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Jun 10, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – Ninety percent of the emails I get are from Guyanese who live abroad. The questions are too many, so if the senders are understanding folks, they will know I cannot offer my submissions to even half of the queries, one reason being I am a lazy guy who is also disorganised. My daughter constantly berates me for not doing a book.
This gentleman sent his curiosity twice. I am printing my reaction, adding more. He refers to my column on Tuesday in which I made reference to Dr. Alissa Trotz not carrying anything in her series titled, “In the Diaspora” for the past 19 months when Guyana witnessed the tragedies surrounding the no-confidence vote and the five-month election criminalities.
He pointedly inquired if Trotz would have acted that way if the PPP was the bully-boy as the PNC was during the five months of rigging. I am not contacting him directly. I am speaking to him through this column. My answer is trenchant and unapologetic. If the PPP tried to tamper with a national election and prolonged the process for five months, Alissa Trotz would have used her column each week to get anti-PPP writers to engage in a blitzkrieg.
I am still at a loss to understand the editorial principles of the Stabroek News. Trotz works under the jurisdiction of the editor-in-chief (EiC). Given that the rigging was taking place in front of the world, then the EiC should have asked Trotz to find commentators to analyse the negative intrusions, the illegal interferences and the violent dimensions of the imbroglio. That was his obligations to readers and shareholders.
I was doing daily analyses in the Kaieteur Radio studios when the publisher, Glenn Lall, took a position on the election rigging and outlined his policy to two columnists – David Hinds and Lincoln Lewis – and then editor-in-chief, Adam Harris. I heard Lall’s pronouncements and there were times my opinion was asked for. Lall told both columnist and his editor that the paper’s policy is not to remain silent on what the paper accepted as election rigging and the policy is to not carry news and views that supported the rigging. We all know what happened after.
If the PPP were rigging those elections for five months, each week “In the Diaspora” would have featured weekly commentaries of pro-PNC scholars, African rights activists who hate the PPP, women rights groups who detest the PPP and civil society groups who dislike the PPP. There is no question about it; Transparency Institute – Guyana Chapter and Guyana Human Rights Association would have gone on a rampage against the rigging.
I mentioned above, I will answer the question about Dr. Trotz and add more. Here are my additional thoughts. Eusi Kwayana would have been enraged. We would have received a letter a week from him telling us why the PPP is rigging the poll. The TUC would have called out its workers. There would have been a general strike at UG, closing down the campus.
The hypocritical women groups would have corrugated the narrative in a clever way. These anti-PPP women groups would have found a way to make women the victims of PPP rigging thus adding gasoline to the flames
As we are on the topic of fire, the PNC, ACDA and the AFC would have used inciting vocabularies. Georgetown would have seen violence against innocent young Indian workers who have to travel to Georgetown to feed themselves, their families and relatives. Ministries would have been torched. Public buildings would have been set on fire. The Chronicle and NCN would have been visited by arsonists
Wasn’t this predictable? Well if the answer is difficult, then, just look at what happened in Region Five last September. If the PNC lost yet David Granger and Joseph Harmon went up to Region Five and incited PNC supporters, then think of what would have happened to this country if the PNC had won and the PPP was tampering with the election for five consecutive months.
This is the kind of tragedies Indian people have had to live with since 1968 when Forbes Burnham and the PNC began to rig elections. From 1968, Indian people felt Guyana was not their home and winged impulse took hold of them. National election after national election, Indian people were beaten up. Then came the “Buxton Troubles.” This was a violent anti-Indian project in which Indian businessmen were killed simply because they were Indians. Remember the words of the common-law husband of one of the WPA leaders, Bonita Bone. Ronald Waddell told Indians on channel 9 that they voted for the PPP thus they were legitimate targets.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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