Flashes of friendship, fragments of memory, frescoes of history

Oct 25, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Malcolm Harripaul, in a letter to this newspaper last Sunday, wrote some kind words about me. People out there may not know but Malcolm has made some significant contributions to his country. So many of the Malcolm Harripauls we don’t know about. Their stories left untold. There were two strong supporters of the PPP with whom I developed a close friendship and for me as someone who was openly and enduringly opposed to the nature of the PPP, that close association survived decades without any political quarrel.

Those two persons are Boyo Ramsaroop and Malcolm Harripaul. I met Boyo when I was 16 years old and from that day onwards, Boyo and I never squared off over politics. He was heavenly in love with the PPP and I, on the opposite spectrum, knew the PPP was essentially a deeply flawed organization. Over countless dinners, Boyo with a maudlin drool would say; “Freddie, man lef Cheddi alone nah.” That was his stuck record. Sometimes when my points were vivid, he would say, “Yuh right yuh know but lef Cheddi alone.” With Malcolm there were certain nuances that didn’t exist in my relationship with Boyo. Harripaul typified the Indian rights activist but with a strong instinct for human rights.

If the PPP had a dozen Harripauls, it would have made itself into an attractive party for Guyanese to admire it for. I knew Malcolm when he was in the army and even when he left the GDF he was strongly PPP in his thinking. But he had a deep sense of right and wrong and I knew he couldn’t have lasted long with the PPP. He was always prepared to tell PPP people when they were ignorant. After the PPP came into power, I saw the writing on the wall. He was with the anti-corruption squad of the Customs and Excise Department and the fireworks began there. Harripaul’s politics, like Boyo’s, was driven by love for Cheddi Jagan. Harripaul and Boyo were not politically suspicious enough to know that Jagan had his dark side as with all of those leaders from the fifties, with the exception of Eusi Kwayana. This is only my opinion. Harripaul confronted Indian businessmen who were robbing the country’s revenue of billions of dollars through bogus duties declared. But naïve Harripaul was never told that he couldn’t touch Indian entrepreneurs.

How funny life is. One day I was having coffee at Camp Site and the late Ramesh Kissoon (no relation) of the City Council came in and joined me. Harripaul’s name came up and I asked Ramesh (the Kissoons including his brother, Jailall who was a PNC Minister, were closely associated with the Burnham Government) why the PNC Government never confronted tax evasion on the wharves by Indian businessmen. He told me it was a deliberate policy not to antagonize Indian business people. Harripaul did antagonize them and paid the price. It was President Cheddi Jagan himself who fired Malcolm. I went to see President Cheddi Jagan three times. On all three occasions confirmed my belief that he was not the good man that we, Indian people, were brought up to think he was. Once, when I was on leave from UG, I volunteered my service, without pay, to Customs to be part of the anti-corruption programme of Malcolm. Jagan agreed but refused to follow up on it. Secondly, I asked him to appoint Clive Thomas as UG Vice-Chancellor. He refused saying Thomas must make an application because that is the procedure.

It was a huge lie. Jagan was bringing Indian Guyanese expatriates by the dozens to offer them high-level jobs after he won the 1992 elections. Thirdly, I implored that Malcolm not be dismissed because he was doing a good service to the country. Jagan bluntly told me; “Harripaul is a wild man.” Unfortunately for Guyana, after his presidential dismissal, Malcolm migrated. I will always remember his kindness. When I got the teaching job at UG in 1986, I didn’t have transportation money from Wortmanville to UG and back on a daily basis. For one year, Malcolm took me from home to UG and back. That was very kind of him. I cannot remember once we ever disagreed politically. He was PPP, I was not and that was that. Harripaul is a brave human being. Without thinking of jeopardizing his job with Bharrat Jagdeo as his boss as the Finance Minister, he remonstrated with Minister Jagdeo for refusing to let me swim at Castellani House. I think from that incident on, Harripaul’s future with the PPP was coming to an end. Keep writing Malcolm! Guyana will come good one day.

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Flashes of friendship, fragments of memory, frescoes of history

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