We still need to hear from Dave Martindale!

Jun 23, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
Names like Francis Carryl, Rachael Bakker, Dave Martindale and scores of others – have long been suspected of being assigned to letters that were regularly published in the Guyana newspapers. These phantom letter writers write in support of the government; they very often also launch into visceral attacks on critics of the administration. The public has long suspected that the government has a PR dept. that runs this programme.
Some names are of real persons who receive a fee for renting out the use of their names; others are fictitious – they simply don’t exist. Using fictitious names for this purpose, namely, to portray non-Indian support for the government represents a crude, ugly and corrupt form of doing public relations work on behalf of the ruling party.
I have written a letter (KN 6/20) in which I sought to expose this political hypocrisy.
Now one of the names I have singled out, Francis Carryl turns out to be the name of a real person. Read his letter in KN of June 22nd. Francis denies he has engaged in a letter writing campaign of support for the government. He wrote: “I hold tenaciously to the principle of not engaging in public political discourse. This is a cardinal principle of mine”. Let us call this man Francis Carryl #1. (Perhaps the one who once worked for GuySuCo and for the Ministry of Labour).
Another Francis Carryl, #2 , published a letter in the Stabroek News on Feb 7, 2007 titled: ”Rickey Singh was not exiled from Guyana”, in which the writer was dismissive of the controversy regarding withdrawal of ads from SN as “Stabroek News ads fiasco”, and sought to engage me on whether Rickey Singh was exiled or not from Guyana. This letter was a highly charged political letter.
Francis Carryl #2 also in letters in November 2008 (Stabroek News) engaged Vishnu Bisram on the topic of CCJ vs. Privy Council. Reading the exchanges it is impossible not to conclude that both the topic and the overtones were very political: No right thinking Guyanese would want to return to Colonial rule, wrote Mr. Carryl.
Based on the Francis Carryl #1’s cardinal principle of non-engagement in public political discourse, he could not possibly be Francis Carryl #2.
We still need to unmask Francis Carryl #2, as well as Dave Martindale who publicly denounced the United States as a “vermin that has a well orchestrated policy of rape, murder, plunder and pillage in the Middle East.”, and Rachael Bakker who writes glowingly of the ruling Indo-ethnic party.
None of these activities engaged in by this trio of names and scores of others are politically unethical if the persons bearing those names actually wrote those letters. However, if these hundreds of letters are manufactured by a government PR dept. and then assigned fictitious names, then these practices represent a most repugnant and ugly form of politics in this nation. This matter needs to be investigated and exposed.
Mr. Francis Carryl asks, ‘What sort of mischief I am up to?’ Of course I am to some mischief – and it is simply to find out whether someone bearing the name Dave Martindale actually wrote the letter attacking the United States and the AFC and the Stabroek News, all in one shot. Someone using the name Dave Martindale has written about 100-letters, all attacking critics of the government. Again nothing in itself is wrong with this. However all Guyanese should have a problem with it if the person bearing the name, Dave Martindale, did not actually write those letters; or worse the person does not exist.
Francis Carryl #1 cited a quote from Milton Cooper to the effect that a man should be ready and willing to die for his principles. And, then immediately added a disclaimer – he didn’t fully embrace the Cooper principle. So why did he cite the quote?
I should remind Mr. Carryl that hundreds of people in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are sacrificing their lives so they can kill others – they are called “suicide bombers” – they are doing it for a set of “undefined principles and beliefs”. So let us forget about Cooper’s willing-to-die principle.
Let it suffice for now that I am simply trying to put an end to some ugly politics engaged in by someone on the government side. Francis Carryl #1 should not take any of this as personal. He just happened to have the same name.
Mike Persaud

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