Latest update December 16th, 2024 9:00 AM
Power: My last words to Mark Benschop
Last Monday, Mark Benschop interviewed me on his radio programme. The slot was for one hour – 8 to 9 in the night. I looked at my phone clock and it was 9.30. I told Mark, I had to end the interview since I do not travel late at night because of fear for my life. The interview was deep in the heart of the city – one street separating us from the Demerara River. The place was on Hinck Street, after that is Water Street, then the river. I live in Turkeyen on the East Coast.
Freddie Kissoon
So up I rose from my seat and said to Mark; “I don’t want to be run off the road and it looked like an accident.” He replied, “Freddie, that would not happen to you in these times now”. Here are my final words to Benschop; “Mark, you have faith in power, I don’t”.
I have absolutely no hesitation in saying I do not trust and will not trust people with power. Power destroys mind and soul. Under Obama more persons were charged for information leakage than all the previous presidents combined (please Google that information). Obama refused to pardon Edward Snowden. Obama used state money to save Wall Street billionaires who almost destroyed the US economy.
Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and acquired prestigious international awards for courage as both a woman fighter and a human rights crusader in her struggle against military rule. She is in power now and sides with the same military that imprisoned her. This lady glosses over genocidal acts by the same military. She has become an international pariah.
Daniel Ortega won my emotional embrace when as a young Sandinista guerrilla he reminded me so vividly of the lead character in the famous Harold Robbins movie, “The Adventurers.” This was the leader of one of the great guerrilla movements of the 20th century. Ortega is president of Nicaragua today where his soldiers and police are killing demonstrators.
Fidel Castro tried to overthrow his government, was charged for treason and jailed. When he became president, he executed people charged for treason with sham trials. Muammar al-Qaddafi overthrew the Libyan monarchy and he became a more depraved leader than the king he toppled. The Shah of Iran was removed in a huge revolutionary battle. The revolutionaries that replaced him and are in power today are far more brutal, vicious and murderous. The Russian revolutionaries executed Tsar Nicholas and his family. They killed more people in one day than the Tsar ever did in ten years.
The list of how evil power can turn out to be once it is acquired is literally countless. But the people of Guyana don’t have to look far. Forbes Burnham, Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Ashton Chase and their friends cut a charismatic pose as they fought the colonials for the right of Guyanese to be free. Then the first three became presidents and the last thing they gave Guyanese was rights, justice and equality. Ashton Chase drafted a writ of contempt of court against me as a newspaper columnist on behalf of Juan Edghill. If I was found guilty, the judge had no legal option but to send me to prison. The colonials didn’t do that to Chase.
The name of Walter Rodney is now lying in the mud. The revolutionaries he fought with to topple Burnham in the 20th century are in the 21st century giving succor and support of policies that are far more hurtful than what Burnham practiced, including the retrenchment of 7000 sugar workers without alternative employment and their immediate severance pay.
The famous comrades of Walter Rodney – Clive Thomas and Rupert Roopnaraine are today barefaced propagandists of a government more contemptuous of the descendants of slaves and indentured servants than president Burnham ever was.
Finally, Khemraj Ramjattan and Raphael Trotman crusaded against terrible leadership in their respective parties – the PPP and PNC. Today both men are in power and from their instincts on display, it is the opinion of this columnist that there are far more humane, democratic and understanding politicians in the PPP and PNC, at the time when they both left, than Ramjattan and Trotman. The famous Moses Nagamootoo is now in power and his fame has turned into infamy.
So yes, I will not drive late in the nights for continuing fear for my life. Those in power from the PPP side would have killed me to protect their power. Attempts were made on my life. I am not stupid to think it would not happen in 2019 or 2020. Why? My dear Benschop, power does that to people.
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