| Lindeners are expected to converge in their numbers today at the Five Corner (Washer Pond Road), Mackenzie,Linden, to confront President Donald Ramotar, and express their dissatisfaction and disgust over the August 21, 2013 agreements between the Region Ten Administration and the Government.They say that to date Ramotar has not honored the agreement.The agreements were inked after almost a month of fiery protest in the town, against a proposed electricity tariff increase by Government. The protests were subsequently called off after the agreement was signed, and the proposed increase withdrawn.But Lindeners have grown disillusioned that more than a year later; there has been no implementation of anything that was contained in the agreement.The protest which is expected to commence at ten hours, is expected to coincide with President Donald Ramotar’s scheduled visit to the Town to officially commission the PPPC office, at Industrial Area, Mackenzie, Linden.Lindeners will be demanding equality, justice and peace, ‘not more PPP’, according to leaflets that were distributed throughout the town. They also want the Linden commission of enquiry recommendations be implemented, the establishment of the technical and economic committees to improve energy supplies and the economic needs of the region, and the appointment of a state representative to the Land selection Committee.They will also be demanding the end of Regional and political discrimination, the undermining of elected representatives, the end of the RUSAL/ BCGI workers dispute and the GPSU public servants grievances.Other issues to be addressed would be human rights violations and police brutality in Region Ten, dust pollution and the improvement of regional health care and better conditions for those tasked with its delivery.Regional Chairman, Sharma Solomon, at a media briefing yesterday, emphasized that the shutdown is not in protest of the ruling party commissioning its new office here.“We are a very democratic region; we believe in the rights of every citizen to exercise his religion or politics and whatever it is that individuals choose to practice; those things are guaranteed in the constitution. We respect and believe that is the right of every citizen.What the region and the people of Region Ten should understand and should be totally outraged about is the dishonorable stance of not only the government, but the President in particular, who is expected to be in the Region (today).That after 17 months and an agreement written in blood– three men would have died; the community would have demonstrated that they needed the elements in the agreement to better the lives of citizens. All these elements are the rights of citizens—the right to television, the right to access information, the right to be part of decision making, the right to have economic freedom and the right to have so many things that they should enjoy.The PPP/C office in Linden that is set for commissioning today.“The same way that the region is prepared to respect the rights of even the PPP, the PPP must be prepared to respect the rights of the citizens. More so, when the PPP, under the stewardship of the President would have signed an agreement written in blood should be prepared to honour that agreement,” said Solomon.Solomon added that not one element of the agreement has been to the satisfaction of the people “not because of any impediment’ but because of a lack of will on the part of the Government.“Every resident should feel the need to confront the president, even if it is in a quiet show of demonstration, to hold a placard and to say in loud voices that he is not an honorable man if he can’t commit to something written in blood,” Solomon declared.“Tomorrow is a good test, to not only the people of Linden and region ten, but for this entire nation.I’m quite certain that people would have been seeing over the weeks,wholesale jerseys, discussions on the agreement, movement on the agreement, and I believe that after tomorrow the direction in which that agreement goes and based on letters that we would have written, and will be sending out to the President, it is going to hold this Government accountable. It is their actions that would have provoked a situation.“The provocation of the situation is that (today) we are going to shut down, and it is not because the region said so.”Solomon alluded to what he called the level of disrespect being meted out to the people of the region by the President, in what is being planned for today (commissioning of office), and that people understood the disrespect- when instead of coming to show his respects when three Lindeners were shot dead, and after 17 months, instead of coming to say that ‘people would be relieved’, he is coming instead to ‘promote party politics’.Solomon said that the people of Linden, has a right to confront the president and demand that the August 21 agreement be honored.Yesterday, President Donald Ramotar, during a press conference, spoke of the Linden agreement, saying that Region Ten leaders have not met their obligation too. They have not named an official to a key committee.“Blame, therefore, should not be on Government, as it is a two-way street,” said Ramotar. |
