A crowd at Number 63 Village recently listened intently as Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh gave a moving speech about PPP/C founder Dr. Cheddi Jagan, highlighting his lifelong fight for freedom, from championing Universal Adult Suffrage to defending democracy.
“Sometimes there are some very obvious things that stare us in our face, and we take them for granted without giving it a thought. Freedom House- the name –there are Freedom Houses across the country and one cannot help wondering whether Dr. Jagan, visionary though he was, had fully grasped how much the party he was founding, how much that party would grow over the decades to become the embodiment of the name that he had given to the headquarters of our party,” he explained.
The minister highlighted that the very essence of the word freedom suggests that Dr. Jagan knew that he was founding and establishing a party that would be devoted to the cause of fighting for the freedom of the Guyanese people, and that the fight for freedom has taken many shapes and forms over the decades.
“When he started the fight for freedom, it was a fight first for something called universal adult suffrage because only people who met a certain financial threshold, owned assets of a certain value, were eligible to be voters. Dr. Jagan dedicated himself to the fight for universal adult suffrage, a fight whose objectives were to ensure that every single Guyanese person who had attained adult age would be entitled to a vote,” he said to listeners, some of whom nodded in agreement.
Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh addressing the crowd at No. 63 Village
Dr. Singh then further explained that following the struggle for Universal Adult Suffrage, Dr. Jagan devoted himself to the fight for political independence and freedom from the shackles of colonialism.
“And then, eventually when we were on the verge of attaining independence, political machinations and maneuvers would result in the removal of the PPP from Government, the removal of Dr. Jagan from the premiership of our country and the installation of an opportunistic coalition between the People’ s National Congress led by Forbes Burnham and The United Force who had forged an opportunistic coalition like I said to maneuver their way into government,” he outlined.
He noted that the opportunistic Coalition at the time then led to a 28-year dictatorship in Guyana during which Dr. Jagan was still devoted to a fight for freedom, but this time, a different fight for freedom 28-year-long struggle for freedom from dictatorship and for the attainment of democracy.
He alluded then to the lives lost during that period, as Berbicians were killed in the struggle. For this reason, he said the PPP/C party each year pays homage to the Ballot Box Martyrs considered heroes. He also expressed gratitude to an elderly Berbician, Arnold Rampersaud, who was in the audience at the meeting, and whom he said had been wrongfully accused, wrongfully charged, and wrongfully imprisoned during that period as well.
“And those of you who do not know this history, I urge you to read about the story of Arnold Rampersaud and the behaviour of the Burnham dictatorship, and how the PPP under the leadership of Dr. Cheddi Jagan fought that dictatorship and championed the cause of Arnold Rampersaud.”
Minister Singh with a PPP supporter
Dr. Singh explained further that in 1992, democracy was restored and the party had to commence another fight – this time, a fight against poverty with the PNC having bankrupted the country by then.
“When you have a government that is dictatorial, when you have a government that does not have to work for your vote, you automatically have a government that will not serve you and that will make no effort to improve your life because they will not care.
“The Senior comrades amongst us will tell you how the people of Berbice were not only pauperised but criminalised for eating what they wish to eat. Imagine being jailed not because you had cocaine or marijuana or Ecstasy but because you had a hot plate of roti and fried aloo,” he said.
“No schools nor hospitals were being built!” the minister added.
He recalled that in 2011, the PNC rebranded as APNU/AFC, won a slim majority, and used that one-seat advantage to block the anti-money laundering law, halt the Amaila Falls project, and slash development funding—all moves that harmed the Guyanese people.
“Did they go to parliament to pass any law to help the Guyanese people?” Dr. Singh asked with loud responses from the audience of ‘No!’
“And then in 2015, they (APNU/AFC) won the election and came into government. They were in government now and you would assume that now that they are in government, they would try to do something positive for the people. You would think that they would try to win the hearts and minds of the Guyanese people. Let us examine what they did from 2015-2020,” he exclaimed to shouts from persons in agreement.
At this point, one resident at the meeting used the opportunity to shout out that during this period, the APNU/AFC took away the cash grants her children had received previously and that her family suffered as well when her husband lost his job at the sugar estate simultaneously.
Dr. Singh then asked residents to ponder for a moment why the APNU/AFC would do these things to citizens.
“The answer was simple, as if they don’t feel they have to win your vote, then they don’t have to do anything to win your heart and mind because a government that is a dictatorship does not believe in democracy nor respect the will of the Guyanese people. It is a government that will never care about the people and this is what sets apart the PPP from the rest of them on the other side because the PPP/C is a party that is committed to democracy, and this has been demonstrated in all of our country’s history,” he concluded.
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