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Jun 08, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
If I don’t write a book, maybe my daughter or someone else will put out a compilation of the literally thousands and thousands of columns I have done on Guyana. That will be my book. If and when that is done, I would have paid my dues to my country’s history. Subsequent generations will know who was who, who did what that was right and who did what that was wrong.
History has to be recorded. A 16-year-old can pick up the book by Father Andrew Morrison (“Justice: The Struggle for Democracy in Guyana, 1952-1992”) and he/she will get an insight into the mind of Guyana’s former president, Forbes Burnham.
One can peruse the autobiography of Yesu Persaud and see a picture of the life of Guyana’s economy after the waves of nationalizations in the seventies.
I have done my part in these columns. They are my perspectives of course. But between the subjectivities there are objective portraits. I have sought to highlight the wrongs of history many times in these columns. I am doing so now.
I refer to a letter by Clement Rohee in the newspapers offering a eulogy to Andaiye on the announcement of her death.
There is a line in that missive that distorts history and history must be recorded factually. Rohee wrote; “It is to be regretted that women of the stature, strength and fortitude like Andaiye are denied due recognition for their contribution to the economic and social liberation of the Guyanese people even now with her party being an integral part of the coalition administration. The PPP has to take some responsibility for this lapse as well, having been in government for 23 years.”
There is a deliberate distortion in that observation by Rohee. A better adjective would be dishonest. I would record Guyanese history by saying the greatest act of political betrayal in the life of this country from the 19th century to present day is the PPP’s contemptuous dismissal of the WPA after the PPP won the 1992 election.
I remember doing a column on this subject with the caption; “Wiped out like a lip print on a shirt.” Contempt is certainly a soft word to use to describe the PPP’s attitude to the WPA after 1992.
The leadership of the PPP, including all of its top leaders, that takes in Clement Rohee himself displayed anger and hatred toward the WPA after 1992. It was the most tragic betrayal of political principles in the history of this country.
The WPA played the major role from 1974 to 1980 when Rodney died on four fronts; weakening the grip of the PNC on power, diluting the strength of racial feelings in the Guyanese citizenry; generating an interest of youths in politics, and harnessing the post-colonial expectations of the masses into demanding people’s power.
Even on the international level, the PPP’s struggle for free and fair elections was not as effective as organizations such as the WPA, GUARD, and the Catholic Church.
The nastiness towards the PPP was vehement. Three times I wrote about an encounter with then General-Secretary of the PPP, Donald Ramotar, at the Bakewell establishment on Albert Street. He was coming out, I was going in.
He said a most shocking thing about the political make-up of Andaiye. This was a woman who fought alongside the PPP for over two decades. No doubt Ramotar echoed what other leaders of the PPP thought of Andaiye.
Rohee identified Andaiye as a person whose human rights contribution the 23-year-old PPP administration failed to recognize by some public honouring act. This is barefaced obfuscation. The 23-year-old regime of the PPP comprising five presidents – Cheddi and Janet Jagan, Samuel Hinds, Jagdeo and Ramotar – showed undiluted contempt in those 23 years for Andaiye and her revolutionary colleagues in the WPA, some of whom have since died without recognition.
From President Jagan right up to President Ramotar, the WPA was ridiculed as a party that couldn’t win seats in a general election. Rohee and the PPP gloated for 23 years at the WPA electoral showings and were emotionally disinclined to engage the WPA on any level whatsoever.
One recalls the notorious spat between President Cheddi Jagan and the WPA when Jagan appointed Clive Thomas as a minister and the WPA rejected the offer. The WPA said the offer should come within the framework of discussions between the two parties allowing WPA to make its choice.
From the moment that happened, the relationship between these two revolutionary friends died a “permanent” death. Rohee is beyond being shameless.
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