Freddie Kissoon column…Obfuscating political nastiness

Sep 02, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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One of the policies I have inflexibly clung to as a commentator is that political misrepresentations, whether as part of a conspiracy or a genuine mistake, must be replied to by those interested in historical and analytical accuracy. Young minds can internalize these distortions and political understanding suffers. The long term consequence is that it is harder to get people to see the threat to democracy by those, who, though elected, are obsessed with permanent power.

Recently, one of Guyana’s politicians, Mr. Ravi Dev wrote; “The PPP underestimated the effect of ‘prior regime type’ on the democratic transition and consolidation process.” Mr. Dev was concerned to show that the PPP’s lack of success in effecting the transition from dictatorship to democracy after it came to power was because it did not comprehend how embedded were the authoritarian characteristics under Forbes Burnham.

Such an assessment tends to mislead because firstly, it separates the practice of politics by the Burnham regime from the present PPP cabal into two distinct and dissimilar administrations. Secondly, it obfuscates a consistent pattern of dictatorial policies of the present government in Guyana that have in fact deepened the autocratic tendencies of the power-holders.

The first scenario is too involved to receive adequate treatment in a newspaper article. But the autocratic inclinations appeared immediately after the PPP took power in 1992. What actually happened is that the society, free from the burden of a continuation of the PNC regime, overlooked the dictatorial direction that Dr. Jagan was heading into. Some unconscionable departures from the democratic pathway took place. Briefly here are some.

The PPP dissolved its long friendship with its anti-dictatorship partner, the WPA.  There was a conscious policy not to employ WPA personnel in high state jobs. President Cheddi Jagan told this writer that Professor Clive Thomas must follow bureaucratic routine and send in an application for the job of UG Vice-Chancellor. At the same time, Jagan was inviting an ocean of East Indian expatriates to come and work for him. Many came.

Then there was mass retrenchment of public sector managers who worked with the Burnham and Hoyte Governments. At the Customs and Excise and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the dismissals were particularly harsh. Many important semi-autonomous institutions were immediately dismantled like GaiBank, Guymida, Mortgage Finance Bank and others. The paramountcy of the party was subtly continued by the new PPP administration. Here is one egregious example.

I took a six months consultancy with then Minister of Information, Moses Nagamootoo. The Minister met every Wednesday morning with all managers of the state media –radio, television and newspaper. Present at all times was a senior reporter from the PPP’s Mirror newspaper. Guyana had just left behind it, the era of paramountcy of the party but it quickly re-appeared in the new government. I protested to the minister who told me he was in no position to stop the policy because his party would not agree.

I could go on but these examples should suffice. Mr. Dev would like us to believe that what we had after the PNC lost power were some insurmountable hurdles faced by the PPP in trying to build democracy after 1992. Mr. Dev used the term ‘prior regime type” meaning the Burnham era.

The non-starter in that argument is that the Burnhamite regime type and the PPP regime type were the same. There was no conscious determination by the new government to break with the past. What is quite shocking is that successive PPP Governments beginning with Cheddi Jagan deliberately undermined the democratic transition built by President Desmond Hoyte.

This remains a haunting yet cancerous enigma in the history of politics in this land. Hoyte in what can only be described as apocalyptical behaviour, tried to recapture some form of the British approach to the civil service. He appointed a non-party person to head the public sector. This gentleman, Tyrone Ferguson, had no prior experience in party politics. Hoyte also was beginning to pay attention to the need of other ethnic constituencies.

This brief moment of democratization was extinguished after 1992. Jagan reverted to his pristine self when he was Premier in the ‘60s. He assigned his party people to every corner of the public sector. Dr. Luncheon became the Head of the public service and the chairman of the NIS. Dr. Jagan even descended to the comical level of putting his driver on the board of a commercial bank. That was what Guyana had become under a new government that the world expected to bring Guyana out of its social doldrums.

Today, Guyana is slowly creeping towards the precipice of total collapse. A successful Carifesta and the police killing of sadistic gunmen will not prevent that. Guyana’s political problems are too deeply troubling.

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