Saturday, January 13, 2007

The Christian community is urging the government not to legalise casino
gambling for Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 or at any time; to defer
discussions on the draft legislation until after CWC and to learn from
experiences based on research. Church leaders have also begun a number of
activities aiming at sensitising the public to the dangers of casino
gambling and said they feel legal action might also be an option. The draft
legislation, entitled the Gambling Prevention (Amendment) Bill 2006, to
legalise casino gambling is due for its first reading in Parliament today.
And Alliance For Change MP Sheila Holder will also lead a motion in
Parliament for a study to be conducted to determine whether casino gambling
would add to the country's tourism product or aggravate the crime situation.
At a joint press conference called by representatives of the Guyana Council
of Churches (GCC), Guyana Evangelical Fellowship (GEF) and the Georgetown
Ministers' Fellowship (GMF) at the National Library Annexe yesterday, Pastor
Marlon Hestick said the Christian community, which he said represents 57% of
the population, was "unalterably opposed" to the government's proposal to
license persons or institutions to engage in casino gambling for CWC 2007
and beyond.
Reading from a prepared statement, Hestick said the church leaders are also
proposing alternative means of economic activities, particularly as it
relates to tourism development through cultural entertainment and the
performing arts, which they described as a win-win situation in the tourism
industry. They are also willing to discuss with the government strategies on
the country's economic and social development. Urging Muslims and Hindus to
fully engage in the discussions on the issue, the statement said there was
also still time for redress on the part of the government. The statement
said the government's approach on the issue so far has illustrated little
regard for Sections 13 and 50 of the Constitution of Guyana having not
involved civil society in any meaningful consultation, nor engaged
Parliament in any form of discussion. 3Asked whether they had met President
Bharrat Jagdeo to express their concerns, Hestick said that in March last
year they had met the President at State House and expressed their concerns.
The President had told them then that there was going to be widespread
consultations on the issue. Since then there had been no further
interaction. However, the GCC received an invitation dated December 6, 2006
from Prime Minister Sam Hinds to a meeting to be held on December 8. The
Chairman of the GCC, to whom it was addressed, was out of the country on GCC
business at the time and did not receive the invitation until after the date
of the meeting.

The government has also not offered any study to show the social impact of
legalised gambling in Guyana. Instead, the statement said, "there exists a
lot of evidence to show that, with our weak law enforcement, judicial,
legislative and social infrastructure, the advent of casino gambling could
see Guyana moving from a 'Jurisdiction of Concern' in the USA State
Department's money-laundering list, to a 'Jurisdiction of Primary Concern'."
The statement pointed to the US State Department website that dealt with the
International Narcotics Strategy Control Report for 2006.

Some of the deleterious effects the statement listed were the creation of
false values including the get-rich-quick illusion; discouragement of
thrift, honest enterprise and a productive work ethic; promotion of greed;
temptation to weak-willed persons who frequently develop an addiction to
gambling; family neglect and domestic violence and undermining the family
unit; wasting of money that could be used for productive purposes;
enrichment of a few and impoverishment for the majority; an increase in
crime to obtain money to gamble; pauperization of the gamblers; and
promotion of opportunities for illegal activity including money laundering
as well as corruption in the public and private sectors.

Stating that Guyanese would not have any type of tourism at any cost, the
Christian leaders said, "Government cannot and must not be held to ransom by
any stakeholder because it facilitated investors' efforts to benefit from
tourism and CWC 2007."

The leaders produced a draft document entitled 'Legal, Moral, Social and
Constitutional Considerations in Addressing the Responsibilities of
Government with regard to Casino Gambling in Guyana,' which the statement
said is a research paper that "elucidates the concerns of the Guyanese
people" and outlines "Guyana's perilous descent at the level of governance
and constitutional issues."

As a maturing democracy, they said, the implications of the findings cannot
be ignored. They have begun to distribute this document to a number of
stakeholders.

Expressing the GMF's position on the draft legislation, Pastor Loris Heywood
said that apart from the moral principles, a number of violent crimes
engulfed the Guyanese society over the past three to four years. Research,
he said, shows that narco-crime is associated with casino gambling in
laundering money and excessive and wanton violence, the use of deadly
weaponry, utter disregard for the sanctity of life, trans-border crime with
linkages to international networks and it also corrupts systems and
structures of the government including the judiciary.

The legalisation of casino gambling, Heywood said, was not just a matter of
accommodating Buddy's International Hotel or Cricket World Cup but that the
provision for the licensing of the minimum of three casinos in each of the
country's ten administrative regions was a "strategic evil" given the
country's porous borders and transnational crime.

Quoting from last year's US State Department report which stated that drug
trafficking and money laundering appear to be propping up the Guyana economy
and known drug traffickers have acquired substantial land and investment in
large properties, he said that as a patriotic Guyanese and Caribbean person
he felt uncomfortable relying on the US report "to tell us what we already
know."

Rev Ellsworth Williams of the GEF said he would have preferred if the
government had called the religious community together to discuss some
development strategy paper in terms of job creation, how to help the poor,
and how to find solutions for the country's ills instead of rushing the bill
through Parliament to legalise casino gambling.

Chairman of the GCC Rev Alphonso Porter said gambling was morally wrong in
principle because it involves misuse of money and it was not in exchange for
goods and services.

It was an appeal to chance where the gains of the winners represent the
accumulated loss of the losers.

He reiterated that casino gambling is used as a cover for many criminal
activities adding that the government was promoting these social diseases at
a time when HIV was on the increase and the law enforcement agencies were
unable to solve high-profile murders. He said this was disturbing since it
created additional burdens.

The GCC, he said, does not believe that the government should seek to
justify casino legislation because of revenue generation because it could
also bring tragic social consequences to the nation.

The GCC represents the Anglican Diocese, Roman Catholic Diocese, the Church
of the Nazarene, Outreach Ministries International, the African Methodist
Episcopal Church, the African Metho-dist Episcopal Zion Church, Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Guyana, the Guyana Presbyterian Church, Presbytery of
Guyana, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Moravian Church, the Salvation
Army, the Congregational Union of Guyana, the Methodist Church of Guyana and
the Guyana Missionary Baptist Church.