By Derrick Scott, Byron Buckley, Gleaner Writers IN SURPRISINGLY undiplomatic language, President of the Republic of Guyana Bharratt Jagdeo, has accused Jamaica and other regional countries of concealing the real face of HIV/AIDS and crime in the region to protect their economic interests.
Addressing Guyanese immigrants in Atlanta, Georgia last week, Mr. Jagdeo singled out Jamaica as the biggest offender. He said that while his country has admitted to having a problem with HIV/AIDS other regional countries had not been forthright. Jamaica, he said, was particularly guilty of publishing misleading HIV/AIDS statistics in the interest of its tourist industry.
Mr. Jagdeo, who was a special guest of the Government at the opening of the new Parliament following the 2002 general election, made the remark last week in response to queries about why Guyana had the highest record of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean.
Yesterday John Junor, Jamaica's Health Minister, refuted the claims by the Guyanese leader, pointing to this country's record of transparency in addressing the scourge of HIV/AIDS. He recalled that two years ago Jamaica hosted the head of UN AIDS, Peter Piot, who addressed a joint sitting of Parliament.
"There is absolutely no truth to that statement, if in fact it was said," Junor told The Gleaner. "That is totally false. In fact our prevalence rate of 1.5 to two per cent (per 22,000 of the population) is one of the highest in the Caribbean. So, if we were trying to hide the truth, we would not have published this figure," Junor stated emphatically.
Jagdeo's outburst was apparently in an attempt to temper negative impressions of his country which, reportedly, has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the region.
The President recounted that about four years ago, Guyana decided that HIV/AIDS was a major problem and decided to face it head-on. "We are tackling the problem head-on," he reported, inferring that while it was not a badge of honour, Guyana was not prepared to falsify figures to make the country look good for international visitors. "We can't do that," he said.
President Jagdeo also took aim at the crime situation in regional countries, criticising his neighbours, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, as two of the most notorious Caribbean countries for downplaying their crime figures. Pressing his point, Mr. Jadgeo said anything that happens in Guyana is blown out of proportion. He said that on a recent visit to Trinidad, official figures showed 76 kidnappings whereas Guyana only had two for the same reporting period.
Citing Jamaica, the president claimed that the crime rate was probably 10 times higher than that of Guyana, but he charged that reporting crime on the front page is not the policy of the daily newspapers in Jamaica. This, he said, was so because the owners, he alleged, have interests in the island's tourism sector.
