Cyril Belgrave, Harold Snagg and one of life’s fault lines

Oct 13, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Cyril Belgrave, one of the finest politicians the PPP produced, died this week. His death coincided with information I stumbled on about Belgrave’s friend – Harold Snagg. I live at Turkeyen off the UG Road. I didn’t

know across the street in Cummings Lodge, the district directly opposite Turkeyen, there dwells Harold Snagg.
Very few Guyanese today would know the name Harold Snagg and Cyril Belgrave. Both belonged to the sixties. Snagg faded out in the eighties but Belgrave became a parliamentarian when the PPP won the 1992 election. I met Snagg and Belgrave when I was a sixteen year old youth, working in the Michael Forde Bookstore under Freedom House. My sister Gwennie knew Belgrave closely.
Snagg and Belgrave watched me grew up in politics. Belgrave belonged to a great political genre that is long dead in Guyana. Long after I became a critic of President Jagan and his government after 1992, Belgrave never showed even an ounce of resentment of my perspectives.
One morning at the junction of Wellington and Regent Streets, Cyril shouted; “Freddie like you doan talk to me anymore.” I didn’t hear him when he initially said hello. Here was a big name in the ruling party, a Member of Parliament but modest enough to want to reach out. At that time, I was a weekly columnist with the Stabroek News.
They don’t come like Belgrave anymore. He never showed me any instinct except appreciation. My criticism of his leader and government didn’t bother him. Cyril judged people by the contribution they made towards the long struggle for a free, democratic Guyana. He never failed to show his respect for me and I admired him deeply for that attitude. He was the quintessential working class fighter that knew no other life except modesty. It is a pity such an experienced fighter left Guyana and failed to pass on their experience to younger Guyanese.
I knew Harold closely because he was always in the bookstore where he would hide his marijuana. Only I knew that. He was Cheddi Jagan’s dedicated chief security detail. On many occasions, he jeopardised his life trying to save Jagan. I saw Harold shielded Jagan when thugs attacked a PPP meeting at Parade Ground, taking the full force of a coconut in his abdomen.
At a Kitty public meeting, thugs went on a rampage and Harold pushed Jagan aside and instead received a dose of acid in his face. At the junction of D’Urban Street and Louisa Row, goons descended on a PPP campaign meeting. They chopped my brother, Harold (AKA “Lightweight”) on his head with a cutlass. He was guarding Jagan. When my brother fell, Snagg pushed Jagan away and went after the men who rode off on a motorcycle.
Snagg dedicated his life to protecting Cheddi Jagan but for people like Snagg, old habits die hard. Snagg came from the class Karl Marx named the lumpen proletariat. This is the indiscipline, unemployed stratum who finds an ordinary life too boring. I am not going to publish some of the “lumpen” things Snagg did but his expulsion from the PPP by a meeting presided over by Jagan himself was harsh. Jagan was in uncontrollable rage on the alleged accusations against Snagg, accusations that since 1992 many high PPP leaders in government were guilty of themselves.
As I was driving through First Street in Cummings Lodge last week, I had to stop because a taxi had parked in the middle of the road. The passenger had a difficult time getting out. It was Harold. He couldn’t walk properly. He suffered a stroke at age 79. Snagg was disrespected by the entire PPP leadership in the seventies and eighties because in political parties, especially in Guyana, people like bodyguards and security personnel are seen as low level humans. They are seen as dispensable rags.
I can tell you some tragic and sad stories of how the PPP, PNC, WPA and AFC treated their security personnel. Some of these people could not and cannot sustain a living and they were and are turned down when they approach those who they once served and protected. I implored a current minister of government to give one of his former guards a house lot. He said yes but never followed through.
This is the fault line of life. In politics, certain humans are used as chicken feed then are thrown away in the dustbin of obscurity. I hope the elders in the PPP, like Gail Teixeira, Clement Rohee and Ralph Ramkarran who knew Snagg personally would try to assist him. “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” as the Hollies sang in their famous song of the sixties.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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