Stabroek News editorial, an endorsement of Granger?

Mar 16, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The Stabroek News (SN) editorial of Sunday 13 March 2011 titled “Babu John Address” reveals much of the biases of SN written as it is, by an “old timer”. Could this be an endorsement and rehabilitation of the PNC for the 2011 elections?
The SN has that democratic right but trying to disguise it is unbecoming of a national newspaper.
The editorial focuses on President Jagdeo’s criticisms which “(were) referring to the shooting by the GDF of two PPP activists who were among a group attempting to block the army from removing ballot boxes following the 1973 election”.
Stabroek News comes across as callous, significantly insensitive and dismissive both of the lives of innocent Guyanese civilians and Mr Granger’s role when he was charged with having “blood on his hands.”
When Stabroek News (SN) blatantly and conveniently sanctified by this open editorial excuse that “Mr Granger himself had already stated in response to earlier allegations of a similar character that he was an army major stationed at Timehri at the time, and had no responsibilities in Berbice” it ignored  Mr Granger’s total responsibilities in the GDF during that period.
The SN editorial was absolutely wrong in its estimation, I respectfully suggest, raising the perception that it has now assumed the role of Mr Granger’s chief defender and rehabilitator.
In fact Mr Granger was not only a high ranking major in rank of the GDF but he was also the Political and Military Liason of the army to Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. Mr Granger had to have known and participated, indeed had paramount responsibilities for dealing with the ballot boxes fiasco in 1973 as part of his political duties.
The massive scale of the GDF’s logistical  operations to retrieve ballot boxes was extremely complicated to have been left to last minute implementation. It had to have been preplanned.
Mr Granger’s responsibility was therefore not insignificant in his geographical deployment location at Timehri airport. It allowed him to fly to any part of the country as the emergency situation required. Yet SN wants us to believe that a skilled soldier who was promoted as the eventual boss of the army chose his base of operations at Timehri without strategic calculation and absolves him by a shroud of ignorance.
That’s like saying that since Mr Burnham was stationed in Georgetown during the elections he had no jurisdictional responsibility for Linden ipso facto, Berbice as well. Wouldn’t that be a fantasy?
In fact during the 1973
elections the GDF cordoned off a stretch of the Corentyne highway in Berbice and landed aircraft to pick up ballot boxes for transportation. Where were those planes based and from which airport did they embark? Coincidences or preplanning?
Why were the ballot boxes taken to GDF headquarters and not election HQ?  Only Mr Granger can clarify the truth of those dark times.
(2) One can accept Stabroek News  assertion that “ if President Jagdeo is attempting to solidify the traditional PPP vote, with these kinds of tactics he will be solidifying the traditional PNC vote at the same time”. By traditional PPP and traditional PNC, SN  obviously mean Indians and blacks. But the PNC did institute massive undemocratic measures including rigging for 28 years for which it has not made amends or apologized up to this day.
Yet a significant black minority was actively involved in opposing those PNC extremes (alongside the PPP), even becoming the recipients of much brutality originally perfected on PPP supporters.
So all black people were not bad or automatically PNC or guilty by race in PNC misdeeds.
(3) Stabroek News  biases and prejudices however jumps out when they seek to divert  President Jagdeo’s criticisms onto “ Mr Trotman, (as) one supposes that the President’s remarks in relation to the reason for him declining a key position in the AFC were directed at PNC supporters, since some of them voted for the AFC the last time around”. One must ask in your words, if Stabroek News policy is committed by this editorial and  “with these kinds of tactics  … will (now) be solidifying the traditional PNC vote, at the same time” exonerating Mr Granger role in the 1973 elections, by isolation of Mr Trotman and the AFC, from their black supporters?
In SN’s quest to shepherd the black vote away from the AFC now that Mr Khemraj Ramjattan is the rotated AFC Presidential candidate, it is being mischevious.
Isn’t SN guilty of the same race stereotyping of which it claims innocence?
It may better serve Guyana’s harmony if this national newspaper were to credit some black people with decency; that many must have recognized the PNC injustice of those 28 years to actively disassociate themselves from a tarnished PNC  in their preference for the AFC.
It must not be forgotten that many black people actively opposed the PNC in the PPP,WPA and otherwise. Stabroek News will have a huge challenge to justify what makes all these nowadays AFC converts yet  still “PNC supporters” unless its fundamental genesis and operation guides a policy that being black is synonymous with being automatically PNC and must remain so.
Aren’t black people free to evolve away from the stereotypic perception that they massively supported the PNC’s transgressions for those 28 years? I submit that SN is trying to shove them back under the water now that they are coming up for air, yearning to breathe free.
(4) Surely these perceptions of SN are not groundless? The evidence is conclusive that you like President Jagdeo  who “opened his mouth at Babu John …, (and) carried us back half a century to the old days of winter, when suspicion, stereotyping and bitterness clouded the collective vision and undermined our sense of community” are actually two peas in the same pod. It is a clear case of the pot calling the big kettle black. Let’s hope not.
(5) However SN’s  pronouncement that “a head of state has absolutely no business ignoring a statement of denial from a presidential candidate in relation to such a serious allegation unless he has very solid evidence to the contrary. And clearly he does not.
As it is, he has by implication accused the former army officer of telling a falsehood when he denied a personal connection to the 1973 events. No President of a democratic country should be caught besmirching a candidate’s character (or anyone else’s) in this fashion, least of all on a public occasion; that is not politics, it is slander” comes across as arrogant, high handed and sanctimoniously pompous.
I sincerely hope this is not intentional. Anyone is free to agree or disagree with President Jagdeo like SN justifiably does; your disagreement does not make you correct or more right however.
Two Guyanese are now dead, many PPP supporters were brutalised and behold Mr Granger is now the standard bearer of the PNC. What compensation are the families worthy of receiving for the loss of their loved ones?
The SN is most free to publicly join Mr Granger and the PNC in bringing a slander suit in court against the President and let the facts be revealed.  Then we Guyanese will be able to finally find  out the GDF’s role in how Dr Rodney was really killed and who in the PNC received all those guns which the GDF gave them during that period.
(6) What is most unpleasant is Stabroek News’s attitude which surrenders to gloom by pessimism. As a national daily newspaper it is disappointing. Can Guyanese continue to be fed a SN menu which diets us into “so much for rationality; so much for unity; so much for democracy.
And, it might be added, so much for cross-over voting”? That does not augur well for our collective future indicative of what the AFC has been able to achieve. More than ever, we will have to decide if Guyana is partitioned or federated as a concrete permanent solution.
(7) Let us all hope that there is a better future ahead and “‘whatever the case, if Mr Jagdeo represents the vision of youth, there must be voters in all parties now thinking that age has its virtues.” We will soon find out by the coming elections where we are headed and how we can solve our future problems.
Sultan Mohamed

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