I am sorry but I cannot apologize

Jan 28, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
I came home Saturday evening very tired but had to open my mail because I had to send an urgent reply to Tyrone Talbert of the People’s Parliament.
I found a very disturbing e-mail sent from New York. I will publicly reply to that person because I care about all of my readers and I care about every human being that sees something useful in my activism.
After letting me know that he is a real person by providing verifiable information, this New York based Guyanese has informed me that I have let him down and he cannot believe that I practice double standards like Guyanese politicians. He ended by saying he cannot have the same respect and admiration for me.
Look, you win some, you lose some. I cannot please everyone with the type of public commentaries I make. The complaint was about a column I did months ago when
I wrote about a restaurant owner who for one year viciously deceived me that he was making ice cream with a wide variety of local fruits.
I found out that it was manifestly untrue and that he was using synthetic essence imported from the Stuart Brothers Company in Trinidad.
The New York based Guyanese told me that he was part of a discussion on my politics and someone said that I was a hypocrite because I defend the rights of small people but I endangered a poor man’s business by exposing him. I was told that it was not necessary to write about what the guy did because I have much more things to write on in relation to the big criminal (his word) companies in Guyana.
I did not name the restaurant. A guard in the National Park asked me to identify the owner and I refused. I would not have done a commentary on this business place if the owner did not show terrible deceit in his character and which directly caused me to in turn deceive a visitor who is a personal friend of Malcolm Harripaul.
First, I would have ignored him on finding out that he was using synthetic essence. I would have shrugged my shoulders and just stop buying his bogus ice cream.
What was terrible was when I enquired about awaara ice cream, he picked up the phone in front of me and said; “Send a half bag of awaara.” He lied. He spoke to no one. He did not and does not make ice cream using the awaara fruit. This guy is a compulsive liar who finds it nice to fool people.
Why couldn’t he just drop it?
That he had to persist and barefacedly fool me like that meant this guy is a very deceitful person. There was much more in that column that I could have put it. For example, he told me and Mark Benschop that he has seven thousand sour sop trees.
I investigated and found that this was far, far from the numbers he has. I did not mention that in the original column.
Now for the Malcolm Harripaul incident. One Saturday evening, a visiting relative of Harripaul from New York came to the People’s Parliament.
She told me she was desperate for local ice cream and she needed it right that minute because she was leaving to go back to New York hours after (in the wee hours of the morning). I directed her to this place and she and Malcolm took off to eat local ice cream on my recommendation.
In reality I recommended bogus ice cream. Why did this restaurant owner tell people for years that he was selling a type of product that was a downright lie?
I am sorry but I cannot apologize. I don’t see how I can. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I think this person from New York needs to see things in context. I did not set out to hurt the business of a poor man. And I want him to know that I will never accept to be intimidated in exposing the criminal behaviour of large Guyanese companies
In closing let me say that after I wrote the column, I wanted to return to buy more of the ice cream because even though it was synthetic, it tasted good.
I have not gone back because when you total up five half pint cups of his ice cream it is more expensive that the two litre bucket of foreign ice cream. And that ice cream is really, really good. Please forgive my chauvinism but my wife will tell you I am a bit of an expert on ice cream.
Frederick Kissoon

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