Stabroek News Erroneous Claims of an Attack on Its Reporter
Stabroek News has issued yet another erroneous report and this time it pertains to a conversation between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Honourable Hugh Hilton Todd, and its reporter, Khadidja Ba.
The Minister wishes to clarify from the outset that his conversation with the Stabroek News Reporter was always cordial. It culminated with her acknowledging that the report the Minister was referring to, which was not written by her, was indeed plagued with misinformation that needed to be flagged with the Editor-in-Chief.
At issue, was the Minister’s observation that though he had earlier given an interview to Ms. Ba, the story which is now purportedly causing unease, was in fact written by someone else and omitted the vast majority of information the Minister had graciously provided during the interview.
The outrageous claims in the report that were attributed to the Minister about migrants working harder than locals, and that the majority of Lindeners are squatters, are wholly untrue. It is a callous misrepresentation of the Minister’s remarks and a grave breach of the universal ethical standards of journalism to which Stabroek News claims to uphold.
What the Minister reinforced in the conversation with Ms. Ba were the points he had already expressed in their interview and which were completely misrepresented in the article written by her colleague. This included his emphasis on the international obligations of Guyana and its state apparatus under ratified conventions, to receive and exercise humane treatment of migrants to our shores, particularly those fleeing atrocities and severe hardships in their homeland.
The Minister reiterated that beyond its international obligations, our country is morally obliged to receive and integrate, as far as practicably possible, as many migrants as possible, who arrive seeking help not dissimilar to the historical migration of Guyanese who fled in droves under similar circumstances in the 1970s and ‘80s.
The Minister underscored the point that the vast majority of migrants who have arrived in Guyana are seeking better livelihoods, as they are doing across the Latin America and Caribbean Region and further afield, and are normal human beings with dignity; most of them being hard workers already making significant contributions to the national economy here through the deployment of their skills and labour.
With specific regard to Venezuelan migrants who have sought refuge within the municipality of Linden, the majority of whom have already found meaningful work within the locale; the Minister emphasized that local leaders and residents of the town should demonstrate more empathy and hospitality to their beleaguered guests, as they did so warmly and exceptionally for their fellow Guyanese who sought refuge in Linden during the 2005 flood disaster on the East Coast of Demerara.
Minister Todd also referenced a sensitive point of convergence that should be considered in the treatment of the migrants by local leaders and residents in Linden; the reality that many parts of the mining town which emerged through squatting, remain unregulated, with the government having already made significant progress to remedy the situation, as it continues to work assiduously to fix those long-standing social issues in Linden, as in other parts of the country. As such, while squatting in any form should not be encouraged and remains illegal, the Minister explained to the reporter, as he had previously done during their interview, that survival squatting by the migrants on the outskirts of Linden, among other critical welfare issues, are sensitive matters being addressed by the Central Government within the framework of the Multi-Agency Coordinating Committee (MACC), since it is a matter of national importance with international implications.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation further explained to the reporter, that while it was indeed the case that local leaders were not included in his initial direct engagement with the migrants during his visit to the town on October 8th and 9th; the migrant matter, for the most part, resides at a national level with his Ministry, in conjunction with the MACC, and is therefore not one to be handled directly by or with local leaders. Notwithstanding, Minister Todd reiterated to the reporter, as he had previously done during their interview, that as a matter of courtesy, all stakeholders will be kept abreast with government interventions on this critical matter.
What is again front and center in this extant matter, is the continued flagrant resort to misinformation, distortions, and half-truths when reporting on important and sensitive matters of state by some of Guyana’s leading news outlets, in the name of sensational journalism, while the ‘custodians’ of the Fourth Estate remain conveniently silent.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation therefore demands that the Stabroek News withdraw its erroneous account of his cordial engagement with Ms. Ba, and take stringent and immediate steps to correct its reportage on the Minister’s remarks about the Linden migrant issue made during his interview with the said reporter at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre.