Benschop tore up Ramotar at Harvard University

Oct 31, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Ten days after former president Donald Ramotar published a narcissistic letter in the Stabroek News in which he waxed lyrical about the delivery of justice, freedom and tolerance under the PPP’s rule, Mark Benschop on October 23, delivered a lecture to Harvard University students on ethnicity and violence during the reign of the PPP and virtually tore up the deceptions that Ramotar tried to pass off on the Guyanese people in his October 13 letter.

To fully comprehend the force of Benschop’s delivery, an interesting quote from Ramotar’s fictional canvass of October 13 (“The dangers facing our democracy are of great concern”) is relevant; “However, one of the greatest achievements was the freedom which all our people enjoyed. No one was ever afraid to speak their minds. People criticized without looking over their shoulders to see who was listening.”

Benschop carried his audience down memory lane on a trip of virtual nightmares. It was a picture of what two Guyanese presidents –Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar – did to the essential physiology of Guyana. The former Guyanese treason accused described his five years in jail for a trumped up charge of treason.

As he detailed a life of victimized existence, there were moments of reverberating silence as he focused on what took place with his family while he was in solitary confinement. The enumeration included a suspicious break-in at his home when he wife and baby son were alone; the daily death threats his family received; the police pointing a gun to the head of his baby son; and the death of his eight year old son, Rajeev while he was in prison.

This columnist says unapologetically and unambiguously that the following exclamation of former president Donald Ramotar is putrid thrash. I hereby repeat Ramotar’s fiction after which I will explain why it is hypocritical rubbish. Ramotar wrote; “However, one of the greatest achievements was the freedom which all our people enjoyed. No one was ever afraid to speak their minds. People criticized without looking over their shoulders to see who was listening.”

The freedom of Guyanese was taken away under Jagdeo and Ramotar and one such person was Mark Benschop. Here is graphic proof of the nonsense that the media allows Ramotar to perpetuate. I received a frantic call from Benschop one day in May 2011. He said violent men attacked him, he ran and they were chasing him after he took photographs of the pool that Kwame McCoy, was building at his home.

When I arrived in Diamond, Benschop took me and Lincoln Lewis to the road outside of McCoy’s home. Benschop’s clothes were all bloodied. His Tundra was badly damaged and his valuables including his laptop were stolen. In full view of the police squad led by Inspector Watts, McCoy threatened me and Lewis. I pointed out to Watts that this was a serious indiscretion for which McCoy should be arrested but Watts ignored me.

Benschop was taken to Brickdam police station and kept for five hours while Lewis and I wanted at the station. McCoy was not apprehended by the police. In what must be one of the most egregious violations of a citizen’s rights under any administration since self-government in 1953 and maybe perhaps in the history of the British West Indies, Benschop was remanded to the Brickdam lockups.

Here was a citizen who was the victim of serious violence and by the twisted logic of Ramotar’s diabolical PPP government he became the aggressor. When attorney, Christopher Ram requested to see Benschop, he was turned down. I was right there when Ram told the rank that he was an attorney and the rank replied that he don’t care. Right there and then, trade unionist Norris Witter came up and advised me to leave the Brickdam compound because he overheard the police were looking for me.

This was how the PPP and its two presidents – Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar – dominated this country and Ramotar has the dirty, nasty temerity to write letters to the newspapers saying that here fears for democracy in 2018, democracy that Ramotar himself tramped upon. The viciousness that visited Benschop took place in May 2011. Ramotar became president six months after and retained McCoy as press liaison to the presidency.

Justice was finally given to Benchop in 2018 when McCoy was charged and convicted for what he did to Benschop. McCoy became a clown outside the court house. He told reporters Benschop was a liar; he, McCoy was never there. I guess, I imagined the damaged vehicle, a bloodied Benschop and McCoy’s threat to me and Lewis. If anyone is a clown in Guyana, it is Donald Ramotar.