Adam Harris, you ain’t see nuttin yet!

Dec 15, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In his column last Sunday, Adam Harris wrote the following; “Scarcely a day goes by without someone calling to ask me to help them with some issue….” Harris’s article was titled, “People are afraid even when they are right.” If I was doing that commentary, I would have captioned it, “People are afraid even when they were almost murdered.”
I agree that given who he is, people come up to Harris everyday trying to get justice for the wrongs committed against them by powerful agents of the state.
My life is the same and I can tell Adam Harris that it is not daily that I see someone who needs help. I also get numbers of complaints daily. People come to my home. People pull me over and tell me about the abuse they received. My phones ring all the time. The pattern is the same – please don’t mention my name; I am afraid.
Growing up under the Burnham Government, I thought Guyanese were afraid of him. Let me say most evanescently – more Guyanese are afraid to speak out against dictatorship under the PPP than under the PNC. I have explained the reason for this irony. A brief repetition is in order.
When the PNC ruled Guyana, the following organizations were quite active and determined to confront the violations of the Government – Bar Association, PPP, WPA, TUF, GHRA, FITUG, GUARD, Catholic Church, among many others. Guyanese were bold in coming forward because they felt that they were not alone and there was protection from a vibrant and active civil society and an inflexibly anti-PNC opposition. Today fear stalks the land. Guyanese are frightened and paranoid. There isn’t an umbrella under which they can shelter. In Guyana, one searches to find the opposition. It is a journey that is never-ending.
The mountains of violations are heart-breaking. I would get complaints from people who were violated by the police in the most barefaced of ways and once you say, “I would like you to sign a statement for me and I will take it from there,” the expected voice comes in; “No, no, Mr. Kissoon, please don’t mention my name.”
The police recently had a retreat and the whole of Guyana were either annoyed or were laughing when it was announced that after the retreat, the police will emerge to better serve Guyana. One suspects that immediately after that intense confabulation, traffic cops were out mashing up citizens’ rights.
If you want to see slavery in Guyana, go to any GRA outlet. The Guyana Revenue Authority, like the police force is out of control and has reduced Guyanese to beggars. Police officers and GRA personnel do not want to know and refuse to acknowledge that there is a body of laws under which a country is governed.
The police stopped my daughter at a routine check. They asked her where she came from. That was none of their business. After an examination of her documents, and she was free to leave, they asked her where she was going. That was none of their business too. I told her in future, not to answer those questions and to call me immediately.
I am not afraid of the police force. I am not afraid of Henry Greene. I am not afraid of Clement Rohee. I am not afraid of Bharrat Jagdeo. I may be afraid of men who have intellectual prowess, professional competence and the ability to reason powerfully. But I will not be intimated by dictators whose mediocrity is incredibly graphic.
I have written about the persecution of young female drivers by traffic cops before. The women’s rights activists do not seem to be interested for obvious reasons – it is a situation that cannot bring them heavy publicity.
I got a call from a woman who told me that duty was levied at the airport by personnel of the GRA on the jewelry she was wearing and the clothes she brought to wear. I agreed to take up her case. Then I crash-landed when she said, “Mr. Kissoon, I am afraid to give my name, I don’t want these people to harass me again when I come back to visit my family.”
My daughter’s acne cream carried an enormous duty by GRA personnel at the central post office. I objected vehemently and got higher authorities to commonsensically lower the rate. At the same time, old drapes sent from abroad for a poor family were so heavily taxed that it would have been better to buy new ones. As usual, fear stopped the person from allowing me to protest on his behalf. This is a country drowning in fear.

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