Me and a 22-year-old girl illegally in someone else’s car

Feb 22, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On Monday morning, a group of us, in Gerhard Ramsaroop’s car, set out early for Berbice. Three forms of protest had struck Berbice. There was the ongoing strike at Blairmont. Rose Hall workers also took industrial action. And we were informed that there was a huge protest by residents over a non-existent main street in Heathburn.
I told Gerhard I never knew that there was a village in Region Six by the name of Heathburn. Our first stop was Blairmont. We were there last week but on Monday, the rage had increased. The workers at that estate will not be intimidated.
There are some strong people leading that strike. There is a rising view that the PPP may want to call another election to achieve a Parliamentary majority. If PPP leaders go to Blairmont, they will see that they may in fact lose total power, not only the Parliament.
None of the workers had anything good to say about the union. It goes to show how deceptive and cruel history is.
When Cheddi Jagan came back to Guyana in the forties from studies abroad, his career was made for him by the then trade union in the sugar industry, the Man Power Citizens’ Association. Jagan argued that the MPCA was a company stooge and founded the Guyana Industrial Workers’ Union which later morphed into GAWU.
Jagan’s future from the forties onwards was made possible by his attacks on the MPCA.
The MPCA died a long time ago but its role and its character are embodied in the new company union, GAWU. The union is insisting that the workers return to the estate, branding the action they have undertaken as a wildcat strike.
Until GAWU is challenged, it will continue to be the 21st century version of the MPCA. As we drove out of the Blairmont estate, my eyes gazed at the resplendent residence of the estate manager and the homes of other senior administrators and there you see it right in front of your eyes how unchanging is the nature of the sugar industry from the 18th century onwards.
Our next stop was at Tacama Turn in New Amsterdam where canecutters downed tools over their missing incentive payment. A thunderstorm visited the workers and I stayed in the car because I was still recovering from the flu. Gerhard Ramsaroop engaged them. When you listen to these canecutters, then you can understand why a majority of Jamaicans surveyed said that they preferred if the white man returns.
There isn’t a sugar worker at Blairmont and at Tacama Turn who thinks that Independence brought a difference to their lives on the estates. My definite feeling is if a professional pollster should go to the sugar industry in this county and ask the workers if they want privatization back in the hands of Bookers, they would say yes.
Our final stop was Heathburn where residents were insanely hostile to the Government over the state of the main road. As it turned out, we were in Glasgow. The rains disappeared and we joined the protestors. A group invited us to travel a mile up the road to see how bad it was in Heathburn. As we made our way to Heathburn, the thunderstorms came. I told Gerhard I was going back to Glasgow to the car. A protestor lent me his umbrella. Gerhard’s wife threw the car keys to me.
Cindy Sukhdeo, a 22-year-old rising star for the Alliance for Change, decided that she wanted to get out of the rains too. She complained that she was not getting adequate shelter from the borrowed umbrella I was using. A young man, trying to get her attention, put his umbrella over her as we walked toward Gerhard’s car. I pushed the key into the lock on the driver’s door, it opened up. Cindy and I escaped the downpour.
Then I jumped up. Something was wrong. This wasn’t Gerhard Ramsaroop’s car. It was the identical model with the identical colour.
I didn’t see the buttered tennis rolls that were in the aluminum foil in the front seat. I didn’t see Michelle Ramsaroop’s handbag. The newspapers we left on the front seat were not there. I grabbed Cindy and flew out of the vehicle. The young man interested in Cindy told her she could get in trouble with the police. Indeed! But it was my fault. Cindy told everyone afterwards about the crazy thing I did but the key was the culprit. It opened that other Toyota vehicle. Guess who that other car belonged to?

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