Would Dave Martindale accept my challenge?

Jun 20, 2011 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
This is a follow-up to my letters of June 10th and 13th in KN challenging Dave Martindale to a debate at a public forum. To date, Mr. Martindale has not responded to my email: mpersaud101@gmail.com to indicate his acceptance or rejection of my challenge.
Dave Martindale gives the impression he is a detached writer, occasionally responding to national issues. A study of his more than 100-letters published in all sections of the press will suggest that he is more than likely a paid-writer working for the government’s Public Relations Dept. (I am convinced of this, until Dave reveals himself and proves me wrong).
In every one of his letters he is defending the Government’s position or attacking critics of the Government. Nothing is wrong with this, a legitimate exercise, but the public has a right to know whether or not he is a paid employee of the government or whether he is a real person.
In his letter of June 8th in KN, Martindale ostensibly set out to defend something called “Jagdeo’s Middle East foreign policy”, but ended up charging the AFC of being “in collusion with the imperialists and will salivate at their feet to get into the corridors of power in this country”.
He then wrote this of the United States: “The same vermin that the AFC is courting has a well orchestrated policy of rape, murder, plunder and pillage in the Middle East”.
If the name Dave Martindale is a fictitious name, I and the public have a right to know who in the Jagdeo Govt. is using this name to manipulate the space in the letter columns and leveling such serious – albeit false charges – against the government of the United States.
I have taken the position that nothing the United States did in the last 25-years (or at least since the end of the cold war in 1989) can be characterized as “imperialist”. If Mr. Martindale feels so passionately about his charge against the United States – calling it a “vermin” – I urge him to seize this opportunity to defend his position publicly. And, here is an incentive: I will pay Mr. Martindale $100 to appear at a public forum to debate me on all the issues of his June 8th letter.
I also extend this challenge to debate to Francis Carryl and Rachel Bakker. Each of these persons has also published a similar number of letters, all of the same purpose and content as Martindale’s. I also extend my offer of $100 each to Carryl and Bakker to appear at a public forum to debate me on any or all of the issues you have taken up in your numerous letters.
There is also something else deeply troubling about these names – Carryl, Bakker, Martindale – these are all African names. I have always charged in my letters that in Guyana, cross-racial voting practically does not exist; that Africans do not support the Indo-ethnic PPP; Indians do not support the Afro-ethnic PNC. These numerous letters of Bakker’s, Carryl’s and Martindale’s suggest that Africans do indeed passionately and vociferously support the PPP – except the public does not know whether these people exist at all.
The appearance at a public forum of Bakker, Carryl and Martindale will prove to be a tremendous boost to the PPP’s public relations campaign – and for which they each will be rewarded with a $100 in cash.
One last observation: The issues or hook for each of the letters by Carryl, Bakker and Martindale, were first raised or engaged in by Dr. Prem Misir. In each case, Dr. Misir initiates the letter-debate or exchange, gets his rub in, then exits the stage; enters next Carryl or Bakker or Martindale to polish off Misir’s opponent. It is amazing how easily Dr. Misir and his cohorts, Carryl, Bakker and Martindale have manipulated and monopolized the space in the letters’ columns of the Independent presses, while getting a “free pass” in the government-owned press which will not tolerate any opposing view.
If Francis Carryl, Rachael Bakker and Dave Martindale do exist, and even if you have not written these letters yourself – but rented out the use of your names to Dr. Misir’s PR department – you will still receive my offer of $100 cash. Just respond to my email and agree to appear at a public forum.
Mike Persaud
New York

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