Why did Robeson Benn do it?

Feb 28, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If there was a time when the management of Kaieteur News would have been justified in removing me from the newspapers it would have been when there was a confrontation with Robeson Benn in the offices of this newspaper.
I was the person who accosted Benn. I have no regrets and I would do it again. The newspaper didn’t ask me to quit and I never enquired about its response.
Mr. Benn walked in the office and headed for the direction of the Editor. He said to Mr. Adam Harris; “You didn’t ask me for a comment.” Mr. Benn was complaining about the reporting of the arrest of his son by the police. I was enraged when I heard that comment. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing from a Cabinet Minister of a government that in my academic studies fitted the description of an elected dictatorship.
I accosted Mr. Benn and told him about the kind of things his Ministry and the Government of Guyana was doing so he had no basis on which to complain that Kaieteur News had done a wrong to him and his son.
Benn replied; “I was not speaking to you.” That got me more enraged. By this time Dale Andrews asked me to cool down and Adam Harris ushered Benn into the office of the publisher Mr. Glenn Lall. I didn’t ask what transpired. I was not interested.
People like Robeson Benn and others in the Cabinet should not be given any explanation from the media.
They do not deserve it. I was sitting in close physical proximity to Mark Benschop at my libel trial when I heard Priya Manickchand complain to Benschop that he had carried something on his web page that was unfavourable to her.
I heard a tape in which Donald Ramotar in January 2011 telling Mark Benschop that there were postings on his web page that were unkind to Ramotar’s son. This was in reference to a car accident involving Ramotar’s son and my nephew.
It never amazes the people of this country how these PPP leaders can feel irritated when things are said about them and feel for their own but are insensitive to the hurt their government heap on countless innocent Guyanese citizens everyday.
Here we have the same Benn entering the NCN compound and demanding that a calypso critical of the PPP Government be taken off the air. This is the same man with whom I had a confrontation in the offices of Kaieteur News over his claim that the paper didn’t ask for his side.
The Benn calypso thing has dimensions to it that needs analyzing. The focus so far is about the banning of the calypsos from NCN. The question pregnant with political ramifications is why did Benn feel that he could have done it. Robeson Benn heads a Ministry that is very distant from the jurisdiction over NCN.
Three Ministries overlap with NCN. First there is a Ministry of Information. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education can also claim to have a direct interest in NCN because of the content of NCN programmes.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Works and Transport etc have no direct bearing on the operations of NCN. The state owned media has subject ministers of which Mr. Benn is not one.
But then NCN has a head and NCN has a board that has a chairman. If Minister Benn heard that a calypso was being played that he found biased against the Government the most logical thing to do is as follows -. call the head or the chairman or the subject minister or the minister with a portfolio nearest to the subject minister.
By what right the Minister of Works and Transport could march into NCN and demand that an item on the air be taken off? The logic in his thinking is that he is a Minister and he has the power to do what he wants.
There could be no other explanation because he is not the subject Minister. One can read then into the thoughts of Benn that if he hears that a policeman is saying the wrong thing at a police conference, he can walk in and stop the lecturer.
If he hears an education officer saying something in a school he could stop the officer by himself without contacting the Education Ministry.
And it could stretch into everything that is connected to the State and the entire public realm because as a Minister, Benn feels that his power embraces the totality of State institutions.
You call that the abuse of power.

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Why did Robeson Benn do it?

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