Harripaul is guilty of rumour mongering

May 21, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
I wish to respond to statements contained in a letter written by Malcom Harripaul, titled “The PPP first harboured US fugitive Rabbi Washington” and published in the Kaieteur News of Friday May 20th 2011. In the above-mentioned letter Harripaul wrote as follows:
Mrs Jagan also caused Errol Butcher a/k Taps to be freed. Taps had been prosecuted and jailed by the Hoyte Presidency for drug trafficking. He held a huge party in Albouystown to thank ‘Granny’.
I checked out the celebrations and heard Taps praise Ms Jagan. She told her “party children” that he would help the “party mobilise South Georgetown.”
As a son of the late Errol “Taps” Butcher who is old enough and well informed I cannot allow my father’s name to be used for propagandistic purposes by the likes of Malcom Harripaul.
And since this is not the first instance that he has sought to do as such I wish to make it clear that Errol ‘Taps’ Butcher was freed upon the overturn of his conviction by in 1995 after serving three years’ imprisonment and after appealing his earlier conviction.
The circumstances that led to my father’s arrest were conflicting given that the police officer who arrested the person initially caught with the drugs and my father were both having a relationship with the same woman at that time.
Harripaul’s allegation that Mrs. Janet Jagan caused Errol Butcher to be freed ought to be supported with evidence given that my father’s support for the PNC before and after his incarceration is unquestionable. A point to note is that in the aftermath of the 1997 general elections which Mrs. Jagan as the presidential candidate of the PPP/C was declared the winner of, my father was arrested along with several PNC activists for protesting outside GECOM’s Kingston office. He also campaigned extensively for the PNC in the South Georgetown area subsequent to his release. Further, I cannot recall any praises being sung for Mrs Jagan at the celebration held to mark my father’s release from prison in 1995 neither can I recall Harripaul being present. Harripaul is guilty of rumour mongering.
I wish to end by letting members of the public know that ‘opportunism’ is not a trait that was ever associated with Errol ‘Taps’ Butcher as he held his own even when things did not go his way. Up to the day of his death he remained steadfast to his beliefs, and was a well respected leader of his community for this particular reason. During his life time he might’ve been the subject of many negative comments but in a similar manner his positive contributions to the Albouystown community are well documented.
When Malcom Harripaul’s turn to venture into the great beyond comes I hope that he has done enough to be remembered in a similar manner or even greater and not as an opportunistic political grass hopper.
Jason Abdulla

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Harripaul is guilty of rumour mongering

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