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Oct 23, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
One of the most complex, inexplicable and disturbing things about life is why dictators who hurt, humiliate and kill people with a craving desire (similar to the urge one has for water when thirsty), love life so much and are scared of dying? How do you explain this mystery of the human mind?
American soldiers found Saddam Hussein living like a rat in a mud-hole. Hussein was personally involved in the murder of his opponents the numbers of which are staggering. General Daniel Noriega of Panama ran all over his country seeking a hiding place to save his life when the Americans invaded Panama looking to arrest him. Yet Noriega assassinated several of his critics.
The words in the caption were uttered by Muammar Gaddafi when anti-government fighters found him in a sewer pipe waiting to escape. The words, “my sons” doesn’t refer to the young revolutionary fighters but to his sons that he loved so much. Dictators love their families but for these brutal, cruel men, the families of the people they hurt are not humans who have feelings.
The dictators see their critics as lower animals that could be disgraced, beaten, locked up whenever the autocrats like, because we and our families are inferior animals.
One of Saddam Hussein’s daughters was mad, livid, filled with anger at what was taking place at his trial, but the same daughter said not a word to her butcher of a father when he was exterminating anti-government activists. Dictators, oligarchs and autocrats only have feelings for their own. No one else. They are despicable and must be told that justice will catch up with them one day after they hurt so many persons in their countries.
Here is something I never wrote about since the hearing of President Jagdeo’s libel case against me began. That trial commenced in July and went into October only to be adjourned until December 1. During the recess periods and after the days’ hearing concluded, all types of anti-government activists on the one hand and Ministers and Government officials on the other hand, who visit the trial, would go up to each other, embrace and talk nicely.
I never left my seat during the breaks and after the days were over, I never mingled with any government officials, choosing to talk only to one person from the Government side, Anil Nandlall ,with whom I shared a close friendship long before he became a PPP activist.
One day I told Mark Benschop that he should not have entertained such a warm conversation with Priya Manickchand. I told Benschop that was his right, but in a country with grave human rights violations, I do not think it is appropriate to be seen having a cozy chat with a Minister of Government.
He replied that Manickchand came up to complain that some unfavourable things were said about her on his website. I told him he should have immediately asked her about the unfavourable things her regime does to people in this land.
Here is a graphic manifestation of one of those things. I sat in a meeting of the Council of the University of Guyana two weeks ago that was specially summoned by the representatives of the Government who sit on the Council, except Mrs. Indra Chandarpal. The meeting was presided over by just retired Head of the Caribbean Development Bank and Chancellor of UG, Dr. Compton Bourne (who holds the Order of Excellence), Professor Lawrence Carrington, the Vice-Chancellor and Mr. Vincent Alexander, the Registrar.
Without any ambiguous language but in language that was pellucid and direct, Ms. Gail Teixeira, Dr. Prem Misir, Mr. Pulandar Khandai, the PS in the Ministry of Education, and the son of Dr. Nanda Gopaul, Dr. Ghansham Singh (whose name was mentioned by Dr. Roger Luncheon recently in the President libel suit as being a holder of a plot in Pradoville 2) told Dr. Bourne, Professor Carrington and Mr. Alexander, that they want the immediate termination of the contract of a number of lecturers.
They complained that the Vice Chancellor had no legal right to approve contracts; that was for the Council to do. The Vice-Chancellor replied that this was a long convention at UG. Dr. Bourne suggested a small committee study the issue. Mr. Alexander indicated that UG’s classes began five weeks ago. If Teixeira, Misir, Khandai and Singh get their way, the classes these lecturers teach would collapse immediately; hundreds of students would be affected with no immediate replacements in sight.
Finally, I was one of the judges in a Youth Parliament at the Pegasus (the other two judges were Priya Manickchand and Raphael Trotman) in which one of the “Parliamentarians” was the son of a PPP leader. He lost the prize of Best Speaker. His father was enraged. He told me we were incompetent judges and that his son was the best of the “Parliamentarians.” This man is one of those PPP leaders who keep chopping off the employment heads of many civil servants.
JAGDEO ADDING MORE DANGER TO GUYANA AND THE REGION
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