President Granger should compensate Cyrus Boyce’s family

Sep 12, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Cyrus Boyce is dead. His death has released me from a secret covenant with him. I could now talk about his story. I attended his church service last Saturday in Kitty. I sat next to Ministers, Khemraj Ramjjatan and David Patterson as the eulogies poured out and two deliveries pierced my heart – those of Minister Patterson and Barrington Braithwaite. Here is the tale of a Guyanese tragedy. Those who are in the security business of guarding the big ones in this country better learn the lessons of life as told in the death of Cyrus Boyce.
During the crime spree in Buxton, I was doing investigative journalism and it was leading me into dangerously dark corridors. One day, this gentleman came up to me on South Road in the downtown area and inquired if I knew him. I answered no. He had not even an intestinal smile on his face. His look agitated. In journalism, you know someone is annoyed with you by the way they come up to you, the way they look.
He let me know right away that he was a PNC intelligence/security officer. Then he made it pellucid that the PNC was his life and he would die for the PNC. He told me in no uncertain terms that he knows from my writings that I don’t like the PNC. I intercepted him and he insisted that I listen. He said the only reason he is warning me was because of the following reasons, and these are his words as I recall, “I know ya’ll from Durban Street, ya’ll is a collie family that like Black people, and I know you, Freddie, yuh is a alright person.”
He explained that he cannot tell me anything about what was happening in Buxton but I must trust him that he knows things and he would not like to see me get killed. He advised me to be careful. One week after Cyrus Boyce’s admonition, someone fired a bullet at my home on Hadfield Street in the darkness of night. The bullet missed my wife’s head by about three inches. Only three persons, I took into my bedroom to show them how close it was and the warhead that was still in the bedroom wall. They were the publisher of this newspaper, Glenn Lall, my cousin who works at the Office of the President, William Cox and a mutual friend of Cox and me, businessman, Sheik Isaacs.
Cyrus Boyce warned me but never for a moment did he ask me to stop my writings on the Buxton conspiracy. I never knew his name. He didn’t offer it, and he told me never to ever write about him and our meeting. I never met this man again until years after when I saw him and my good friend, David Hinds chatting. I recognized his face but never told David about him. It was during the 2015 election campaign I became close to Boycee (as we all called him).
After the May 2015 elections, the AFC head office became a ghost town. I have to pass the AFC’s office once I leave my home in Turkeyen. Each day, I stopped and Boycee and I talked about his life in politics. I will not disclose anything about Buxton. I owe him that although Barrington Braithwaite brought it up in his eulogy. Boycee started his political life as a teenager in the PNC, spending decades in that party, finally becoming the personal security detail of Robert Corbin, a position he held for over ten years. After decades of serving the PNC, Boycee fell out with his party because of refusal to pay monies owed to him for service rendered. The total amount was $2 million.
The entire party leadership knew about it. The PNC hierarchy and Robert Corbin promised to pay. The years went by and Boycee’s money was forgotten. Out of frustration, he went over to the AFC due to his friendship with David Patterson. I suggested to him that I would personally approach President Granger in his capacity as PNC leader. But he told me Granger knew about the issue but the PNC was hardened against him because he went over to the AFC.
Cyrus Boyce died an extremely unhappy man. He loved the PNC. He loved Guyana. He gave his life to the PNC. He gave his life to Guyana. By he was badly treated in the end. Even a good-paying job the PNC refused to offer him after the May elections. The tragedy of Cyrus Boyce should be a lesson for uneducated men providing security services for politicians. Go and get and education!

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