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Sep 18, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
With each column, persons would ask questions or seek clarification. You simply don’t have the time to cope. My Saturday column on the WPA was no exception. People would request that you don’t mention their names. I had some intriguing emails about the evolution, and contours of the WPA as a response to my Saturday article. Only Tom Dalgetty was opened to being quoted. He had an absorbing reaction to the column.
I thought it was too close for doing another piece on the WPA for today’s edition. Readers would say that they just read about the WPA two days ago. As usual, in trying to beat the daily blackouts we get (typing this Sunday morning; it came and we just got back power) at Turkeyen, I did today’s column on Saturday night.
It is on the politics of Jagdeo in the light of his recent accusations on the proposed new bridge and oil blocks. But then on Sunday morning, I got a call from a friend. He enquired if I read Dr. David Hinds’ Sunday column. I didn’t and was advised to read it because it is a response to my Saturday piece on the WPA. I will ask readers’ indulgence while today I do another adumbration on the WPA.
David wrote; “Unlike the UF and the AFC, the WPA’s intervention threatened and at one point rattled the status quo in a deep, radical manner that pushed the country into the sphere of revolution. That’s why the WPA never goes away, even when Freddie kills it, reads the obituary and seals the tomb. It’s why the PPP rails at Clive Thomas over Guysuco and SARA or at Ogunseye or Hinds or even former WPA members over any and everything they say and do.
It’s why the leadership of the present government tries at every twist and turn to contain the WPA, both as a party and as individuals.”
But come on man, but surely man, if you represent the interests of the country as a political party and one that has been in power since 2015; if you speak on behalf of the population of a country and if you say you are a living entity, then you have a deep obligation and a profound commitment to explain things to the people.
In this context, the WPA’s position is horrible and even that adjective is a mild one. Where is the explanation from co-leaders Roopnaraine and Thomas on the Cabinet status of Roopnaraine?
Where is the WPA’s individual manifesto on policies it would like to see made into policies now that the WPA is in government? Why haven’t the leaders of the WPA, particularly its two co-leaders, addressed the nation on the implementation or non-implementation of some of these manifesto items?
These are issues that you have a moral obligation to talk to the nation about. Why should the media accept these controversies without asking Roopnaraine and Thomas for explanations? Why should the society put its faith in a political party that is so distant from the nation?
Roopnaraine and Thomas have not spoken to the Guyanese people in their capacity as co-leaders on the fate of the Rodney Commission’s findings. Where is the WPA’s obligation to do so and why should the Guyanese people accept such an attitude?
David wrote that it is because of the WPA’s role that the PPP “rails at Clive Thomas over Guysuco and SARA….” I am confused here. The PPP is railing against the Head of Sara and the Chairman of GuySuco. This has nothing to do with Thomas as the co-leader of the WPA. The PPP is railing against a state official named Clive Thomas, not Thomas as the WPA co-leader.
Two days ago, Khemraj Ramjattan spoke at an AFC press conference and he spoke on his party’s position on many things. He said that his party (not his Ministry) rejected the parking meter scenario. President Granger invited the media in his capacity as leader of the PNC to his civilian home to report on the unveiling of four foundations in the name of Forbes Burnham.
The political parties have to interface with the people of a country. The WPA leadership has not been doing that for a long time. When shocking details emerge about the transaction inside a party then moral obligation to the people comes in.
How could a party have someone in the upper tier of its leadership and that person never held legal membership? Where is the explanation? When a party behaves like this, people will say it does not exist!
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Hinds is correct “the WPA’s intervention threatened and at one point rattled the status quo in a deep, radical manner that pushed the country into the sphere of revolution.”
Key words here are “at one point”. For me the WPA had become unknown and toothless. I was surprised, no flabbergasted, that they would join with the PNC just by virtue of the fact it was alleged the PNC was involved in the demise of their famous leader, Walter Rodney, who most Guyanese, felt was a dynamic and formidable force against Forbes Burnham and the PNC. Indeed the WPA was considered a force to be reckoned with.
My first impression, in their joining the coalition was that they were only interested in power, indeed I also thought that they were trying to stay alive.
My impression now is that they say nothing because they feel that to rock the boat would sink the boat, being the coalition, and that would mean the end of the WPA.