‘Blackman’ claim by Adam Harris is anancy story

Apr 25, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Without a doubt, the persons who most influenced my life in politics and journalism from a practical stand-point were Cheddi and Janet Jagan, both deceased presidents of Guyana.
Long before, and many years after I had become the PPP’s chief spokesperson and Government public relations man, the former taught me to reply to everything, to leave no criticism unanswered, and to be a polemicist.
The latter was somewhat casual or cavalier about criticisms, and would ignore them, if those were not crucial to the party’s survival. She seldom answered personal attacks and I would hear her say, “my skin is thicker than that of the rhinoceros!”
Dr. Cheddi Jagan was to live out in a dramatic, final, foray, his own mantra when during November, 1996 he came under attack for alleged racist remarks by one of his more notorious critics and life-long nemesis. The propagandist-manipulator had slanted a remark made by Dr. Jagan in Canada that “Black people are generally at the lowest scale of the social ladder”, to make it appear as though the Guyanese President had attacked Afro-Guyanese.
At that time, Guyenterprise’s Managing Director, Vic Insanally, worked closely with me on public relations issues, especially on matters concerning and touching his friend, then President Jagan. He and I (and at some point Dr. Rovin Deodat) were to share with Dr. Jagan one of the most agonizing moments ever. I believe the matter hurt him to the soul and resulted, less than three months later, in his mortal illness, from which he never recovered.
The allegation of racism against the Father of the Nation was patently wicked and false, and would be an eternal blot against his accuser for inferring that Dr. Jagan hated Black people. The emotional response of Afro-Guyanese from all walks of life to Dr. Jagan’s death a few months later, not only vindicated him, but nailed that lie.
Any accusation of racism is never an idle matter. So, I was more than surprised that in the Kaieteur News of Sunday, April 17, 2011, Adam Harris was to say, under an article captioned, Jagdeo hates professionalism:
“I joined Kaieteur News in 1995….the government in general and the Information Minister Moses Nagamootoo in particular, openly told Glenn Lall that unless he got rid of ‘that Black man, Adam Harris’ the newspaper would never get one advertisement”.
Before the ink was dried on that article, Hubert Wong on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 in a letter to Kaieteur News validated what Adam Harris had alleged, and described it as “appalling and unfortunate remarks”, saying:
“I have no reason to disbelieve the statement made by Mr. Adam Harris in his column telling us that Moses Nagamootoo, as Minister of Information, openly said that unless Glenn Lall got rid of “that Black man, Adam Harris”, the newspaper would never get one advertisement.
Wong in reckless self-indulgence went on to say: “It is a blatantly racist remark meant not only to identify Mr. Harris in the most superficial and contextually pejorative manner, i.e., ‘that Black man’, but to use it as justification for denying the Kaieteur News advertisement”. He then expressed “deep disappointment that Mr. Nagamootoo is actually of the mindset out of which such miasmic substance would emanate”.
Let’s see where Adam went astray, and wrong. He said the government generally and Moses Nagamootoo in particular openly told Glenn Lall to get rid of “that Black man”.
The government was the then President Cheddi Jagan, and all his ministers and officials. When did they or any one of them publicly threaten Glenn Lall? Did Glenn Lall tell Adam Harris that he was being pressured by Government/Nagamootoo to fire him? If that was the case, then this whole, fishy thing, smacks of what some country folks would call pus-soor-pus-soor-ism, that is, he-sey/dem-sey. The lawyer would term it hearsay.
Ostensibly, that alleged episode took place sometime in 1995, presumably after Adam was employed at Kaieteur News.
Well, for the record, let me say this: I have never told Glenn Lall any such thing and I have never spoken with him about Adam Harris’ employment at his newspaper. And, as far as I am aware, my President would never have made any such remarks.
Adam ought to be ashamed to bring me into his love/hate affair with President Jagdeo. I do not share Jagdeo’s tirade against
him, nor against any of his other victims, whom he has invariably categorized as “rum-shop politician”, “man-kisser”, “ignorant”, “non-performer”, or more acidly, with having “blood” on their hands, etc. Jagdeo called me “old”, “loser”, and “futureless”. For me, he has become Guyana’s 21st century “Milly, the Cussing Macaw”, who was iconized on a Guyana stamp that became one of the world’s rarest issues.
Just for background information, I was appointed Minister of Information on October 13, 1992. I resigned one year later, on October 15, 1993 to read for the Degree in Law at the University of Guyana. After my graduation, I was re-appointed on the 24th November, 1995 as Senior Minister of Local Government with responsibilities for Regional Development, Municipalities, District Administration, Amerindian Affairs and Public Information.
At that time, there was no Ministry of Local Government, only an assorted remnant of regional development officers, scattered here and there. The last time any person has been designated minister was 25 years before. President Jagan told me to work with Prime Minister Hinds on a suitable office for me.
Initially, PM give me a small room next to his, from which “off-shore” location, I set about to organise the Ministry. We identified space in the old Ministry of Works building near the Lighthouse, which was eventually renovated.
All the while, I kept the same local government staff – all Afro-Guyanese (Black men, Adam), the senior ones being Greene and Kendall.
