Ramon/Raymond Gaskin and the hypocrisy of Guyana

Sep 06, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

With each passing day, this country throws up more and more incredible dimensions of human behaviour that could only be found here. If you live in Newfoundland and know absolutely nothing about Guyana, and you read what Ramon/Raymond Gaskin wrote about the Kaieteur News, you would have no clue that it was the outpouring of an immense hypocrite.
Let’s get one thing out of the way before we quote Gaskin. I was literally less than ten feet away from Gaskin in a libel suit brought by his close friend, Walter Ramsahoye, when he stated his first name as Raymond. He signs his name as Ramon. Then he signs his name as Raymond. In advising this paper on proper journalism, he should advise himself on his correct name, assuming he has a correct name.
Here is Gaskin in his own words; “What we do have is newspapers, especially one popular tabloid, predisposed to sensational reporting based on half-baked tips, stories and rumours but still struggling to marshal all the facts. The challenge of getting all the facts often proves difficult in the absence of professionally trained staff. So generally you just end up with what you have and invariably end up with sensationalism to sell newspapers rather than fair and balanced reporting.
In the case of Haags Bosch, we still do not know how a settlement was arrived at involving hundreds of millions of dollars, because the documentation is not available for serious analysis. In its stead there is daily speculation and innuendo and abuse of one contractor. With this approach, the participants are less likely to cooperate with any proper investigation and the public will be left to speculate on the so called settlement.” (end of quote).
The story about the Haags Bosch dumpsite involves Gaskin’s boss, Brian Tiwarie. But you would never believe if you read Gaskin’s letter that he is writing on behalf of his boss. Gaskin resorts to semantics to tell us that he is a clever person. But he deceives no one. He has been a consultant with Brian (BK) Tiwarie for the past twenty years. This is not a public secret. It is public information. But Gaskin wrote in the Stabroek News, a few months back, that a consultant is not an employee.
I leave it up to readers to decide if a man is a consultant the past twenty years to a building firm if he is not in actuality an employee.
In another section of his missive, Gaskin quotes from a law case. Here are the words; “In his judgment delivered by Justice of Appeal B S Roy in the matter of Ramsahoye v Glenn Lall and National Media Co (Civil appeal No l 69 2008) Justice Roy stated, “There can be very little doubt that the respondents (Lall and National Media) used the media under their control and management as a weapon of character destruction and claimed in their defence they acted in the usual course of their business as public journalists and without malice. They also claimed that the degradation of the appellant’s (Ramsahoye’s) character and reputation to be fair comment which the trial judge held to be an outrage. This is a clear statement. There is indeed a pressing need to move away from sensationalism.” (end of quote).
The reader would not know that Gaskin was a witness in that case for Ramsahoye, and a witness in two more libel cases involving Ramsahoye, and that in all three cases he stated in testimony that he is one of Ramsahoye’s best friends, a friendship that he told the court is more than forty years old.
In another column, we will discuss the testimony of Gaskin in those three cases to see if it meets the test of facts and truths. For now let’s talk about Gaskin’s complaint of sensationalism.
By now, countless Guyanese would have seen Gaskin in the endless television programmes he shares with Christopher Ram. With gesticulations and decibels that could only be described as clownish. Gaskin makes sweeping allegations and sensationalistic accusations that remind one of The National Enquirer. Yet this man has the temerity to describe the Kaieteur News as a popular tabloid which in his words is, “predisposed to sensational reporting based on half-baked tips, stories and rumours.”
I would not dignify the asininities of Raymond Gaskin to respond to that charge, by enumerating the phenomenal scoops and phenomenal investigative reporting that the Kaieteur News has been engaged in that have no match in the history of Guyanese journalism. The Catholic Standard under Father Morrison comes close. Many of this paper’s operatives risked their lives to get these lifetime stories.

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Ramon/Raymond Gaskin and the hypocrisy of Guyana

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