FREDDIE HAPPY!

Aug 02, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Freddie Kissoon must be smiling. The revelations that have emerged within the Courts of the United States must have pleased him.
It will add ammunition to his personal crusade to deem the Jagdeo administration as an elected dictatorship – something that makes no sense since you cannot have an elected dictatorship – and the worse that Guyana has ever had.
He has used the freedom provided by this newspaper to malign East Indians for exercising their right to choose the government of their choice. He who speaks about elected dictatorship and the descent into authoritarianism wants to dictate who East Indians should vote for in Guyana… and all because the government allegedly intervened in an appointment at the University of Guyana.

Most people know where Kissoon is coming from and his objectives are crystal clear. For weeks now he has been on the same wavelength, even seeking to force the opposition to boycott parliament and thus be left with no alternative but to engage in street protests. He may have his wish now.
While he raves against what he calls elected dictatorship, his tantrums are aimed at undermining the foundations of elected governments. And this is where the danger lies, for in as much as he has a right to be opposed personally to President Jagdeo for the failure to go along with his (Kissoon’s) choice of a Vice Chancellor for the University of Guyana, to use this as the basis for deeming the government as an elected dictatorship and for maligning the supporters is a discredit to someone whose education ought to be put to better use.

His dislike of what the government did at UG is fuelling a fertile imagination, except that in so doing he is going overboard with his cognitive histrionics. To compare the PPP administration with the Third Reich is however not just a case of a few marbles going loose in Kissoon’s head, he knows exactly what he is doing. He has been on a carefully orchestrated plan to demonize the supporters of the PPP, to delegitimize the government and to force the opposition to remove itself from parliament and engage in street protests.
Kissoon’s articles have followed that pattern. The revelations in the Courts of the United States have now provided him with an opportunity to turn the accusing finger in relation to the recent act of arson. He is now implying that the political elites in Guyana were responsible for the fire that destroyed the Ministry of Health building. He is further suggesting, without a shred of evidence, that all of this is a smokescreen to deflect attention from what has emerged in the Simel’s case in the US.

Now is that not a most ingenuous thing to conclude; a conspiracy theory at best? Never mind that the fire at the Ministry took place long before the trial. Never mind that work which the police has done in obtaining confession statements. Never mind that two of the main suspects have escaped from the lockup. All of that is of little credibility as far as he is concerned because he knows the whole story, just like he says he knows the story of who shot Peter Taylor in the sixties even though he turned up at the man’s gate to try to find out from the man what happened. How can someone know what happened and yet be attempting to find out what happened? Does Kissoon believe that people are dumb in Guyana?
He should write a novel. He has some talent in dramatic and fiction-writing. On top of all this grand conspiracy, he now adds another layer. The government is in trouble and is planning to have itself re-elected by calling snap elections.

You can see where Kissoon is going. He is instigating instability in Guyana by saying to the opposition supporters that they need to act and act quickly in the face of what is taking place because the government is planning to re-elect themselves to office by calling snap elections.
The truth is that the government cannot even assure local government elections. The Guyana Elections Commission is responsible for elections and they are not ready for local government elections. In fact, they are stating quite clearly that they cannot be ready for local government elections until next year since a new voters’ roll has to be prepared and new identification cards prepared and distributed. This exercise will take a great many months since there is a lawful process of additions and deletions which still has to take place after the preliminary list is prepared.
Kissoon as a university lecturer and columnist with this newspaper knows this. But instead of analyzing developments in Guyana, he is on a mission to bring about the unseating of a democratically elected government.

---

---