Where is Desmond Hoyte’s ghost?

Mar 07, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is increasing pressure on both opposition parties to up the ante in a country where democracy in the substantial meaning of the concept died inside the PPP when Cheddi Jagan passed away. Under Bharrat Jagdeo, Forbes Burnham has emerged in Guyanese historiography as a more tempered president whose nationalist commitments and working class advocacy put him millions of miles ahead of Mr. Jagdeo.
All indications are that Donald Ramotar is going to stay close to the genre to which Jagdeo belongs. The only people who don’t seem to understand this are the AFC and APNU and the PNC. A column on Clive Thomas’s critical evaluation of APNU’s performance to date is forthcoming. Suffice it to say that this writer is an immense admirer of Dr. Clive Thomas and considers him one of the greatest sons of this land, therefore I am always inclined to see validity in his endless critiques of Guyana’s political economy.
The opposition’s acceptance of the PPP’s demand of four FITUG representatives on the Board of Critchlow Labour College is a huge strategic mistake that is bound to weaken its support in south Georgetown constituencies and maybe all of Guyana. The most obvious questions the AFC and APNU did not ask themselves, two of which stand out like a ball of fire in the sky on a dark night.
What is FITUG and where does its ultimate loyalty lie? What do you think those four board members are going to do or how are they going to act? Then there is the third question, the billion-dollar question – do we trust the PPP to act professionally now that the State has six representatives on the board? Let me answer those questions before I go to the missing ghost of the great Desmond Hoyte.
FITUG is a PPP front organization. Carvil Duncan of the GLU has politicized trade unionism in ways no other trade unionist has done in the history of this country, not under President Burnham, not even GAWU under the PPP Government since 1992.
GAWU and NAACIE are unapologetic supporters of the PPP Government and until there is regime change in this country, their sycophancy will not stop. This writer had to intervene with the management of Republic Bank to stop discussions with NAACIE.
My essential point to the bank was NAACIE is as much a political organization as it is a trade union.
Why APNU and the AFC trust FITUG to act professionally on the Critchlow Board is one of the mysteries in politics in Guyana that can only engender frustration among Guyanese who support APNU and the AFC. The point is not Lincoln Lewis or Critchlow’s continued existence or trade union unity, the point, the gargantuan point, is that the PPP is not to be trusted, and they are going to seek to reduce Critchlow to a floor cloth.
Sadly, most tragically, APNU and the AFC honestly believe they have done a good thing. I will have lots more to say about the politics of Rupert Roopnaraine. As a young boy in the seventies, I never admired his politics. I never did, and never will and I consider his partner, Jocelyn Dow, to be one of the most unreliable, unacceptable political activists ever in the history of this country. Those two persons are not my cup of tea and I don’t think their politics is good for the poorer classes of this poor country.
APNU, of course, is going to feel the heat more than the AFC. The Critchlow vote is going to deepen the frustration of the large numbers that see APNU as a weak opposition that is getting weaker, more inelegant in appearance and deportment and disoriented in its strategy formulation. In times like this every PNC member, supporter and sympathizer must be asking where is the presence of the ghost of Desmond Hoyte at Congress Place.
Mr. Hoyte made some fatal mistakes that allowed the PNC to lose power and he was psychologically lacerated by those errors which haunted him every day. Mr. Hoyte never forgave the PPP for the Rosinante cooperative land issue, where he felt the PPP had crossed the line in race discrimination. And that land incident transformed the psychology of Desmond Hoyte.
Hoyte would not have stopped until there was regime change in Guyana. If he was alive, I think the PPP would either be out of power or we would have had an all-party government. Hoyte was convinced that the PPP’s goal was to dominate Guyana and would supplant democracy with PPP hegemony. Sadly, his party, the PNC is yet to see his point. Will they ever see it?

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Where is Desmond Hoyte’s ghost?

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