I saw my yesterdays unwind

Mar 28, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In a courtroom in the High Court on Monday, I was present for a fixture date for a contempt of court charge brought against me by Juan Edghill. Mr. Edghill wants the court to commit me to prison for contempt. Without discussing my analysis on what should happen when the trial begins, (I think I am on safe ground to do that because the trial has not be started as yet but I would still prefer to stay clear), let me explain for readers what led to this matter.
Before I do that, I should note how ironic it would be that I was hauled before the court for writing on a previous matter that was before a judge and now I could get a second contempt charge for commenting on the very case that caused me to be in this very case. Funny and ironic, it would be if that should happen.
Last year, Juan Edghill in his capacity as Chairman of the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) was before Justice Bovell-Drakes in an application for an injunction by then Opposition Leader, Robert Corbin, to stop Edghill functioning as Chairman. Edghill is asking the court to jail me because while that injunction was being determined, I had penned a commentary (not on the specific case of Edghill versus Corbin) on the ERC. Nigel Hughes represents me as the first defendant in association, with Mrs. Hobbs-Nurse. The second defendant, the Kaieteur News, is represented by Khemraj Ramjattan in association with Mr. Neil Parsram. The trial begins on April 23, one week after the hearing resumes on Bharrat Jagdeo’s libel against me.
Sitting next to me was a long time political brother, Deon Abrams, from the Working People’s Alliance. I inquired why he was in the court and he indicated that Mr. Khurshid Sattaur of the Guyana Revenue Authority has sued him, in his capacity as host of the weekly Channel 9 television interview programme, “Walter Rodney Groundings.”
Deon Abrams and I go back as teenagers. His profession at the moment is a senior Secondary School teacher
As Deon and I spoke about our respective libel situations, I saw my yesterdays unfolding before my very eyes. Deon and David Hinds from Buxton (in those days we in the WPA called David “Twilly”) were the best two drummers in the long years of anti-dictatorship politics. Deon would always accompany his drumming by the recitation of his own poems. He has been writing poems all his life.
Here were two men getting on in age who were youths in their early twenties taking on the mighty Forbes Burnham. On Monday last, we ended up sitting next to each other in the High Court waiting for our trials to begin, sued by powerful men who were nowhere to be found when the two of us in the WPA and yes, the very PPP that is the ruling party today, confronted the undemocratic rule of President Forbes Burnham.
The memories of that era are tall, powerful and moving. As I watched Deon and he looked at me, the same thoughts were escaping from our damaged psyches – did we know when we were fighting Burnham that Guyana would have come to this? Did we know that all the excesses that we confronted Burnham on would be exceeded by a regime that has made the depravities of President Forbes Burnham look like innocent mistakes?
Deon left the court house before me, and while he was on the corridor chatting with attorney Mortimer Coddette, I spoke to him but a long engagement was prevented because he had to rush back to Buxton to teach. I wanted to ask Deon how old were his children and what he tells them when they ask about the period when he was active against Burnham.
I have one child, a daughter who is at UG (unlike some Cabinet members who send their children outside to study subjects that UG offers) and I do “ground” with her on the days when I was politically active at UG as a student, active in the WPA when I met her mother and married her in 1979.
The comparison is bound to come up – what was the government like in those days as compared to what you are fighting for today? I suppose most of the children would put that question to their parents who struggled for democracy from the seventies onwards. In the case of my daughter, she knows that when I fought Burnham no one threw a bucket of filth on me and Burnham didn’t sue me. The struggle goes on!

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