Rohee lambastes APNU’s call to boycott state and state friendly media

Nov 18, 2014 News

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–   Ignores colleagues’ plot to destroy Kaieteur News

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee, yesterday told the media that his

Party is disgusted by the continued “attacks” on the state media and media houses perceived to be friendly with the government.
Rohee said this as he hosted PPP’s weekly press conference at Freedom House. The Minister was at the time speaking about A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)’s call to boycott the Guyana Chronicle and Guyana Times.
But even as he, on one hand, condemned the call made by APNU to boycott the state media houses, Rohee on the other hand, said that the calls should really be to boycott Kaieteur News.
He ignored devious moves by his colleagues in government to shutdown Kaieteur News because of the newspaper’s posture on corruption.
To avoid giving a response to questions as to whether he is just as disgusted by moves made by his colleagues, Rohee pleaded ignorance of the issue involving former President Bharrat Jagdeo, Attorney General Anil Nandlall and Commissioner of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Khurshid Sattaur.
When speaking about the Opposition’s call to boycott, Rohee said that the APNU’s “obsession with the media has its genesis since the early days of dictatorial rule when the regime used every conceivable means to suppress freedom of expression which included the banning of newsprint for the Mirror Newspaper and the harassment and in some cases outright dismissals of journalists who dared to publish the truth.”
He said that the only information that is considered acceptable and newsworthy by APNU is that which is anti-PPP or anti-government. This, Rohee said, explains APNU’s “obsession” with sections of the media.
The General Secretary encouraged that all Guyanese ignore the calls made by APNU.
He said that these calls are clearly misdirected and are much more relevant to the “opposition media, in particular the Kaieteur News.”
The General Secretary said that the opposition parties are finding it difficult to come to terms with the new dispensation which came from the decision taken to prorogue Parliament and “like a wounded creature now spits its venom against these sections of the media over which they have no control.”
The politician also said that Granger and his “bedfellows” have mastered the art of deception.
But the General was not so plainspoken when the plot developed by his colleagues was brought to his attention.
In September, Kaieteur News reported on what it said was a plot by Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Khurshid Sattaur and former President Bharrat Jagdeo to destroy the newspaper.
On that very day Sattaur sent out a response where he said that those reports were “baseless’ and “unjustified”. Kaieteur News decided to put in the public domain, the evidence of such plots which were dubbed “incontrovertible.”
The newspaper subsequently printed the e-mails exchanged between Sattaur and Attorney General Anil Nandlall, with direct reference to Jagdeo.
In the e-mails, Sattaur told Nandlall, “We are in this thing together” and told him of plans that are “likely to break the camel’s back and the individual (Kaieteur News publisher, Glenn Lall) may go berserk.”
When asked yesterday if he has the same views on that issue as he has on the opposition’s call, Rohee pleaded ignorance.
The General Secretary said that he knew nothing about the issue so he couldn’t pronounce on it.
Rohee said, “I do not follow those thing; I am too busy a man to be following emails and blogs site…I am sorry I do not pay attention to those things I have to be very focus. I have to be judicious and selective these days on what I read.”
But back in September Rohee commented on the issue.  Back then, the General Secretary was asked whether his Party was shocked by the Kaieteur News revelations on the plot to destroy the newspaper, or if it were a case where the PPP was privy to info on the plot before the publication.
He said “It takes more than that to shock the PPP; those things are not to shock us. With the way things go in Guyana, as my friend Adam Harris would know, don’t be surprised by the unexpected.”
He had even noted that when he saw the “disclosure or that front page story, my mind went back immediately to an episode in the Trinidad and Tobago between the opposition leader and some other politicians about the credibility of an email; so I don’t know at this point and time how credible it is.”
The story to which Rohee referenced was one which indeed involved the Trinidad and Tobago government and the Opposition. Verification was sought through Google Inc.
In 2013, Trinidad and Tobago Opposition Leader, Dr. Keith Rowley made allegations of corruption in Parliament. This matter was solved when Google provided clarity.

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