You can lose yourself to a cause yet never lose your way

Aug 26, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Strange things are happening to me. But I am not scared. Last Thursday morning, I was jogging in the National Park and ran into attorney, Jailall Kissoon (no relation), Hoyte’s former Minister of Agriculture. Three times I insisted that we move away from the deserted sections. Then a guy with a bicycle violently ran into us. I moved away but Mr. Kissoon was thrown heavily onto the road where he struck his head and lacerated his left arm. The cyclist looked at us, whispered that he was sorry and left. Mr. Kissoon turned to him and said. “They sent you?” Was I the intended target?
After the midnight attack on me on August 16 was reported in the press, my inbox was flooded. The advice and warnings were sincere. After insisting that I be careful, most of them asked the question as to if I should not suspend my social activism. I never thought of it, and will not think of it, because to do so is to surrender to evil forces in my country.
Speaking to Christopher Ram on Thursday, he said something to me that really upset me.  I knew I will go on even if death is around the corner. Christopher Ram indicated that he is looking at court action in relation to the prevention of speed boats crossing the Berbice River. I was enraged when he told me this. I said to him it must be the only waterway in the world where boat services are not allowed. How can I suspend my energies to fight for my country’s freedom when I hear these things?
One man, Bharrat Jagdeo, who was President at the time, banned anyone in Guyana of plying a boat trade on the Berbice River, and an entire nation accepts this. Mr. Jagdeo’s successor, Mr. Donald Ramotar, chooses not to lift that unspeakable embargo. When I heard those words from Christopher Ram I know I cannot stop. That boat ban has to go, and I told Ram I will participate in any activities that seek to end that horrible decision of the Jagdeo regime.
So the e-mails came in suggesting that I be careful and I should think of slowing down. But there was the other side. Believe me, because what I am about to write is the truth. Countless persons came up to me and urged that I do not buckle and that I must continue. I am on that vigil entitled the people’s parliament outside of the National Assembly and I can tell you there is a constant trickle of persons who come up and tell me that they know that Khurshid Sattaur has singled me out, and they know the attack on me was politically motivated and I must go on. I was the featured speaker at a meeting last Wednesday at the Stabroek Market Square and from the sentiments I received from that crowd, I will go on.
So where do I go from here? The answer is that where I am going now is where I have always been. I started a life fighting for human rights since I was sixteen and this is the only life I know. I can only be who I am. Who I am is what I always wanted to be – someone who fights for freedom and justice.  I lost myself to that cause a long time ago.
I know apart from the Government and the PPP, there are others who wish I would stop writing because I offend and have offended them too. I am not stupid. I know there are those in Guyana who oppose the Government, but hate an independent voice.
It came as no surprise to me that the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) said nothing about the abrupt termination of my UG contract. That is because I wrote about permanent domination of the GHRA by one man. It came as no surprise to me when at the first tripartite meeting after the general elections when the AFC raised my UG contract termination with President Ramotar… the three APNU persons- David Granger, Rupert Roopnaraine and Deborah Backer – were silent as a stone statue.
Obviously, the thinking was Freddie Kissoon is not APNU and he criticizes APNU, so why should we fight for him. People come up to me and would ask why my own newspaper from time to time would put little publisher’s and editor’s notes under my articles. This is what happens to an independent pen. I don’t care how others perceive me. I believe as an independent thinker I should not only criticize the Government, but those who are also wrong, flawed people that the Guyanese people need to know about.
There is the other side of course. There are those who want me to continue. There are those who think I am helping my country. In this newspaper a few years back, long before he was President, Donald Ramotar wrote that he knew that business people helped me when I was building my home. The modest home that the GRA head, Khurshid Sattaur, described in this very newspaper as a mansion. It just goes to show how long Khurshid Sattaur had it in for me. Yes, that is true. I was given help.
Come and see my home, come into it as so many others have, including Prime News reporter Nazima Ragubir, and see if it is a mansion. The very Ramotar in a published interview with Reuters told the interviewer, Brian Ellsworth, that I am a sick man. Surely, Mr. Ramotar associates with personalities that are far sicker than I am. But what sickness do I have? The only sickness I know is my idealism to fight to right wrongs. If that makes me sick then I am proud and happy to be sick.

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