Analyzing Jagdeo, part 1 to part 99

Sep 20, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I was a social commentator long before Bharrat Jagdeo became President. If he is about to end his presidency after twelve years in power, then it meant that I would have covered his reign since 1999. To do 99 columns on him from hereon, means that it would take me months from this day. If I stretch the articles over a period of time, it will take even longer.
In two months’ time, he is gone and my focus will be on the new players. Readers will want to see analyses on the new people. Of course that is assuming I want to remain a columnist.
Let me telegraph a brief thought to my readers. If APNU or AFC wins or if they combine their strength, I want to work in the field of human rights, poverty alleviation and UG’s resuscitation. But life is not something you can plan with precision and certainty. Let’s get back to my assessment of Jagdeo’s legacy (non-existent one that is).
A more realistic course is to evaluate Jagdeo’s stewardship from time to time on this page. In doing so, I want to be honest with my readers. I will hardly, if at all, be positive about Mr. Jagdeo and I am being academically sincere here. My writings on Mr. Jagdeo have been interpreted by some as being negative throughout the years. If that is so, I can sincerely say that those have been my intellectual judgements. I cannot twist my scholarly findings to appear to be fair. This is propaganda not academia. My research on a number of Guyanese has led me to conclusions which I have arrived at without personal interventions.
I see some Guyanese as great human beings. I see others as flawed people. My judgement is that Eusi Kwayana is and Walter Rodney was heroic. Putting aside my personal admiration, my academic research into them over the long years has led me to assess them as really great Guyanese.
In my inquiries, I have found Burnham to have been a dictator. Dr. Cheddi Jagan was a highly flawed human being that was far from great.
Dispassionate research into Mrs. Janet Jagan would reveal large traces of fascism. This classification of mine has nothing to do with personal feelings. I had no substantial contact at any point in my life with Mrs. Jagan. The detailed examination of the historical record led me to this judgement. I stand by it.
The same approach to research would reveal a deeply transformed Desmond Hoyte that if allowed to continue his presidency would have restored some of the glorious days that Guyana once enjoyed.
My evaluation of Hoyte was that he was willing to restore and concretize democratic values we lost under Burnham and Jagan.
I stand by all the negative indictments of Mr. Jagdeo that I have written about since he became President. There were two articles that were positive. I supported his introduction of casinos because I believe it had absolutely nothing to do with moral rules. There is nothing harmful about casino gambling that is more deleterious that some other institutions we have in this country.
Secondly, I applauded his purchase of the Water Street property for the street vendors.
My job as a social analyst is not to maximize the personal details of rulers’ lives. From what I read and heard, Mr. Burnham was a man very generous, warm and principled to people with whom he had personal relationships.
It is quite possible that Mr. Jagdeo behaves the same way. Those details are for the biographer. My task is to analyse the impact of their policies (in this case Mr. Jagdeo’s) on Guyana. Mr. Burnham and Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s politics brought immense harm to this land. The destruction cannot be quantified.
Mr. Jagdeo refused to build on Hoyte’s interregnum. Mr. Jagdeo deliberately returned Guyana to the Burnham era and one reason explains this – Mr. Jagdeo is fascinated with maximum power. There is no question in my academic mind that Bharrat Jagdeo was (was because I write knowing that he is about to leave) a dictator and has contributed in terrible ways to the expansion of the sadness that has stalked this land since the split between Burnham and Jagan sixty years ago.
I don’t know when my next column of assessment of Jagdeo is but when it does appear, I will try to be honest to my mind and my readers and be academic and scholarly in my approach.

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