement, have the possibilities
and the desire to find points of contact on the termination
of the arms race, bringing down the level of military
confrontation (especially in Europe), the restoration of
détente and the development of fruitful co-operation
between countries on the basis of peaceful co-existence
with due respect for the sovereignty and independence
of all countries.

The position of the Soviet leadership must also be seen
in the light of a recent meeting of European Socialist
parties which took a strong stand against the U.S. Star

Wars program. Present at the Paris meeting were repre-
sentatives of the Socialist parties of France, the Federal —
Republic of Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Portugal,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Greece and
Switzerland.

The participants rejected the American plan for the
militarization of outer space. This plan, they declared,
‘“‘undermines collective security and imperils security in
Europe.’’ It should be noted that France, Denmark and
Norway have officially stated their refusal to take part in
the American plans to militarize outer space.

Also, General Inspector of the FRG army, Wolfgang
Altenburg, in a recent speech to a meeting of the NATO
military committee, bluntly stated that in his view, “the
strategic defence initiative of the U.S. brings forth more
questions than it gives answers.”

Millions of people in Western Europe with diverse
political views share this growing alarm over the possible
consequences of Reagan’s Star Wars program. The fact
that there is a wide area of agreement in that connection
between Communists, Socialists and Social Democrats
should greatly assist in the mobilization of public opinion
in favor of the rejection by governments of Washington's
bellicose policies.