Cheddi Jagan would have condemned storing artifacts at “Red House” - Ramjattan

Cheddi Jagan would have condemned storing artifacts at “Red House” – Ramjattan

Jan 14, 2017 News

Weighing in on the revocation of the Red House lease, was Leader of the Alliance for Change and Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, who said that if the late President Cheddi Jagan were alive, he would have been the

AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan

first to condemn using Red House to preserve his documents in stolen property.
Ramjattan was at the time speaking about the importance of upholding the law at his party’s bi-weekly press conference yesterday.
He said, “We have to make the law applicable and if you violated the law to store Cheddi Jagan’s papers and documents, the law will still apply notwithstanding that great human being and politician and statesman of Guyana.”
The AFC leader said that the issue has been twisted out of context, loaded with emotions and obfuscation. Ramjattan said, that persons have questioned the move to reclaim the building located on High Street Kingston for the state.
They are saying that it should not be interfered with based on the personality it has been made to represent.
However, the minister said to media operatives, “Cheddi would have been the first to condemn the preservation of his documents in stolen property. The misappropriated property, more and more as we study the history, it was always intended to be a temporary place for the laying of those documents. Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo and People’s Progressive Party Member of Parliament, Anil Nandlall, are purporting to be angels and denouncing government’s move to take back the building.”
According to Ramjattan, Government will not be distracted. And they are going to the law to the extent that the law says the building belongs to the state.
He said that over a year ago attempts were made by the government to negotiate the issue with the Cheddi Jagan Research Institute and the PPP.
He said, it was proposed that documents belonging to the late Presidents Forbes Burnham, Arthur Chung and Desmond Hoyte be housed at the said building.
“You know what they respond and say? We shouldn’t contaminate Jagan’s documents with Burnham and Hoyte. So there is a certain purity about Jagan. What is wrong with these people?
“And look how they contaminate the appropriation of that? We are not going to be diverted we are not going to obfuscated by this attachment to the legacy of Jagan, in my book, one of the greatest Guyanese ever.
“That is where the rule of law gets bent; it is not the rule of lawyers it is the rule of law.”
Meanwhile, on Thursday, former President Bharrat Jagdeo during his press conference said that the government needs to answer why it wants to specifically use Red House for housing documents of past presidents. He said that there are so many other facilities in the country to use which his party will undoubtedly support.
When asked if there has been any move to vacate the building, Jagdeo said that as far as he knows the CJRCI has not left the building. He said that it should be understood that the PPP does not own or run the CJRCI; however there are members of the institute’s board who are PPP members.
He said that including the documents of other past presidents would take away from the legacy of Jagan. “There are so many other facilities that they can use for other presidents in this country that we will willingly support.
“If they want something for Burnham then why not just do it, why do you have to take away from Cheddi Jagan’s legacy?”

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