Not many people of conscious will deny that recently in Guyana, there has been an escalation of racial intolerance exacerbated in large measure due to partisan politics. From all indications racial enmity between the two major ethnic groups may further jeopardize the precarious social peace which now permeates the country.

During the early 1960s race riots left 150 persons dead, and undetermined number of people injured and damages to properties estimated in the millions of dollars. A justification for the apparent festering animosity, which cannot be expunged from the minds of those who had suffered at the hands of alleged thugs and hench-men.

In reflection it appears that anti- Communist proponents had miscalculated the political transmutation promulgated by our political leaders. The perceived threat of communist expansionism in Guyana was interrupted as a direct convention of policies espoused by the U.S. and its Western allies during the Cold War.

It must also be remembered that the same perpetrators who engineered two years of racial conflict had affirmed political independence in 1966, only to sabotage our economy less than five years later. Many other former British colonies have been victims of their egregious strategy of divide and rule.

By pitting one race against the other it engendered political instability and economic uncertainty. Too often the majority group is embroiled in racial conflicts as the disparity between groups widen.

Moreover, these target countries are relegated to purveyors of raw materials, always economically subservient and perpetually under the dominant country’s sphere of influence. Under such conditions the power relation is preserved and nothing is implemented to erase deep-rooted feelings of resentment and hatred.

The concomitant results are decades of mistrust between races, a depletion of natural resources and in some cases an imposition of authoritarian regimes to rule over tattered economies. Consequently, widespread poverty becomes the norm and racial partition is regrettably exploited as a necessary option for survival.

Opposition leader Desmond Hoyte described the street protests as acts against executive lawlessness, racial and political victimization and corruption. Similar charges have also resonated outside the unicameral House with leaders of some minority parties and interest groups in the vanguard of these public denunciations.

Since the current regime took power in 1992, corruption in government has reached unprecedented heights. The ongoing situation has disappointed a large segment of the Guyanese population that we expecting tangible and construction change but instead witnessed a sharp recantation of the Peoples Progressive Party/ Civic campaign slogan of a clean, mean and lean government.

It seems many political leaders in Guyana, have appeared either oblivious to racial tensions between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese or are undaunted by its effects and instead made elections victory more important. The political landscape in Guyana has always been plagued by racial tensions, exploited by some political leaders for their own partisan advantages. This deleterious strategy emerged in 1955, and was solidified when a fractured PPP went to the electorate with two dissimilar ethnic leaders.

Further, the skillfully contrived though not inconceivable formation of the Peoples National Congress (PNC) and the United Force (UF) coalition government in 1964, thwarting the Marxist regime from retaining power served only to entrenched Indo-Guyanese support for Dr. Jagan and his socialist past.

Generally, voting has been along racial lines and that pattern is not expected to change in the near future. The electorate of this Co-operative Republic (world’s first) have consistently elected governments along racial lines and politicians have deliberately exploited this imposed flaw, a relic of our colonial past.

East Indians make up 48 percent of Guyana’s population with a disproportionate number of them ardent followers of the PPP. On the other hand PNC draws its adherents primarily from among descendants of past African slaves.

The two main political parties in the country have consistently relied on their ethnic base to secure governance of Guyana. It is difficult to determine a time line and under what circumstances an appropriate resolution will be reached to suffice the prevailing electoral and political morass.

The current racial apart-ness and numerous allegations of discrimination against Afro-Guyanese emanate from the controversial 1997 general elections in which the PPP/ Civic government was re-elected. The main opposition PNC has repeatedly made claims that many government departments are guilty of racial discrimination in recruitment.

According to a recently released report by the United Nations, Guyana is the third most delinquent country in the world after Sierra Leone and Liberia in relation to the submission of reports to the international Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Following a committee meeting to respond to the UN report, analysts concluded that while in theory it may not be, in practical terms, racial discrimination is very evident in Guyana today.

This tiny English speaking South American country once considered the breadbasket of the Caribbean is now imperiled or more succinctly confronted by a serious threat to democratic rule. In the last few decades there has been a marked decline in the quality of life for the less than one million citizens. In addition, there is an upsurge in crime and drug related violence. Ethics and morality have reached all time lows, while unemployment, school dropouts and suicides are at levels never before imagined.

Inevitably, such austere conditions have destroyed our infrastructure, eroded the social fabric of society and reduced a once highly literate nation to a scattered people residing in every conceivable country around the world. Certainly it can be argued that the previous PNC government was responsible for waves of migration from 1972 to 1985, and in many ways also contributed to the racial divide.