In all my public years, I have never seen such an obsession

Mar 11, 2018 Features / Columnists, Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter written by Vishnu Bisram in the SN of March 9, 2018 titled, “Kissoon’s claim does not hold water,” in which he asserts that I was the letter editor at Kaieteur News and prevented publication of his letters. Anyone who follows my activism in Guyana would know that I do not reply to Vishu Bisram. My deeply honest belief is that Mr. Bisram has an unhealthy obsession with me that truly scares me and I have completely ignored him. I have been active in politics in public life for over 50 years and I have never encountered someone so obsessed with me. And if Mr. Bisram was living in Guyana it would have worried me.
There was a time about six years ago where Mr. Bisram was writing four letters a week on me. At one time, Dale Andrews and I counted them in the Chronicle. Against this background, when. Andrews was editor of the letter pages, he refused to carry Bisram’s letters on me. Anyone living in this country and reading the newspapers cannot fail to detect Bisram’s obsession with me. I expect that to happen when you are as public as I am and for that reason I have totally blanked Bisram out of my head.
I did a short stint helping with the letters at Kaieteur News because of some staff changes. I came across seriously racist letters by Mr, Bisram that were truly sickening and should never find their way into any newspaper. They were only published by Guyana Times and never appeared in the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News. Mr. Bisram complained to the publisher Glenn Lall who arranged for him to present his complaint to the staff.
After he told the meeting that his letters were not being published. I presented the eleven letters to the meeting that I rejected, reading from four of them when Mr. Lall stopped me and told Bisram that he must take such letters elsewhere. The one that shocked the staff that appeared in Guyana Times was his contention that PNC leaders used to rape and sodomize UG students in the National Service. Mr. Bisram quietly left the meeting. I doubt whether there is any editor of the Kaieteur News, Stabroek News and the Chronicle that would carry such unhealthy things on race that Mr. Bisram writes about.
I have known the editor of Guyana Times, Tusika Martin for a long time now and got on very well with her when she worked at Kaieteur News. In fact she was one of my favourities at KN. She would tell you that at the Survival Supermarket about two years ago, I told her I was totally disappointed in her journalism that she could not see Bisram’s disturbing preoccupation with me in publishing four letters a week on me by Bisram. I vehemently chastised her for this approach to journalism. Since that time, I have seen a discernible pattern of episodic missives on me by Bisram. In closing let me say that Mr. Bisram’s attitude towards me definitely borders on preoccupation and obsession and I am amazed that his close comrades like Annan Boodram of Caribbean Voice and Ravi Dev have not spoken to him.
I have only penned this letter to clear the air that I do not have any authority whatsoever at the Kaieteur News. I will not lower my dignity to reply to his response to this comment here of mine. This comment here may be the last I ever respond to Bisram.
Frederick Kissoon

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