Is President Ramotar changing his opinion of me?

Jan 27, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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A strange thing happened in the Chronicle last week that may be interpreted as President Ramotar changing his negative opinion of me.
We will come to that thing which I didn’t know about until a police prosecutor, Enrico Woolford and Mark Benschop, told me about it.
But first, the 2011 analysis of President Ramotar of my character
On December 15, 2011, Reuters carried a report by Brian Ellsworth, edited by Kieran Murray on Guyana in which the Jagdeo libel case against me was featured.
President Ramotar was interviewed by Ellsworth and in the story, the following line appeared, “President Ramotar describes Kissoon as a sick man.”
Of course I wasn’t bothered by Ramotar’s remark. I expect the worst things to be said of me because of my political activities and critical analyses.
Did you look at MSNBC during Obama’s second inauguration?  Commentator, Chris Matthews, enumerated all the sordid things said in the press and from the mouths of Republicans about Obama, including the description of being America’s first gay president. Of course the entire world knows Obama is not gay.
When I read the Reuters report I thought that Ramotar’s remark on me makes him the third president to come from the medical profession. Dr. Jagan was a dentist, Mrs. Jagan was a nurse and now it looks like Ramotar did studies in psychiatry.
I am still unmoved about Ramotar’s analysis of my mind but what I can’t help thinking is if Ramotar sees as sick, some of the people in high positions in government. Am I sick? I do not molest male teenagers for sex. Am I sick? I never exported dolphins to Eastern Europe where I am told they were cooked and sold as delicacy. Am I sick? I never accompanied the President to an international boxing match and in front of him and foreign diplomats got into a violent brawl with a member of the audience.
Am I sick? I never put my wife out of the marital bedroom a week after we got married and after that let Guyana believe for the next eight years that I was legally married. Am I sick? I never beat a teenager with a gun in his head in a rum shop over a woman. Am I sick? I was never in a domestic quarrel and my wife committed suicide in the confusion. Am I sick? I never sold American visas and because of that the US Embassy suspended my visas.
Am I sick? I never participated in a homosexual orgy in a swimming pool. Am I sick? I never took money from the OMAI gold company and the same company imported marble walls from Italy for my mansion.
As the recipient of Mr. Ramotar’s psychiatric evaluation, I think I am entitled to ask him about the state of the mental health of people around him. But we should move on from harbouring grudges over what was said in the past during political battles.
If the Chronicle thing is an indication that Mr. Ramotar does not see me in venomous terms anymore, then I would not refuse his invitation to talk. But I will not keep secret what I discussed with him. I will never do that. I will tell the Guyanese people what I said on their behalf. Vic Puran wrote in the KN a month before he died that we should try to engage Mr. Ramotar because he, Ramotar, wants to have advice and friends.
Let us return to the Chronicle thing. I met lots of policemen during my frequent court appearances. Two police prosecutors are always joking wildly with me and Mark Benschop. So last week with an Atlantic smile on his face, one of them congratulated me for becoming a columnist with the Chronicle. He indicated that he saw an article of mine with my byline on the crime spree in Buxton in the current issue of the Chronicle. I knew he was joking so I didn’t bother to engage him.
Hours after I went to the office of Enrico Woolford, he and Mark Benschop told me about the Chronicle column.
So it was true, but the Chronicle didn’t have the decency to seek my permission.
The Chronicle editor would never feature Freddie Kissoon without seeking the advice of the Freedom House kings, particularly President Ramotar. I am so sorry we are not in an election campaign so I could go to Indian villages and show them my independent mind and what I wrote about the Buxton-based gunmen and my strong condemnation of the murder of East Indian citizens at that time.
How un-strategic of the Freedom House fools. Together with persons like Ravi Dev, they tell their constituencies that I don’t like East Indian people. But the article that they reproduced in the Chronicle last week shows the nature of my mind, heart and soul. I am not pro- or anti-Indian. I believe in human rights and my condemnation of the violence in Buxton originated from my human rights physiology.
Whenever there are the local government elections, I will take that article the PPP found to have so much intellectual integrity that they could print it in the Chronicle in 2013, and read it to the rural folks.
During the time I did the series of articles on Buxton, my home was shot up, and a bullet missed by wife’s head by inches. All those details have been written on before, so no need to dwell on them here.
I am glad the Freedom House kings gave the Chronicle permission to print my intellectual analyses. I have a weapon to campaign with whenever elections come around. In the meantime, De Donald or Uncle Donald or President Ramotar may want to issue a second opinion on my mental health.

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