The stories go on

Dec 28, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I don’t pay attention to the poisonous bile the little dictators write and say about me. I will stop writing when they prove me wrong. Instead of vomiting up their miasma and spreading in on the pages of the Chronicle and the Guyana Times, they will get the support of the Guyanese people by shutting up their critics with facts.

Before I relate to you what happened on Boxing Day, two digressions are necessary. One is that I got an email on Boxing Day inquiring why I use the term, “little dictators” instead of just the plain simple word, dictators.

The description is done in a comparative context. I chose that typology to distinguish the autocrats here from those oligarchs in big important countries that are well known on the international stage like Putin, Chavez, Ghadaffi, Mubarak among others.

In little, unknown Guyana, the description of little dictators is apt – they think they are big but they are unknown, obscure figures, comparatively speaking. The second one is the comical descent of that well known figure, Kit Nascimento who referred to the Guyana Times as the New York Times of Guyana. God, some people are shameless?

Why would anyone in a position like Nascimento want to appear so foolish? Has Nascimento read the libelous, scandalous, nasty, dirty attacks on critics of the Guyana Government that fill the letter columns of the Guyana Times?

The paper went down to the gutter level of bringing in the wives of people in their pursuit of vilifying those who criticize the President? It is treason, heresy, and criminal libel to compare the Guyana Times with one of the top four newspapers in the entire world, the New York Times. What more nonsense can we expect from certain citizens in this land?

Well back to the Boxing Day episode. Do you get a holiday gift from GPL? I did. Where I live- Turkeyen, next to the Caricom Secretariat – we got blackout on Boxing Day around 18:50 hours. My daughter was watching a Christmas concert with some of the world’s most powerful singers. I was on the computer. Do you realize the implication of that? Before I come to the answer, let me go back to what I wrote above.

These little dictators can’t fight you with facts so they resort to gutter language and obscene letters in the Chronicle and Guyana Times. I wrote in November that the three Wartsila engines were second hand stuff that came through Surinam through a third party. To date, the media has not asked the PM or the President to see the proof of purchase from Wartsila in Finland.

I was not in the least irritated when the disruption came on Boxing Day. I know from my sources that I trust that GPL has broken down and cannot provide a reliable source of electricity in the foreseeable future. The three Wartsila engines were to take the heat off the Government for the holidays.

The interruption we got in Turkeyen may be the only one for the holiday season. If wasn’t for the Wartsila stuff we would have endured daily outages. As soon as the season is over, the daily frustration will continue though not as frequent as we had them earlier this year. But in the first quarter of 2010, when the Wartsila babies have to be serviced, blackout will hit with a vengeance.

The hype that GPL created in November by saying that blackout woes are over was just what it was –hype. It was designed to make citizens feel assured. If a Government cannot provide electricity to its population at the Christmas holidays, then why any rational mind can think that Guyana would not get outages in January and for the rest of 2010?

We are dealing with unbelievable incompetence in this country. I hope citizens are not misled by the GPL’s Wartsila celebration. In case you miss the point, it is that GPL and the Government of Guyana deceived the nation when it was announced that from November 5, disruptions would cease. That was to make you comfortable for the coming holiday period. Just to repeat – the people of Turkeyen got hit on Boxing Day

So the stories of Guyana go on. I picked up my Christmas edition of the two independent dailies and read that President Jagdeo does not want to comment on who nominated him for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Why wouldn’t the nominator be proud to have done that and announce it? What reason could justify the silence? The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the world’s most prestigious awards. Yes, the stories go on.