I read in the Guyana Chronicle that Dr. Peter Ramsaroop is calling for the supporters of the PPP/C to take the streets to protest the election results..
Ramsaroop said in his statement “I support the party’s call for a full recount and encourage other supporters of the PPP/C to come out in numbers and demand fairness. It is time we take the streets. We should not be bullied by any one.,”
The international diplomatic community, many leading PPP stalwarts, the Public service commission, The Indian Arrival committee and The Catholic Diocese of Guyana are among the lengthy list of organizations that have asked for the PPP/C to accept the will of the people and concede their defeat in the 2015 elections.
Ramsaroop could be setting the stage for social unrest that could be viewed in some quarters as inciting violence. Such incitement especially when it falls along ethnic lines could be viewed as an incitement to genocide. The United Nations views incitement to genocide as one of only a few types of acts recognized as a crime under international law, akin to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
More recently, the crime of ‘direct and public incitement to genocide’ has been one of the key charges laid against defendants in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, established by the UN in 1994 in response to the genocide of the country’s Tutsi minority.
I would like to ask Dr. Peter Ramsaroop and the leadership of the PPP/C to move this nation back from the brink and to refrain from enflaming tensions between PPP supporters and those that have voted for the APNU/AFC coalition.
This nation needs healing after the hard fought elections that have left strained relationships in some quarters of society.
The destruction of either of the two leading political parties in Guyana can only lead to placing democracy in peril. For the good of all, the leadership of the PPP/C must pull back from the brink, concede that the people have spoken and put what is best for the country before the needs of individuals. To do anything else will lead Guyana down a path that can only be viewed by reasonable people as opportunistic, self-serving and unpatriotic.