Judging society: Drs. Ramsammy and Persaud, the President and Help and Shelter

Nov 18, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Once I had an exchange with Stella Ramsaroop on moral values. The subject turned on the question as to whether the AFC trio – Trotman, Ramjattan and Holder – should resign from Parliament because they had left their respective parties through which they were elected to Parliament.
In that essay, I contextualized moral rights and moral wrongs. Moral values must have context else they lose their meaning. Social values are all- encompassing. It is unwholesome to see moral values as situational and essentially relative.
Times like these, I hate living in Guyana because the society derecognizes context and treat moral values in a disjointed way. Two issues are dominating the dinner table across the country – the horrible murder of QC student Neesa Gopaul and Dr. Vim Persaud, a medical doctor working in the public sector who is a convicted child molester. This is the time for the convenient moralists to come forward.
Enter the Help and Shelter organization. It wrote a letter in the newspapers yesterday on the doctor’s dilemma and asserted that; “Help and Shelter will actively and strenuously oppose the continued employment of Dr. Vishwamintra Persaud as a medical doctor.
Enter Eusi Kwayana. He observed on Tuesday that in Guyana, “We have a President who could fail to register his marriage.” Let us talk now about moral values and see if we can detect either cowardice or hypocrisy.
Dr. Persaud is a convicted pedophile. Help and Shelter wants his removal from the hospital.
So far so good! Why in that letter in the print media Help and Shelter did not inform us of its position on Dr. Ramsammy as the boss of Dr. Persaud, given the hair-raising accusations made against him. Four witnesses in the US testified in court that Dr. Ramsammy had an active engagement with drug convict Roger Khan.
The statements went very far and insinuated about an active role in the murder of a citizen named Ronald Waddell.
Could it be that Help and Shelter’s argument is that there is a conviction in Persaud’s tale but no proof in Ramsammy’s case? So Ramsammy is spared and the organization accepts his role as the constitutional head of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Let us return to Eusi Kwayana. The elder Guyanese statesman has a phenomenal ability for semantic shapes. He chose the word “fail to register.” This is not what happened according to the common-law wife of Mr. Jagdeo, Ms. Varshnie Singh. But then again, we do not have the facts as they happened because to date, Mr. Jagdeo is silent; we have to resort to Ms. Singh’s description.
According to Ms. Singh, Mr. Jagdeo refused (please note that word, Mr. Kwayana!) to sign the marriage forms to make the union legal. She alleges that her requests were made several times. Ms. Singh leveled some trenchant allegations against Mr. Jagdeo which fall into two broad categories – abuse and victimization.
The question that must be asked of Help and Shelter is how does it approach the alleged misconduct of Messrs Jagdeo and Ramsammy in terms of moral values? If it arrives at a position would it lead to the same conclusion that it has now endorsed in the Dr. Persaud imbroglio?
The Jagdeo/ Singh confrontation of course brings into contention the role of moral obligation. Here again, it would be helpful to hear from Help and Shelter.
This country has a Minister whose jurisdiction includes the social and legal protection of the female gender. Her name is Priya Manickchand. Ms. Varshie Singh’s imputations are so serious (some may want to say terrible and repugnant) that they should have at least brought a reaction from the subject Minister.
To date that Minister remains a complete receptacle of deafening silence. Does Help and Shelter have any attitude to Manickchand’s sound of silence?
Mark Benschop called me with a vexed tone. He said that he contacted Stella Ramsaroop over her interview with Manickchand and requested an explanation as to why in that dialogue, she didn’t ask Manickchand for a position on the Jagdeo/Singh fiasco (to use a euphemism).
Of course life will go in Guyana. We will continue to pick on the weaker ones. Social workers and teachers have been sanctioned over Neesa Gopaul’s death. There is a crusade against Dr. Persaud. Someone will be next.
And when that someone comes along it gives an opportunity for the frightened ones who are terrified to criticize powerful rulers to have their voices nationally heard. I guess human beings will always see moral values in a convenient way. Such is life!

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Judging society: Drs. Ramsammy and Persaud, the President and Help and Shelter

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