{"id":3943,"date":"2012-08-09T14:17:43","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T18:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/?p=3943"},"modified":"2012-08-09T14:17:43","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T18:17:43","slug":"ramotar-appeal-shouldve-been-made-in-linden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/?p=3943","title":{"rendered":"Linden requires no \u2018Dear John and Jane\u2019 letter; Ramotar must visit the town \u2013 Nagamootoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The agitation in Linden over the hike in electricity tariffs does not require a \u201cDear John and Jane\u201d letter to the people of Linden from President Donald Ramotar, the Vice Chairman of the Alliance for Change Moses Nagamootoo said yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (the President) didn\u2019t have to resort to letter writing. This is not a love affair\u2026\u201d Nagamootoo stated. \u201cThis is a political engagement that requires his presence there.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as Nagamootoo is concerned, President Ramotar\u2019s appeal would have been best read in the town itself.<\/p>\n

The people of Linden began a protest against the imposition of the tariff hike on July 18 and on that very day three protesters were gunned down by Police. The protest is now stretching into its fourth week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>AFC Vice Chairman Moses Nagamootoo<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The President issued an open letter to the people of Linden in a paid advertisement in yesterday\u2019s newspapers in which he appealed to them to restore the town to normalcy.<\/p>\n

Neither the President nor any of his senior government Ministers have visited the town since the protest began.<\/p>\n

Nagamootoo did not agree with the President\u2019s seeming one-sided position that he would not visit the town unless the roads are cleared.<\/p>\n

Further, he said that the association of the word \u201cextremist\u201d with the letter as regards the protest in Linden, constitutes not only a hindrance to peace and orderliness, but could very well fuel it.<\/p>\n

He said for the President to lump so-called \u201coutsiders\u201d and refer to them as extremists was in fact doing the same thing that the Americans did during the Vietnam war, that of putting Vietnamese against each other.<\/p>\n

Nagamootoo said that this \u201cVietnamisation of Linden\u201d would not help to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

He said that the President is sending mixed signals by saying that there is a hold in the tariff hike while at the same time propagating that there has to be a gradual increase of electricity rates in Linden.<\/p>\n

Further, Nagamootoo said that Ramotar\u2019s Ministers are using the media to stigmatise Lindeners, suggesting that the people of the town are deliberately trying to avoid paying their share for utility services.<\/p>\n

Rather than seeking to diffuse the situation, Ramotar has added to the agitation, Nagamootoo opined.<\/p>\n

Nagamootoo said that the President has not acted on the no-confidence Parliamentary vote against Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee, which could have helped to ease the tension.<\/p>\n

Further, Ramotar said that the business community and the people of the interior regions affected by the protests in Linden should come out and support the cause of the Lindeners and call for a just resolution to the problem.<\/p>\n

He said that others are suffering because \u201ca callous and senseless government\u201d has brought on electricity tariff increases in Linden without adequate consultation, without examining the level of poverty in the town and the ability of the town to pay those increases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The agitation in Linden over the hike in electricity tariffs does not require a \u201cDear John and Jane\u201d letter to the people of Linden from President Donald Ramotar, the Vice Chairman of the Alliance for Change Moses Nagamootoo said yesterday. \u201cHe (the President) didn\u2019t have to resort to letter writing. This is not a love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-3943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latestnews","tag-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image001-2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4F7T1-11B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}