What was said in the National Assembly

Nov 07, 2012 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
On Sunday 28 October, 2012, Mr. Freddie Kissoon dedicated an entire article to certain remarks that I was alleged to have made in the last sitting of the National Assembly.  Significantly, he was not present in the National Assembly.  More importantly, he did not say in that article what I was supposed to have said.  Yet, he outrageously lambasted me for saying it.
I am convinced, like most Guyanese, that all is not well, upstairs with Freddie Kissoon.  I recalled once that he wrote that he saw a movie on New Year’s Day of a particular year at Astor Cinema and it turned out that the movie was made two years after he said he saw it.
For the record, what I said in Parliament was that the AFC should accept responsibility for the atrocities that took place at Agricola and that young girls were sexually molested by the goons on the road that night.  I cannot fathom why Freddie Kissoon has a problem with what I said.  I spoke from my personal knowledge.  I was present.  I saw it.
My outrage stems from the fact that I am a proud father of four.   I honestly respect the children of the world.  Further, I respect the role of the family in society.
During the disturbance in the 1960s, I was told by “Aunty” Christina, Uncle Peter who now lives in Canada, Mr. Lackhoo and several others about their eyewitness, heart rending and unforgettable  experience of how Indians were beaten, raped and terrorized at Mackenzie and Wismar.
When Granny Pamela engaged me into conversation about how those people were trembling and lying, some in the hospitals while others were at industrial sites screaming out of the terror and horrible attack, I promised Comrade Cheddi Jagan that I would work in Linden, Region Ten.
I was in Enterprise on Sunday, and an old woman, Dularie. told me “Beta you live at Eccles, Move out from that place – Agricola road top go kill Indian!
As some people were complaining about what they heard happened at Agricola, Sister Shelly came over and suddenly she started to sob, “My husband with a friend and eight years old pickney, dem murder dem early morning when dem went to ketch fish.”  Sugar workers were killed in the backdam and the koker operators were murdered.  Today those children are growing up without three proper meals each day.  One child, Ajay, told me Uncle, thank you but ‘when me does peep my mother crying, I does want to kill myself because me na get ‘daddy.’
Former Chairman of Region Five, Mr. Baldeo’s brother-in-law, a policeman and a friend were murdered on the Buxton Railway embankment.  Readers, the murderers took the two men out of the car, tortured them, then put them in the car trunk, then got wood, bought gas and burned their bodies in the car on the road in bright day light.
Hundreds of Buxtonians saw what took place but nobody was ever charged.  Former PNC Member of Parliament and now reputable criminal lawyer Huckumchand’s brother was murdered on the road at Buxton while he was in a car on his way from Berbice.  When the lawyer told us about the murder we wept with him.
Agricola:  On the 11th of October, I was travelling with my two daughters home on the East Bank.  At approximately 3:30 p.m the traffic was held up on the public road as some people were stopping the traffic and burning stuff on the road.  I came out of my vehicle and after realizing what was happening I walked back to Houston with my two daughters.  The CIOG bus turned back and stopped at Houston.  Those school children were terrified and showed signs of real horror at what was happening.
I saw commuters in the hundreds walking from Agricola to the ferry stelling to catch boats and cross the Demerara River.
I received a call that the bandits were beating and robbing people at the Ferry Stelling while other bandits were robbing people on the public road.  I stopped my vehicle and threatened two bandits who were busy slapping people and pushing their hands in their victims’ pockets and running through the females’ bags.
I went back to Agricola at approximately 6:00 pm and walked through the crowd.  I saw school children screaming and shouting as these bandits were ‘feeling-up’ school girls’ breasts and fondling them.  Mr. Munir Khan swore at a woman who was sitting in her car and said “Boys enjoy it how you get it!”
This notorious woman, who I have her vehicle Number is living on the East Bank, I said shame on her! Now Mr. Kissoon, I wonder how you would have felt to see some hooligans, stinks without shirt, feeling up your daughter if you have one?  Mr. Aafeez Mohamed called me and complained bitterly how his grandchildren were robbed and beaten on the road.
Mr. Krishna Brassy complained to me bitterly that some women went to him on their way home crying with their tops torn and their head bleeding and with blood all over their face and neck.
Kassim called me and complained about his daughters been robbed and molested.  Grandmother, Sukhia cried when she told me “Son if you see how dem ‘bai’ a molest dem small school girls.”
Friends, I just could not sit and listen to Moses Nagamootoo’s brazen denial and blatant lies in the National Assembly as he was trying to disassociate himself and the AFC from what took place on the 11th October at Agricola Public Road.
In those circumstances I said what I said.  And I have repeated it above.  I will repeat it again whenever I get the opportunity to do so.
The people on West Demerara, East Bank Essequibo and Linden must speak in one voice against this most obnoxious behaviour.
Neend Kumar

Editor’s note:
Beatings and murders visited people of every ethnicity during the disturbances and again during the crime wave of 2002-2006. On October 11, the people who were beaten and robbed and otherwise molested at Agricola spanned the ethnic divide.
The disturbances of the 1960s recorded in the letter do not speak about Black people being killed by Indians.
The records would show that more people of African ancestry died during the disturbances of the 1960s.
However, recapping the violence of the past does nothing but to open wounds and cause racism to be entrenched in this already fragmented society.

---

---