Falsification, propaganda, hateur and barefacedness

Nov 30, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Is it the season of self-destructiveness? It looks so. The Simels revelations have seriously jeopardized the future of the PPP Government. The tortured 14 year old highlighted the insensitivity to official torture by Clement Rohee and Robert Persaud and by extension their Government. The Kaieteur News has exposed corruption in ways that reminds one of Watergate. Kwame Mc Koy is still in his saddle at the office of the President. A terror jeep that came from the Linden Highway and created mayhem in Georgetown mysteriously passed dozens of roadblocks and found itself where it came from – Linden Highway. Indeed the self-destructive train is out of control. On it is the latest convert to the PPP’s cause – Ravi Dev

By now, readers would know there is an exchange between this column and Ravi Dev. Mr. Dev seems obsessed with what he perceives as danger signals in my writings. First, he says that my narrative comes within the framework of US versus DEM, meaning I write in a divisive way. Then, he opines my analyses could incite. Yesterday in his column, he ups the ante. Let’s quote him; “…the narratives of Freddie Kissoon, Dr. Kean Gibson et al arouse strong passion to bring down the feely elected government of the day.” This is not only a semi-fascist attack on free speech which expectedly in an apathetic society like this, the Guyana Press Association, the GHRA, opposition parties and others will allow Mr. Dev to get away with but it is a dishonest presentation.

I have done more work than Mr. Dev, his PPP gods and his acolytes in the Indian rights movement to debunk the Gibson’s theory of a Hindu conspiracy in the state organs and the Government to kill African-Guyanese because of the Hindu acceptance of caste systems as part of the Hindu way of life. Mr. Dev feels that by linking me with Gibson he can vitiate whatever influence this column may have on Indians. Mr. Dev is a fool to think so. If he thinks so then he is surely debasing the mentality of his fellow Indian. The Indians understand what they read. Let’s point out another example of this man’s dishonest argument and the putrid opportunism in it. Deliberately protecting his Government, this is what he wrote yesterday, “When we condemn the Police for its violation of citizens’ human rights….”

Who is “we” that Dev is referring to? Most of the stakeholders who operate in this country have either publicly or silently accused the Government of Guyana of human rights violations. But Dev carefully chose to leave of the operative word “government” and substituted “police” instead. Dev wants us to believe (which no doubt he ignominiously fails to do) that the Police are the culprits and not their ultimate heads that reside in the Office of the President. Let’s continue with the manifestations of Dev’s self-destructive politics. Here is Dev in his own words; “Mr. Kissoon commits the precise sins of selectivity and bias….”

With hateur overflowing in his column yesterday, Mr. Dev presents himself as the embodiment of objectivity. Only Frederick Kissoon is biased. For a man who arrogantly dismisses in the most shameless ways, the atrocities committed by a government that has made the Burnham regime look like a boy scout’s picnic, Mr. Dev writes; “Kissoon’s narrative is without even a gesture of retrospection, much less research.”  Dev of course is all research and all introspection in his columns only that his memory keeps failing him. Dev has never heard about Roger Khan. Dev never read about the Lindo Creek massacre. Dev knows nothing about what came out of the Simels trial. Not to mention that Dev is not familiar with an international organization named Transparency International and the monster of corruption that will make even the worst dictators in Europe in 1938 cringe.

Finally, let’s examine one more example of barefacedness and hateur in the work of this new PR guru for the PPP; he observed; “In writing history, there are rules of decency.” I thought in writing about anything there are rules of decency. Does Frederick Kissoon observe those rules? Dev answers that loudly that I don’t. Does Dev adhere to those rules himself?  Well the answer is not easy. You see it is not that Dev is indecent when he writes. The problem is his memory. He fails to remember a lot of things that makes analysts refer to his Government as an elected dictatorship. Dev ends his column with the following words about the inciting nature of my writings; “We have too much at stake.” Who is WE? The PPP, the East Indians or all Guyanese? I think I know who Dev means by WE.

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