Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:10 AM
Mar 31, 2013 Letters
Dear Editor,
Lincoln is someone I consider a friend and brother in struggle. My unchanging position is that the PPP cannot redeem itself. It is either going to cause trouble by not recognizing it lost power in an election or before that happens there may be a collapse of state administration with a vacuum as what happened in Iran or Grenada when the NJM imploded.
If Lincoln does not read over what he wrote, I am afraid he is going to lose credibility. Already one of the most respected trade unionists ever to come out of Guyana has had cynical words to say on our exchange in an e-mail addressed to a number of persons. I have sent Lincoln that mail He needs to reflect on it since it comes from someone who respects him
Lincoln said that he didn’t write to say that the State media gave wide coverage to his requested meeting with Sam Hinds. Here is the big proclamation of Lincoln for which I can accuse him of dishonesty. I quote him in yesterday’s KN. “Neither have I at anytime in my previous letters, stated anything about the state media or hailed any such coverage” I hate to expose you Lincoln but you are treading on unsafe ground. Here are two examples of your boasting that the State media gave wide coverage to your talks. On March 21 in KN, you wrote; This meeting was covered in its entirety by the national media, a first for the PPP administration and was also carried as news item.” (end of quote) Surely, any school boy would know if it is a first for the PPP then the State media carried it
Lincoln boasted again about the State media coverage of his meeting with Sam Hinds. This was on March 25 when he repeated the exact words. Well I am glad for you Lincoln. You got the PPP to achieve a “first.” Having been accused of dishonesty in claiming that he gloated that he got State media coverage, I hope Lincoln does the decent thing and apologize. I am accused of dishonesty but let us see if Lincoln himself is not dishonest
He wants readers to believe that I applauded the TUC when it entered talks to save my UG job but now I am against the very TUC talking to the Government. This is completely untrue. And Lincoln is going to damage his credibility if he continues. Lincoln sat on the UG Council and spoke against my dismissal when the issue came up. He spoke as a UG council member. There was no formal engagement between the TUC and the Government of Guyana represented by any Minister, much less the PM, on my dismissal from UG in 1995.
In 2012, my contract was terminated and there was no formal engagement between the TUC and the Government over my dismissal. Only the AFC took up with President Ramotar my contract termination. Operation Rescue UG which incorporated my union took up the matter with the UG Administration and sought the intervention of the Ministry of Labour. Lincoln sat in as requested by Operation Rescue UG. How could Lincoln see can analogy between the TUC’s request to PM Hinds for a meeting and industrial relations negotiations over my UG problems? Before I move off at UG let me say that I am proud of my struggles at UG when President Jagdeo, through the instrumentality of Vice Chancellor James Rose, sought to dominate the university and make it a rubber stamp. In the four years I sat in the Council with the TUC representative, the TUC always supported Rose’s position, thus indirectly endorsing Jagdeo’s hegemony
Now to Raymond Gaskin and Robert Corbin. It was Lincoln Lewis who foolishly introduced the concept of guilt by association in his polemic which was totally uncalled for. Now when the very concept is being used to expose his indirect links with the PPP he does not want to hear about it and is running scared. Lewis said to me that I was once chummy with the PPP. I denied that and pointed out that his best friend Gaskin that he proudly proclaimed as his friend, that he says has a fine mind and that he, Lewis, put on the Board of the Critchow Labour College, is doing terrible work for the PPP Government like witch-hunting African Guyanese bureaucrats at City Hall.
Lincoln does not want to touch the Gaskin subject because guilt by association will devastate his credibility. The same for Corbin. Corbin allowed a creeping fascistization under Jagdeo because he had a deal with Jagdeo, which all of us in the media know about and which Winston Murray confided in a journalist at the Catholic Standard. The guilt by association is killing Lincoln because all that time Lincoln was in support of Corbin’s leadership, even going so far on Benschop Radio to say it was for the PNC to decide what they want. It wasn’t Freddie Kissoon last year that was quoted in GINA as saying that after attending a national stakeholders’ meeting, President Ramotar means well and has good intentions. How about that as an example of guilt by association, Lincoln?
I maintain that it is nonsensical for any leader to say that adversaries must talk. Everything is context as I maintained in an interview with Chris Ram. You only talk when you know the time is right. You do not talk for talk’s sake. Finally, how can Lincoln fail so miserably to distinguish potential power from actual power? Lincoln wrote that the presidency is not above the people. Well, Lincoln if it is not why have you been complaining about bad governance the past umpteen years. After all Lincoln, let us, the Guyanese people, run our country because we, the people, have the power not the presidency. You are a funny chap Lincoln but you are still my friend. Let’s go and picket the Office of the President after the holidays
Frederick Kissoon
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