Latest update February 17th, 2025 1:24 PM
Aug 08, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – I met a gentleman in the supermarket yesterday. He looked about early sixties. He said he is in Guyana to do a little investment. He told me he always wanted to meet with and talk to me. I said well here we are, so talk to me.
He said that his hate for Forbes Burnham is unlimited and his love for Jagan is unlimited. He explained that Jagan knew his mom and dad closely and he remembers as a little boy Jagan visiting the home many times. He told me that Burnham wrecked his parents’ lives when his dad was charged for selling banned food items. He said that Jagan visited their home after the charge and there and then, his father told Jagan that he was leaving Guyana with his family never to return.
Then he made a request to me that sent a kind of electric bolt down my spine. He asked me to write a column about Jagan. I told him I must have done dozens and dozens on Jagan. He said, “No, no, no, not that way.” I enquired what way. I was surprised at his response.
He intoned, “I want you to acknowledge that all the things that happened to you, a man like Cheddi Jagan would never have done that even if he was president for life.” I stood in silence listening to him and as I picked up my DDL cherry juice, he asked, “Can you do that column for me?” I told him I want to be honest with him, that I cannot promise but I will reflect on his request.
I reflected deeply on what the gentleman asked. To think of it, such an article was long overdue. If he is reading this column, here is his request. If he wants to contact me, my cell is 614-5927 and email is [email protected]. I know in my heart, deep down in my soul, inside my psyche that if Jagan was president, and I was a volcanic anti-government activist, he would not have done the violent things that happened to me and my family.
I believe profoundly in my mind that if Jagan had retired, but was still the influential voice behind the PPP government, he would have told PPP leaders to stop their cruel harassment of me. Jagan had his crucial faults but lacked the authoritarian instinct to harm his critics. Cheddi Jagan would never have accepted constant repression against his critics.
When my UG contract was terminated two weeks after President Ramotar was sworn in. It had five months before it lapsed. I could very well see Jagan saying, “Let the five months remain then you can decide what to do.” In politics, underlings do violent things in support of their leaders without the knowledge of their leaders.
If that substance was thrown on me when Jagan was president or if he was still alive but not president, I truly believe he and his wife would have been annoyed at what happened to me. I could never, never see Jagan staying silent on such a despicable act.
Had I gone to President Jagan and told him that I had one of the lowest salaries at UG but the GRA left all the other UG lecturers, all the other professionals in the entire country and demanded seven years of property tax submission from me, I know in my heart, Jagan would have intervened. I just had to say the following words and Jagan would have been moved, “But comrade Cheddi, I have no assets in my life, why is the GRA going after me.”
When Mark Benschop and I were incarcerated for three days in the Brickdam lock-ups for a mere traffic offence, it made national headlines. What would President Jagan had said about it? It would have been bad publicity for his image. Jagan would not have remained unmoved. I believe he would have acted to stop our imprisonment going on longer.
I couldn’t see President Jagan suing me for libel. I couldn’t see him interfering with my wife’s public service job. But most of all, when an attempt was made on my life at midnight at a vigil outside Parliament, and my assailant drove away in a vehicle registered to a senior superintendent of police and the eyewitness – a security at Saint Stanislaus School – died suddenly, Jagan would have never, never accepted that from the PPP’s goon squads.
In conclusion, I believe deep down in his soul, Jagan was a good man. He lacked precious leadership qualities but was never ever going to walk the road of authoritarianism. He was never going to apply violence to those whose activism involved protest and demonstrations against his government.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Feb 17, 2025
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