Latest update March 25th, 2025 7:08 AM

Guyana's largest selling daily and New York's most popular weekly

Latest News

Party paramountcy and the long tragedy of Guyana

Jun 08, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I don’t buy the Chronicle, the PPP’s newspaper, the Mirror, and the Guyana Times. Why should anyone? They are identical pieces. They reproduce the same eulogies of the PPP leadership and the PPP Government. They produce the same news about the PPP leadership and the PPP Government.

They carry the same attacks on PPP critics with false signatures. When I am on the internet, I browse the web pages of these newspapers.

Last week, I discovered an interesting manifestation of the paramountcy of the party. The Chronicle has a new web page. At the same time, the Mirror got a new one too. They are identical. Two things about this latest manifestation of party paramountcy are of interest.

One is that the changes to the two outfits came at the same time. Secondly, it cannot be a coincidence that two different graphic artists could produce such a striking similarity. My belief is that the same person worked on the production of both papers. Who paid him/her is a curiosity that should be investigated.

The Mirror is a very private newspaper that is totally unconnected to the affairs of the State in Guyana. The Chronicle is public property financed by the Treasury. Mr. Ralph Ramkarran’s Mirror column is reproduced in the Chronicle.

The cancer of party paramouncy, introduced by Forbes Burnham, never went away after the PPP came into power. It took different forms. Of importance, is the fact that the very PNC that the PPP demonizes, and that Ralph Ramkarran wants to have an apology from for past wrongs, sought to move away from these ancient political perversities in the Hoyte presidency.

The Hoyte interregnum was a movement away from the political methodologies of Mr. Burnham, only to be brought back by the PPP, and through the initiative of all person, Cheddi Jagan. President Jagan put his driver on the Board of Directors of the Co-op Bank. Someone should research the Board’s minutes to see if he ever uttered a single sentence during meetings.

The maintenance of this dangerous poison in the equally dangerous political culture of the PPP, has had a depressingly terrifying effect on the psychology of thousands of Guyanese who fought for democracy, and the dawn of a brand new art of living, after the restoration of free and fair elections.

In this context, the wonderful thoughts of David Hinds are so instructive that they ought to be quoted as often as possible. Writing about the PPP, its founder, Dr. Jagan, and the destructive path they both had embarked on from the fifties onwards in the June 5th edition of the two independent dailies, he traced the story of ethnic politics in the PPP from the fifties through to the present period, taking in the discarding of the WPA by Jagan himself, after he became President in 1992.

There is no scope here to reproduce the analytical outline of Dr. Hinds, but briefly, he contends that after the spilt in the nationalist PPP, the Africans stood with Jagan rather than Burnham, but soon became alienated as Jagan moved his party closer to the East Indian commercial class that initially hated Jagan.

As Jagan courted the Indian bourgeoisie, he forced out the Africans that stood with him out of class solidarity rather than race loyalty. Eusi Kwayana became the recipient of Jagan’s ferocious anger. Jagan turned his back on West Indian Federation, according to Hinds, out of ethnic fear.

The tale of Jagan’s ethically driven motive for rejecting the Federation, is commented upon in the May issue of the Guyana Review. Hinds ends his fine, iconoclastic essay with the following words; “The PPP has proved to be the ultimate barrier to ethnic unity and nationhood in Guyana.”

One hopes that there is some company or foundation that can assist in the production of a book manuscript of this kind of historical revisionism as penned by people like David Hinds, so our young generation can know the true dimensions and the real truths of the PPP’s evolution.

The truth of who caused the tragedy of this country, the tragedy that continues to haunt this sad nation is slowly coming out as more Guyanese scholars like David Hinds, Clem Seecharran and Baytoram Ramharack put their thoughts in published form.

More importantly, East Indians must follow the example of intellectuals like Dr. Tarron Khemraj (see his letter on the “dankey” cart economy under Mr. Jagdeo) and Arif Bulkan (see his writing on petty tyranny in Guyana) and denounce racial discrimination and elected dictatorship under the PPP and Mr. Jagdeo. Guyana’s tragedy has to have a happy ending. It will in 2011.

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show|| March, 17th, 2025

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Groups, schedule announced for One Guyana 3×3 Quest

Groups, schedule announced for One Guyana 3×3 Quest

Mar 25, 2025

Kaieteur Sports- With just 11 days to go before Guyana welcomes 16 nations for the largest 3×3 basketball event ever hosted in the English-speaking Caribbean, excitement is building. The Guyana...
Read More
2025 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League Fixtures confirmed

2025 Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League...

Mar 25, 2025

Virtual Meeting of Caribbean Boxing Promoters held, Guyana among six countries with interest

Virtual Meeting of Caribbean Boxing Promoters...

Mar 25, 2025

GBA AirBadminton Tournament spikes off with historic showing at St. Cuthbert’s Mission 

GBA AirBadminton Tournament spikes off with...

Mar 25, 2025

Briton John sets sights on another sweep with second leg win

Briton John sets sights on another sweep with...

Mar 25, 2025

Waramuri stuns Vreed-en-Hoop 7-1, as Bush Lot topple Ann’s Grove

Waramuri stuns Vreed-en-Hoop 7-1, as Bush Lot...

Mar 24, 2025

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.

Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]