Freedom Fighters

The death of Fr Andrew Morrison of Guyana fills with deep sadness those of us who believe in and support democracy, human rights and most importantly perhaps to us, freedom of the press.

If ever there was a man, a tenacious and unrelenting fighter for democracy in Guyana, his name was Andrew Morrison. He was tall, slim, wiry, 79 years of age, a Jesuit priest who stood up to a dictator named Forbes Burnham and used every defence at his disposal to speak out against the dictatorship that was growing in his country and to do so by publishing his weekly newspaper The Catholic Standard. The Standard was a religious newspaper of the Catholic Church in Guyana, but faced with a steady erosion of fundamental human rights under the Burnham regime, Fr Morrison turned The Standard into Guyana’s only organ of democracy. He would not be cowed by a dictator not even when weighed down with libel writ after libel writ from the Burnham Government and the brutal murder of his photographer, Fr Bernard Darke who was stabbed to death while photographing a demonstration in Georgetown.

The Burnham Government starved Fr Morrison of newsprint hoping to close down The Standard. Their first action was to refuse him foreign currency to import essential newsprint.  When sympathetic newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago and other Caribbean countries offered to send him free newsprint the Burnham dictatorship found another way to strangle him - he was now required to apply for a licence to land the newsprint which of course was always denied. But in Fr Morrison, Burnham had met his match because Morrison persevered even when it meant reducing The Catholic Standard almost to a letter size six to eight page pamphlet that was the only way through which the people of Guyana could know the truth of what was going on in their country. He obtained support from the media in the rest of the Caribbean who not only helped him with paper but in meeting the costs of the legal expenses as he continued to strongly criticise the general election abuses and irregularities that disenfranchised thousands of citizens of that country. He railed against the government for the suffering imposed on the people and the severe economic difficulties that overtook Guyana under the yolk of Burnham.  But happily Fr Morrison lived to see the emergence of democratic rule in Guyana.

The Working Peoples Alliance (WPA) in its tribute to Fr Morrison had this to say: “As the state slipped more and more into illegality The Standard earned a reputation for investigative reporting. Its Editor was recognised by the Human Rights Committee and The Standard was seen among newspapers as a reliable non party reflector of the state of human rights in Guyana.” The WPA also recorded its gratitude to Fr Morrison and his assistants for their investigative reporting on the assassination of the late WPA leader, Dr Walter Rodney. Delivering the eulogy at his funeral on Wednesday, Jesuit regional superior, Fr Joe Chira, said that Fr Morrison was a son of the soil who commited himself to doing God’s will forsaking his own life to go after promoting the lives of others especially youth. “He will always be remembered as the priest who fought vigorously for democracy.”

Attending the funeral at the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic in Georgetown, were President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, former President Janet Jagan and several top ranking officials and many ordinary people who sat teary eyed throughout the service all remembering the bravery of his humble man.