Mr. Ralph Ramkarran’s withdrawn apology

Jan 08, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Mr. Ralph Ramkarran in a missive of December 31 (KN) wrote; “After tolerating nearly ten years of abuse from Mr. Kissoon, I have learnt to treat him merely as an itch…I do not intend to respond to the epithets hurled at me by Mr. Kissoon.” (end of quote).
This has been a trademark of Mr. Ramkarran. In his letters he informs readers that he will not reply to me but does just that all the time. In that very letter in question, he went on to fulminate against me.
The first question a reader of Mr. Ramkarran’s letter should ask is why I have been abusive to him for nearly ten years. Mr. Ramkarran has not held a major position of power from 1992 to the present; save for being the Speaker of the House and in that capacity the past ten years, Mr. Ramkarran’s parliamentary behaviour has not caught my attention.
What Mr. Ramkarran left out of his correspondence is that I have been critical of him ten years ago because of what he did to me. He sued me for libel over a KN piece that in fact was more in praise of him than libelous.
In that commentary, I wrote that the PPP’s executive committee made an evil decision to terminate my six-month consultancy with Information Minister, Moses Nagamootoo, and I was surprised that given his standing as a person widely respected, that Ramkarran could have participated in such a decision.
This is what Mr. Ramkarran sued for. My lawyer, Khemraj Ramjattan, at the time, a central committee member of the PPP, did his best to persuade Mr. Ramkarran not to sue. Speaking on the phone in my presence in his office, Mr. Ramjattan said to Mr. Ramkarran; “Man Ralph, how you could sue Freddie of all people.”
But Mr. Ramkarran went ahead. From that day, my opinion of this man changed. I thought his court action was indicative of an intolerant mind. Before the matter reached the courts, Ramjattan persisted. Mr. Ramkarran requested three hundred thousand dollars from Kaieteur and an apology.
Mr. Glenn Lall was out of the country and we had a brand new editor, Nills Campbell. Without my involvement, Mr Campbell published an apology written by Mr. Ramkarran. I was shocked at the wording. Mr. Ramkarran wrote “no such meeting occurred.”
I never saw Mr. Ramkarran in a positive light since that happened in 2000. Attorney Gino Persaud, a good friend of mine, is very respectful of Mr. Ramkarran. Mr. Persaud was uncomfortable with the occasional criticism from my pen against Mr. Ramkarran. He feels that Mr. Ramkarran is the best of the PPP leaders.
Gino once said to me, “Forget about how you feel about Ramkarran, look at the bigger picture.’ My position to Gino was that why is Ramkarran in the bigger picture and not me? If it is wrong for me to pen criticizing opinions of Mr. Ramkarran, then why is it not equally wrong for Mr. Ramkarran to sue an anti-dictatorship activist like me. I conveyed to Gino that one day, I would expect Mr. Ramkarran to apologize
Mr. Ramkarran did just that in a demerarawave.com interview with Dennis Chabrol and Gino himself. The tape was played for me by Gino, and the next day, I ran a column on this development and thanked the Speaker for the apology. Before the apology was published, I met Mr. Ramkarran on Emancipation Day last year at the National Park and shook his hands in the presence of Mark Benschop who did the same.
I was terribly upset when in conversation with Mark Benschop days after the demerarawave.com interview, Mr. Ramkarran said he did not apologize and I misinterpreted what he said to Gino and Chabrol. Benschop then gave me permission to quote him.
This is what I am doing now. I believe Mark Benschop on what he told me and I conveyed my deep disappointment to Gino Persaud.
I am only writing on the “withdrawn apology” now because of what Mr. Ramkarran penned in his Old Year’s letter on me. In closing I need to remind readers that over the ten years that Mr. Ramkarran observed I have been condemnatory of him, he left out his own mistreatment of me that takes in personal letters of complaints to Kaieteur management and his acceptance by way of a letter in the Stabroek News (Oct 4, 09) of a false statement by the infamous, convicted Brazilian pedophile, Pedro Archandro that I am a convicted book thief. Mr. Ramkarran is still to tell us if he is an acquaintance or friend of Archandro.

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