Too enthusiastic perhaps, and without consulting my President, I announced the appointment of Phillip Hamilton as my Permanent Secretary. (He was a young “Blackman”, Adam, who was a former YSM cadre, and was REO in PNC-controlled Region 10). I knew little else of this exceptionally talented youth, except that he stood against corruption in the Region and was a store-house of knowledge, just like Kendall, about local government.
Though I was de facto Minister of Information, I did not have actual or any control over allocation of ads to the media. Before I left for studies, I had organised a small, professional outfit, styled Government Information Service (GIS) after consultation with UNESCO adviser Rafiq Khan and on friendly advice from persons such as Vic Insanally, Hugh Cholmondeley and Rovin Deodat. I invited retired Guyanese teacher Milton Drepaul, whom I had met in Jamaica, to head it.
I had bought hook-line-and-sinker President Jagan’s obsession with running a lean government machine. So, I proposed that GIS should be allowed to partly fund its operations by processing all state ads, booking out same, and retaining 10% as commission. A special account was set up for the retainer.
The “lean” principle was the reason why I had declined to set up my Ministry of Information in the posh Brickdam buildings, where the original Ministry had been housed along with, later, the Guyana Public Communications Agency and Film Centre. President Jagan had intimated to me that that was prime property and that it could be rented for foreign currency, which we didn’t have much of then. I believe an overseas agency (IFAD, subject to correction) or some UN agency rented it at US$7,000 monthly. I purposefully and gladly chose to locate at the Office of the President, what I would jokingly refer to as “the bottom house ministry”.
When I returned to government in November 1995 I consulted Guyenterprise and commissioned it to book out state ads which, as far as I was aware, was done professionally and fairly. Insanally advised that newspapers were required to produce periodic audited reports of their circulation, to qualify for ads. As far as I can recollect, Kaieteur News did benefit on a non-discriminatory basis, from a share of ads. Later, before I resigned for a second time from government in 2000, the GIS resumed that function of booking out ads.
I can say this: there was never any political interference from me in the booking out of these ads, even though I had considered Glenn Lall as “a family friend” and admired his courage as a publicist. So, where did Adam Harris get this anancy story that Lall was being pressured to fire him – just because of his race?
Adam and I had enjoyed the most cordial of relationship even whilst he was New Nation editor. He and his wife Pam were our house guests. There wasn’t an occasion when we saw each other that we did not hug, tightly. Adam never told me, not once, that I was racist, or that I hated him as a person or as a “Blackman”.
I admit Adam and I had our problems, which I will not go into here. But those did not stop us from hanging out together, and from being buddies. He wrote horrible things of and about me. But I took them as if I had the skin of the proverbial rhinoceros.
My anger against him was a piece in Chronicle when it reported the death of the wife of my colleague, Clement Rohee, and made unethical and criminal imputations regarding the cause of her death. Yes, Adam: I was mad as hell at the offence directed at Rohee, a “Blackman” just as yourself, and I had said publicly on the eve of the 1992 elections that once I became Minister of Information, I would fire Adam Harris.
I was named Minister of Information all right, but Adam surrendered his head before the guillotine fell, when he announced at my first meeting with Chronicle staff that he has resigned as editor.
I regretted what I had said, and when I met Adam I told him so. On his part, he was magnanimous and assured that he was going to cooperate with the new government as a professional. I have since had no cause to question his professionalism, or his friendship, not until this stupid allegation.
As an aside, even after I left government, I would make representation for Adam Harris to be paid his superannuation benefits. On several occasions, as recently as the wedding reception of Government Minister Priya Manickchand, I pleaded with HPS Roger Luncheon to settle the matter with his “QC buddy”, which he has promised me to do, so many times before.
It is therefore mind-boggling why Adam would even think that I hated him. He would know that when I became Information Minister I sought to promote professionalism in and to de-politicise the state media. The GIS was an attempt to sell what government was doing without having to over-load the state media with government propaganda. Towards that end, I appointed professionals to all state media boards, among whom were many “Blackmen” including, Terry Holder, Cecil Griffith, Bert Wilkinson and Collin Smith
At Chronicle, Ulric Pilgrim remained General Manager, and one of the gentle gems of Guyanese journalism, Claudette Earle, was Sunday Editor. And during difficult times, I stood up for professional female broadcasters like Phyliss Jackson and Margaret Lawrence at GBC. Just ask Fazil Azeez. And one of the proudest moments was when I “discovered” Frankie Bobb-Semple for a job as newsman at GBC after I had met him at the YMCA. He was quickly to become senior news room reporter and news editor.
I was to recommend for National Awards media persons as Cecil Griffith (broadcaster), Hewley Harris (cartoonist), Ken Moore (photographer), Fr. Andrew Morrison, Sharief Khan and Rickey Singh (journalists), whilst simultaneously refusing nomination for same, even when made by President Cheddi Jagan for my own contributions as journalist.
Racism is a scourge in Guyana. I fully understand the travail of our people, including that of our Afro-Guyanese brothers and sisters. I stood up for a system of winner-does-not-take-all, and my stand for a Government of National Unity is well known. After the death of Cheddi Jagan, my choice for President in the 1997 election was Dr. Roger Luncheon, Adam’s QC friend. Some of those positions may explain most eloquently my politics on race/ethnicity. And to Adam and Wong, it may inform them why I have been condemned to the political dog-house.
I rest my case.
Moses V. Nagamootoo

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