Like most Guyanese, I welcome the meeting between Mr. Desmond Hoyte and Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo set for next Tuesday as a first step towards arresting the extreme madness that has bedeviled Guyana since December 1997. In any ordinary democracy such a meeting would go almost unnoticed, but no so in our Guyana where democracy is mere form and little substance. But for all the hype, this meeting is nothing new. In addition, there was almost two years of dialogue between the PPP and the PNC as mandated by the Herdmanston Accord. At the end of the day we were back on the warpath with even more vengeance.
Some people are satisfied with the status quo.
They prefer perpetual dialogue even when it achieves nothing tangible since they see it as a means of ensuring peace. Remember, one of the main objectives, if not the main one, of those who devised the Herdmanston and St Lucia Accords was to get the people off the streets. Once again this seems to be the sole reason that many in Civil Society have pushed so hard for the two leaders to meet. According to these people, Just get the protestors off the streets and lets get down to business as usual until the next election. They want a contrived peace or what Martin Luther King derisively called Negative Peace.