GUYANA – SHADES OF AUTOCRACY?

In an article published in SN on August 27 – “Whither Guyana: Autocracy or democracy?” Dr. Bertrand Ramcharan, a former senior UN official and regular contributor to SN, concludes that in Guyana there are “shades” of autocracy. The events that give rise to the “shades”  are: “official inquisitions into the tax status of NGOs; calls […]

DRAMATIC TURN IN US POLITICS

Kamala Harris, described as an American woman of African and South Asian heritage, is poised to be nominated as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in US elections to be held in November. In slow-motion, over two weeks and more, the effort of President Biden to seek a second term as President, amidst collapsing poll numbers, palpably […]

WHITHER APNU?

All agree that there is a democracy deficit when an Opposition is unable or unwilling to hold a government to account. In 1992, APNU, then known as the PNC, was voted out of office and remained in opposition for 23 years. After 19 years, circumstances began to change when two opposition parties, APNU and the […]

MAHDIA

Leading up to the 57th Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence, a searing tragedy occurred in which fire destroyed the girls’ dormitory of the Mahdia Secondary School and took the lives of 19 children, all but one being girls. This catastrophic event transformed the observance of Guyana’s Independence into a remembrance for the children who had tragically […]

WOULDN’T IT BE A GREAT DAY FOR GUYANA IF….?

On September 27, 1965, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) delivered a 1965-page report into Racial Problems in the Public Service of British Guiana. By letter dated April 6, 1965, Prime Minister Burnham, in his invitation, said to the ICJ that his Government had been “deeply concerned with the need to remove from our society […]