Thanks for the money, Mr. Corbin!

Dec 05, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Two months ago, I got a call from Robert Corbin. Mr. Corbin contacted me to give me some good news. More than two years ago, the police had shot and killed a sixteen-year-old boy at Patentia. The incident happened outside the Patentia High School. A week of protest followed.
Mark Benschop, Dr. David Hinds and I decided we would take the protest to the Ministry of Home Affairs in Georgetown. We saw a Canter-truck passing on the road, stopped the driver and offered him a job to take the school children to Georgetown. Outside the Ministry of Home Affairs, the police arrested the driver, charged him and seized his canter. Why seize the man’s property? It was his only source of income.
To look at this man’s face (he has one name, Manniram) was to gaze at the image of someone who had just lost a loved one. Manniram was at a complete loss as to what was going on. All he did was to take a professional job.
We spoke to a very senior police officer who confidentially told us that a Minister of Government had ordered the Commissioner, Henry Greene, to teach Manniram a lesson. This was the “great,” “historic” party of Cheddi Jagan who keeps telling the Guyanese people that they are better than Burnham’s PNC.
Then Opposition Leader, Robert Corbin, got involved. He secured an order from the Chief Justice to release Manniram’s truck and the Attorney-General was sued for wrongful seizure of property. The call from Mr. Corbin was to inform me that the court awarded Manniram $100,000, months ago, but the Government refused to deliver and he had to file additional papers to get the State to pay Manniram. He was successful.
Mr. Corbin has asked me to make sure Manniram accompanies him to collect his money. Manniram did so last week. I thank Mr. Corbin, but I believe it was disgraceful for the court to award such a meagre sum.
During our conversation, Mr. Corbin told me that his memoirs will be out in a few months’ time. He said that he would have no objection to its mention here in my column. This is going to be a big seller in Guyana. Guyanese cannot wait to hear what Robert Corbin has to say about a superabundance of sensitive, crucial and fascinating issues. Will Mr. Corbin’s account be truthful?
Forget about the Burnham period, the Hoyte interregnum, and Corbin’s years as Minister. What all Guyanese want to read about is Mr. Corbin’s tenure as Opposition Leader during the oligarchic journey of President Jagdeo’s runaway train.
Someone very high up in the PNC told a senior Guyanese media operative that there was a sustained dialogue between President Jagdeo and Mr. Corbin on power-sharing that failed. If true, it raises questions of the PNC leadership because if there was such a sensitive situation, why did other PNC leaders not know about it. Many PNC leaders told me they believe Mr. Corbin was involved in some confidential talks with Mr. Jagdeo, but the parameters of it they did not know about.
What about the internal arrangements inside the PNC? How did Mr. Corbin allow the PPP to penetrate and capture the leadership of the Guyana Labour Union? In the same context, why weaken the PNC by removing some brand names in the organization like James Mc Allister, Aubrey Norton, Vincent Alexander, Dr. Faith Harding? Did Mr. Corbin not know that in ethnically divided Guyana, the PNC was bound to hemorrhage with the loss of such big names, thus weakening further the existence of PNC constituencies?
Mr. Corbin has to account for the loss of five seats in the 2006 elections. How did that happen and did he put it down to a loss of confidence by African Guyanese in the PNC at the time? Why did the third force talks in 2005 collapse? Is it true that Raphael Trotman wanted to be the presidential candidate and left the talks when that was not agreed to? Did Mr. Corbin try to save his political career by his agreement to have APNU? This is going to be the curious part of the book for most readers.
If Corbin was not a spent force and if he didn’t accept that his era was over then why did he abstain from the 2011 election campaign? Finally, why did the PNC sit by and allow for the horrible degeneracy of governance by Mr. Jagdeo that was far more depraved than when Mr. Corbin served in the government of the PNC under Forbes Burnham. A nation eagerly awaits this book.

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