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Jagdeo, Rohee refute “‘coolie people’ party” reports
By Abena Rockcliffe
Former President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday shunned reports that suggested he made racist remarks.
Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo
He said that those reports could not have been further away from the truth as he, being a “son of the soil,” is an advocate for a united Guyana.
This newspaper carried a story on Tuesday with the headline “Rohee endorses Jagdeo’s statement that PPP is a ‘coolie people’ party.” The article quoted PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee as saying that the PPP garners most of its support from Indo Guyanese.
Both Jagdeo and Rohee registered disapproval with the article yesterday. Rohee did so through a press release and Jagdeo, at a press conference he held at Freedom House, Robb Street Georgetown.
At the forum, Jagdeo admitted that he indeed made reference to “coolie people” on Sunday as he spoke at the memorial service his Party hosted at Babu John in honour of its founding member, the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan. Jagdeo said however, that his statements were twisted as well as misinterpreted.
The former President said that he was merely telling the “PPP crowd” that the opposition refers to the PPP as “coolie people they need to get out of office”.
“I am proud of what I did, raising the issue…I raised the issue and I said let’s fight it to a PPP crowd. I am proud of that,” Jagdeo told the media.
The politician also dismissed questions regarding the possibility that he raised the issue of race in a subtle manner in order to appeal to traditional PPP supporters.
“I’m not a coolie, so I take offence at someone saying let’s throw these people, out… let’s throw these coolie
PPP General Secretary, Clement Rohee
people out. So when I want to fight that, you’re saying its evidence of some divisiveness, it is the same thing like if somebody says the N-word about Afro Guyanese,” the former President told a packed room of journalists.”
Jagdeo said that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)’s “(Joseph) Harmon knows this too. They were deployed to go to some villages and beat the drums… it happened in South, they went to people’s homes and say let’s throw out these coolie people.”
Rohee said his piece in a press statement. The General Secretary said that it was clear that “former President Jagdeo was conveying to PPP supporters the mindset and perception of the opposition and its members who were making the call to throw out these “coolie people”.
Rohee is indeed on record saying that nothing is wrong if reference is made to the PPP as a “coolie people party” because the PPP is indeed “overwhelmingly supported by Indians.”
In his statement yesterday, the politician said, “When I indicated that I agreed with former President Jagdeo, it was an agreement on his disclosure of the opposition whisper campaigns and the drum beating and exhortation to “throw out these coolie people” as being information available to the PPP. I was not expressing agreement with any statement that the PPP is “a coolie people party”.
“Indeed, I could not be expressing any said agreement, because it is absolutely untrue and false to say that former President Jagdeo made any such statement and the Kaieteur News report confirms this. It is my view that former President Jagdeo was forthright to make the disclosure and that the significant non-Indo Guyanese supporters of the PPP/C could not be affected by former President Jagdeo’s disclosure, because the disclosures could only serve to heighten an awareness of the Opposition’s clandestine appeal to racist polarization to garner electoral support.”
He added, “I am a disciple of Cheddi Jagan and a fierce advocate of national unity, which has been one of the pillars of Cheddi Jagan’s vision of a cohesive Guyanese society. The PPP has always been from its birth, a party of mass appeal to all the ethnicities which make up the mosaic of our society.”
Rohee said that the Kaieteur News article is “journalism at its malicious, wicked and divisive best, and must be condemned.”
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