Guyana Catholics in law suit

GUYANA'S„ only independent newspaper and its Jesuit editor were this week involved in a courtroom battle with the country's leader.
President Forbes Burnham brought a lawsuit against the paper's printer, its editor, Fr Andrew Morrison, its controlling company, Catholic Standard Ltd., and the author of a letter to the editor which questioned if it was "a blunder or treason" on the part of the President, when he was Guyana's senior counsel, to sign the 1966 Geneva agreement, and thus re-open a long-running and historical border dispute with neighbouring Venezuela.
Two other libel suits have been lodged against the paper by members of the Government. Among groups to have rallied to the defence of the Catholic Standard have been the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), the Catholic Press Association and the International Justice and Peace Commission of Men and Women Religious.
"These actions, if successful, will be seen by many outside your country as governmentinspired attempts to eliminate all expressions of dissident opinion", Mgr Daniel Hoyle of the USCC has written in a letter addressed to Bishop Benedict Singh of Georgetown, Guyana.
A committee has been formed in Georgetown of the country's Anglican and Catholic bishops to rally supporters to the paper. In a letter addressed to all Guyanans, they said that "since the press and radio in Guyana are totally owned and controlled by the Government, and since the Catholic Standard is the only independent newspaper left surviving in Guyana, the consequences to the Guyanese should it be shut down would be enormous".
The paper has been an outspoken critic of President Burnham and his poor record on human rights.
In 1983 it was sued by the Vice President, Hamilton Greene, and forced to pay US 510,000 in fines, while in 1981, it was forced to cease publication briefly because it was denied access to government-controlled stocks of newsprint.