When people continuously peddle falsehoods in vain attempts to pull the wool over people’s eyes, they develop a compulsion for seeing things only negatively; seeing things only through a fool’s eyes; seeing things only in the opposite; seeing only what they want to see; and seeing things only in light of their desire to disseminate the effluence from their repertoire of lies, hate, racial animosity and emptiness.

We dare say that unfortunately there are a few of them in today’s civilized world who spew their irrepressible lust for hate, riddled with racial overtones. Such a person who professes to be the master of the African race is Rickford Burke who resides in New York and disgorges putrid tales about racism and marginalization against Afro-Guyanese in Guyana by the Bharrat Jagdeo Administration and “ethnocracy”.

When we recall the works of some writers, we cannot escape the conclusion that those men had a vision and whatever they might have written then would have been so applicable to some jokers in present day society, like these words from J.G. Holland:

“ God give us men. A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands!

Men whom the lust of office does not kill,

Men who possess opinions and a will,

Men who love honour,

Men who cannot lie”.

This Rickford Burke masquerades as the President of the so-called Caribbean-Guyana Institute for Democracy, a one-man organization. Like Rip Van Winkle, this Rickford Burke suddenly got up from a long sleep, and for the first time knows about African marginalisation and racism against the Africans in Guyana.

Poor Burke has slept so long that the passage of time seems like a million years to him. Is he still dreaming? He has the gumption to foment lies about African marginalization.

Where was this Burke man when the PNC led by Forbes Burnham closed down the Leonora Sugar Estate, one of the finest sugar estates in the country at that time? Indeed the Indo-Guyanese suffered marginalization under the PNC, but for people like Burke and others, the word marginalization did not exist then. How appropriate?

Did Burke and his cohorts know that at the time the Leonora Estate was ruthlessly closed down some 95 percent of the labour force there were Indians? Was this not marginalization of Indo-Guyanese in its most evil and brutal form?

Do we forget the days when Indo-Guyanese were being deprived by the PNC to obtain even minute amounts of certain basic ingredients important for religious functions? Is it not true that because of widespread marginalization against Indo-Guyanese by the then ruling PNC, when Indians in positions were weeded out that many of our best sons and daughters were forced to flee the country?

Not so now, Burke. Afro-Guyanese who have never dreamt of owning a house in their lifetime under the PNC are now proud owners of houses. Afro-Guyanese are in numerous top positions in the government services.

Where did this government marginalize against Afro-Guyanese when in efforts to cushion the effects of the rise in global food prices and shortages, in one of its many interventions, announced a five-percent increase for ALL public sector workers, NOT Indo-Guyanese and the increase in the income tax threshold?

We couldn’t agree more with President Bharrat Jagdeo when he recently laid the Burke bubble to rest during a press conference in New York. President Jagdeo said:

“If you go through the three branches of government, you’ll see it looks like Guyana”.

“This is a country that is deeply integrated… I’m just worried that good, decent Guyanese people are getting the wrong impression of Guyana”. We also support the President in debunking claims that there is serious tension between Indo and Afro Guyanese, noting that it is the ‘extremists’ of the two races who have been promoting this view, adding that investigations by the United Nations and the Ethnic Relations revealed no evidence of institutionalized racism in the country.

We understand Burke’s aspiration to take over leadership of the PNCR, but spewing marginalization of Africans will not aid his ambitions. He is barking up the wrong tree.