My human rights record is beyond reproach

Mar 22, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to Lincoln Lewis’s letter in the Thursday March 21 issue of KN. He wrote; “When he (Freddie) was in good stead with the PPP administration.” My praxis would show that I was never ever in good stead with the PPP administration.
It is not in my chemistry to support ethnic parties in power in Guyana and ethically based parties. I have never ever gone on record as supporting either the PNC or the PPP.
Shortly after Dr. Jagan became President in 1992, I had three very unpleasant incidents with him and that marked the further deterioration in our relation stretching back to my WPA days.
As soon as the PPP came to power corruption began to show its ugly head. My cousin, a customs officer, William Cox, was harassed by Fazil Ally (deceased), Chairman of the Rice Producers Association for questioning the value of a container of a well known Eccles businessman.
Cox came to me. I wrote Dr. Jagan. The next day, Mrs. Jagan called my editor, Father Andrew Morrison to warn him about my Catholic Standard column being used to hurt the PPP government.
The next one had to do with the dismissal of Malcolm Harripaul from the Fraud Squad by Finance Minister, Bharrat Jagdeo. I remonstrated heatedly with President Jagan because Harripaul was a patriotic anti-corruption public servant.
The last one had to do with me openly telling President Jagan that he was deceptive when he told me that Clive Thomas had to apply for the UG vice Chancellor position. I told Jagan to his face that he, Jagan, was asking overseas Guyanese to come and occupy the most important position in the public sector without an application.
During this time I was my usual critical self as a columnist with the Catholic Standard, the Stabroek News and the Kaieteur News. After Mrs Jagan’s resignation as President, Moses Nagamootoo, asked me to work with him to democratize the state media.
Moses Nagamootoo and I have shared a long, friendly relationship going way back to the seventies.
When the PPP heard Moses had employed me, at a leadership meeting in Freedom House on November 18, 1999, Moses was given an edict to fire me. I denounced that meeting in my Kaieteur News column for which I was sued for libel by Mr. Ralph Ramkarran.
I classified the meeting as evil. Mr. Ramkarran’s position that by extension I was saying that those who attended were evil made him believe that I libeled him.
Finally, in 2000, I applied to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Sase Kowlessar, to change the model on my duty free car letter. The car came for a UG lecturer at the Berbice campus.
Days later, the Minister informed me that President Jagdeo informed him that he, Jagdeo, was the person to make that decision. I was entitled by law to pick another vehicle but President Jagdeo gave me the grand runaround for months until Minister Kowlessar took it upon himself and ordered the Secretary to the Treasurer to sign the changed letter. President Jagdeo never forgave Kowlessar for that intervention.
This, then, is my relationship with the PPP administration since it came into power.
Lincoln can speak for himself whether he had a better or worse relation with the PPP than me. But this I can tell Lincoln, when Raymond Gaskin earned his name as Rambo, advising Presidents Cheddi and Jagan Jagan and Finance Minister Jagdeo and firing African public servants, this columnist was critical of him (see my Stabroek News column’s condemnation of Gaskin at the time).
I should ask Lincoln what was his relation with Gaskin. Gaskin today is the Secretary (he was a few years back, appointed by Brother Lincoln) of the Critchlow Labour College
On Benchop Radio, when Mark Benschop and I condemned Gaskin for his PPP servility, the guest of the programme, Lincoln Lewis, proudly proclaimed, “Gaskin is my friend”. I guess by extension Lincoln was a friend of the PPP.
Maybe Lincoln should tell us if he thinks Robert Corbin was a friend of President Jagdeo and what was Lincoln’s position on Corbin at the time when all of Guyana was saying there was a close dealing between Corbin and Jagdeo.
Frederick Kissoon

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