Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana Riding on the Crest of Truth
Last Updated on Thursday, 21 March 2024, 21:07 by Denis Chabrol
Mr Laurence Helfer
Hours after Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton said Guyana’s testimony before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) revealed the true state of civil and political rights here, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo accused the opposition of influencing mainly the United States’ nominated committee member who asked several questions about corruption.
Mr Norton said the three days of UNHRC hearings exposed the prevalence of human rights abuses ad bad governance in Guyana under the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) administration which was represented by Governance Minister Gail Teixeira.
“Despite Minister Gail Teixeira’s efforts at spin doctoring, evading, and fabricating, the government could not hide its bad attitude and poor record on the rule of law, transparency, inclusivity, accountability, and human rights. In addition, the government was exposed for its high levels of corruption and its unwillingness to investigate allegations of corruption and bribery against its high officials,” the Opposition Leader said.
But Mr Jagdeo later said UNHRC member, Laurence Helfer, who was successfully nominated for that post, was “contaminated” by the opposition, resulting in his line of questioning about alleged corruption. “He’s from New York. I believe the contamination took place there,” he said but declined to delve into details. He promised that “we’re going to find out a bit more later.” While the US nominated Mr Helfer, Mr Jagdeo said the Committee members function in their individual capacity.
Questions raised by Mr Helfer were about alleged harassment of journalists, selective contract reviews by the Public Procurement Commission, Guyana’s efforts to combat corruption including those levelled against him and Permanent Secretary Mae Toussaint Jr whose visa was revoked last year and her phone seized as she was transiting the US en route to China.
But Mr Jagdeo said, “We believe that the questions raised particularly by the New York man, who is there on the Committee Laurence Helfer, that it came straight from the APNU because this is APNU’s playbook.”
The Guyana Vice President downplayed the likelihood that Mr Helfer’s questions might be linked to the US government’s concerns about corruption. “No, not at all. If Washington is concerned. They will raise it directly with us. We have that engagement often and from State Department, from Treasury, from everywhere else. These matters have never surfaced, even after you recall after APNU (A Partnership for National Unity) sent Vice President Harris a long dossier; the Washington Conference, they met with them here, they raised all of these things,” Mr Jagdeo said.
“I think the US is not saying it is their representative but they represented him but you act in your own capacity once you are there. So it is not a position that you are representing the United States of America or anybody,” he said.
However, he said the US had failed to provide any information to Guyana about what had led to the revocation of her US visa in April 2023 when she was passing through the US. “The US government has not contacted us about those investigations until now and that’s our position when we dealt with the issue in the past,” he said.
He said there was a Reuters News agency story that sought to link that and to several individuals here in Guyana. “When asked about this we said when the US government contacts us about an investigation, we will respond accordingly and we’ll let the public know. We have not been contacted as yet,” Mr Jagdeo said.
The Vice President said the UNHRC should, in the interest of transparency, disclose who made claims about government’s performance that led to “stupid questions” that had been asked.
“We believe some NGOs submitted statements there, they made submissions, so we want to see all the submissions. You can see our submissions from Government. This is a body that wants to enhance transparency and they should be transparent with how it works too because we would like to see where these so-called allegations originate from”, he said.
The Vice President said he believes the questions submitted were “stupid questions”. “They did not have to be asked but they were asked… It was propaganda from the Opposition that made its way up to that Committee…we will respond to it,” he said while informing that government will upload its responses on a public platform.
Mr Norton said the opposition had already dispatched its concerns to the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Guyana, but he could not say why they were not transmitted directly to the UNHRC which conducted the hearing on Guyana’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.