Eddie Rodney had no prominence in the 1992 PPP’s effort

Nov 30, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Recently, Eddie Rodney, elder brother of the famous Walter and Donald Rodney, penned a piece that appeared in the now obscure Mirror Newspapers under the title, “The Emergence of the Meta Critique of the PPP.”
In this piece, among other matters, he takes issue with me (Lionel Peters), mainly on two grounds that he terms Peters’ grievances (his terms, not mine), “transcendent” and “Ultra fundamentalist”. He also attempts to convey the impression that I am an unaccomplished writer whose essays lack the “detachment vital for rigorous analysis”.
It pains me to have to tell a Rodney {Eddie} that he is a PPP tool and not a Walter!
Eddie, I think that you are lost in two time wraps, pre 1992 General Elections and post 1992 Local Government Elections.
I did not have to impose myself on a vibrant PPP Georgetown District. I volunteered for the frightening, unwanted task of building a dynamic Georgetown District to manage its electoral constituents for the 1992 General Elections, which I then handed over to Vincent Daniels in 1994.
You were at the German Friendship Society twiddling your thumbs and then later, during the same period, at the Michael Forde Bookshop.
All the names you mentioned in your missive I had recruited. You conveniently mentioned a few names close to you, and you conveniently omitted the unsung heroes of the campaign, like the entire groups at Cummings Lodge, Kingston, La Penitence, and Industry, and the individually brave soldiers, Gerhard Ramsaroop, Sasenarine Singh, Tarron Khemraj, Kiddie, Poi Poi, Dave, Fish, Lakhanlall, Sham, Carl (Beef), Benegal Singh, Rajendra Nauth Bisessar, Neisha Paul, Fazel Khan and Prakash Ramjattan.
But then again you did not know of these persons, how would/could you? You were not in the trenches!
I recruited Glen Ramchand, who was at first rejected by the party on security grounds and then latter employed and transferred to Cheddi Jagan’s detail.
When I took the job, GT had four traditional Groups, but by the time I resigned there were eight additional functioning party groups.
Why do you want to glorify Janet Jagan’s role in the success story of Georgetown? The sum total of her role in Georgetown was:
1. Addressing a Georgetown District Conference after 1992.
2. Presiding over a Georgetown District meeting tasked with the responsibility to name a list of persons to contest the 1994 Mayoral and City Council Elections.
3. Sometime in 1992 I was summoned before Janet Jagan and some senior members of the Party to explain my method of recruitment of new members to the PPP Groups in GT. I was told to stick to the said rules of the Party and to recruit through the established groups. In all the years before my time, this method had found GT with four traditional groups. Now GT was growing but not under the influence of some senior members which was detested. Further, I was instructed to transfer my membership to the Campbellville Group. This I resisted and continued in my proven way.
4. In early 1992 I had taken Cheddi Jagan to a campaign within Albouystown and as the country wide custom was, where ever he went on an extended campaign the members of the area group would be responsible for his and the team’s meals, which in this case fell to Pasha, Ross and Neblett, who incidentally did a splendid job. Cheddi always seemed to relish these meals and ate very lavishly while conducting conversations.
On the following Monday, on my return to Freedom House, I was confronted with a message from Janet Jagan to call her immediately. Imagine my utter surprise when she accosted me and went into a diatribe about how I had prevented her husband from eating her lunch, which, according to her, “I had prepared for my husband.” Her exact words were, “Cde Peters, don’t you know that I prepare my husband’s meals?”
This I do know 1) that was not the practice on Cheddi’s campaign assignments and 2) during this period he was widely and popularly expected to become Guyana’s next President in a few short months.
5. During the period under review, Janet Jagan did go and address and make presentations at women’s softball and dominoes competitions that I organised at the Banks DIH Park.
6. Her principal role during this period was as one of the leaders of the party and obviously her domineering control of the Mirror Newspapers and New Guyana Company Limited and a desk in the “halls” at Freedom House.
I will not detail other trivial anecdotes involving her intrusive, imposing behaviour in this essay on the work within Georgetown.
Suffice it to say that I can’t “couple this narrative with the {expected} detachment vital for rigorous analysis and the pedantic and semantics that Eddie wants to indulge himself in. May I remind you that your role came into focus for the Local Government Elections of 1994, primarily in places like the East Bank of Demerara.
Eddie, can you remember your instructions to the faithful to ensure that Lionel Peters was not informed of the 1996 Georgetown District Conference at Freedom House because he would come and disrupt your smooth running of the Conference with his usual rebuttal of the whitewash reports being presented about the work being carried out in Georgetown?
Remember your desperate attempts, after Peters’ arrival at the conference, to pigeon hole Ramjattan into chairing one of the two sessions so that you could prevent Peters and Ramjattan from teaming up in their attacks on the inability of the leadership to return, as promised during the 1992 campaign, and report to the various wards of the city.
By their deeds, so shall they be known!
What is done, cannot be undone…Sir Ralph Grey.
Lionel Peters

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