Peoples’ Progressive Party (PPP) Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, has called out President David Granger for comments he made about former European colonisers wanting to meddle in the affairs of Guyanese.
“Some of the authors of that crime against humanity have never apologised, have never paid reparations. They can pick up every comma and every semicolon but they have never apologised for the crime they committed for four hundred years. Any of you know of whom I speak, you know who brought you here; never apologised but now they try to correct other people,” the President told attendees at the General Assembly of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly – Guyana (IDPADA-G).
He made these comments days after the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom, and European Union (EU) envois issued a joint statement calling on him to immediately set a date for elections.
Today, Jagdeo said that the President was labelling the community “conveniently”.
“…He, in a veiled way, called them colonisers. That the colonisers want to preach to Guyana what to do. And I wonder when he directed [Minister of Natural Resource, Raphael] Trotman to sign the contract with Tullow to give away our patrimony – the oil wealth – whether he was thinking about giving away our patrimony to colonisers. But, it’s very convenient for him,” Jagdeo said.
Jagdeo also noted that the President did not deem that particular section of the international community as colonisers in 2014 when the coalition was in the opposition and was seeking help from the international community to impose sanctions on the PPP/C government after the then President Donald Ramotar prorogued parliament. “…They had ceased being colonisers in 2014, and now they have resumed that role today” Jagdeo questioned.
