The Ramkarran affair

Aug 17, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Here is my comment on a letter in support of Mr. Ralph Ramkarran that appeared in the August 15th issue of both the SN and Kaieteur News.

They say never say never in life, but I am psychically revolted at people who attack public figures and hide behind false names, so I will never reply to an anonymous writer or read anonymous outpourings. In this case, this is a respectable letter that seems to come from someone with good breeding.

The correspondence is to the point, without any visible signs of malice, and it directs itself to one issue and one issue only.

The essential point made was that I was wrong to suggest that the only PPP senior that has not served in the Cabinet since 1992 is Mr. Ramkarran. The names Komal Chand and Navin Chandrapaul were cited in contradiction.

Secondly, the letter writer implies that I may have been misled by what I was told by two delegates and a senior party functionary at the PPP’s 29th Congress two weeks ago.

I will respond to the latter factor first. In the media, we all have our confidential sources with which we have cemented a relationship over the years. The three persons that spoke to me are people I trust. I trust them implicitly and explicitly.

That letter writer ought to ask himself/herself why would he/she believe what he/she is told but I must not believe what I heard.

All these grey areas can be cleared up, but they will remain mysterious because Mr. Ramkarran had emphatically declared that he cannot speak on party business.

What type of semantics are we dealing with here? Mr. Ramkarran is quoted in last Sunday SN as saying, “If there had not been serious lobbying against me, it would not have dropped so low.” He spoke on party business. He intoned that party colleagues campaigned against him.

Mr. Ramkarran has refused to state what the contents of the lobbying were. I have been confidentially informed that at least one senior party functionary went around telling delegates that, because Mr. Ramkarran has consistently refused a party offer to function as a minister, he should not be given votes that would enhance his chances for 2011.

Now that may not be a nice thing to say about Mr. Ramkarran, but what I have maintained all along is that this was the derogation levelled against Mr. Ramkarran at the congress. I repeat: I believe what I was told because of the respect I have for my sources.

If Mr. Ramkarran cannot provide evidence to refute my observation that there was a disagreement between him and senior PPP leaders in 1997 on his presidential status, then the moral option is to refrain from attacking me.

Mr. Ramkarran makes his position more untenable by asserting that he cannot discuss party affairs openly. If he cannot, why get into a public debate with me? I say to Mr. Ramkarran, prove me wrong.

I come to the second factor of who served in what capacity. From what I have been told over the years, there seems to be a grievance against Mr. Ramkarran over a standing offer to serve in the Cabinet.

My understanding is that he has never refused, but he has put some discussions on the table in relation to his law practice.

Let me repeat for the umpteenth time – I trust the particular sources in the PPP that spoke to me on this situation.

I don’t think Mr. Ramkarran’s refusal to be a minister can be equated with Komal Chand and Navin Chandrapaul. The latter has been in the Cabinet since 1992. He is the Science Advisor to the President.

It has been the inflexible choice of the PPP’s executive committee that Mr. Komal Chand remains at the helm of GAWU. We are talking about party requests that have been adhered to.

In Mr. Ramkarran’s case, it seems that he has not met a long-standing wish of his party. That has come back to haunt him at the recent congress.

In closing, let me say that, in all my writings on the congress and Mr. Ramkaran the past two weeks, I have not offered an opinion on Mr. Ramkarran’s suitability to be President of Guyana.

I trust Mr. Ramkarran clears up the nagging question as to why he has not been in the Cabinet since 1992.
Frederick Kissoon

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The Ramkarran affair

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