An oxymoronic exchange with Sam Hinds in the park

Nov 30, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When I read that PPP underlings, Bibi Shadick and Robeson Benn are interested in democracy in the functions of GECOM, my skin got goosebumps. From sixteen years old up to this moment, I have not seen anyone in any political party that had or has power that has produced the equivalent of Bibi Shadick.
I spent a few years with Shadick on the Council of the University of Guyana and there is no one I have seen in politics that is so disdainful of even the elementary principles of accountable, democratic functionalism.
That the PPP could put this woman as the Pro-Chancellor of UG and the constitutional position of GECOM Commissioner makes this party unfit to ever rule this nation again. This country faces a most disgraceful future if the PPP wins again and the likes of Shadick are invested with some form of state authority.
Shadick and Benn want to deny the Chairman of GECOM the legal authority he possesses. The chairman has made the decision to have the PRO present at statutory meetings of the Commission. The three PPP commissioners walked out because he refused to accede to their request to rescind his decision.
What undermining or vitiating or negative role could the PRO play at these meetings? Basically the PRO’s role would be to sit, listen and make notes. Why would any commissioner have a problem with that? Certainly not Bibi Shadick. Shadick will not allow the PRO to get in even one word because that is Shadick’s style.
Well, the world is certainly changing. People like Robeson Benn and Bibi Shadick who once had state authority and were considered bullies in the long rule of the PPP are now intimidated by the presence of GECOM’s PRO at meetings. But more importantly, Benn and Shadick are interested in democracy. Just three years ago, they didn’t know what the word meant.
These PPP apparatchiks are simply barefaced humans. They will not acknowledge any perverted, twisted, sick mistake they made while they ruled Guyana for 23 years.
I ran into Sam Hinds in the National Park last week. I was leaving as he drove in. The first conspicuous sign around his immediate surrounding was the two assistants who came out the car with him. Sam Hinds was Prime Minister for twenty three years and I never saw Hinds in public without nine assistants of which one was the driver, another his note-taker and the remaining seven, his bodyguards. Yes seven! Really! Who wanted to harm Hinds during the long reign of the PPP?
Life’s ever changing forms are really fascinating. I was in a protest group demonstrating in the compound of the Prime Minister’s office against the Chinese company not employing local labour in the construction of the Marriott. It was a rainy day but we were all under a large shed in the compound. Hinds was leaving and decided to engage us.
One of his bodyguards steadily held an umbrella over Hinds’s head and there was absolutely no rain. This is the second occasion I have written about this and I may do it again. I was so disgusted that I demanded that Hinds stop the guard from doing that menial chore.
Now here is Hinds in 2018, an ordinary man, driving in the park with two assistants. No school of bodyguard, no sirens, no entourage, no umbrella, no fanfare – just Sam, two assistants and one car. What do you call that? The dialectics of life or just life itself?
Whenever Sam and I encounter each other, the conversation is always friendly. Hinds is one of the most pleasant persons politics has produced in the history of this country.
For me it was an oxymoronic conversation; pleasant yet horrible. I was curious about his reply to an important question. I asked if there were any regrets about any mistake. Sam with his inimitable smile said, none. My mind went back to my interview with Hamilton Green. The interview is in the issue of Monday, October 16, 2017 of KN. I asked Green the same question. Green said, none.
I persisted with Sam. I brought up the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing. He said if the government had any evidence of involvement by the PPP, it would have acted weeks after it got into power. I spoke of the assassination of Ronald Waddell. He said I know more about the illegal things Waddell did than the PPP Government.
My last question was on the treason charge of husband and wife, Bruce and Carol- Anne Munroe. Sam said what the PPP government did was based on the circumstances of the time and there isn’t anything to regret.

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An oxymoronic exchange with Sam Hinds in the park

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