The National Park bosses stopped me from feeding a stray cat

Feb 09, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

In many of my columns, and in television and radio discussions, I have argued that there are areas of governance that deteriorated under the APNU+AFC regime. I remember citing the City Council and UG, in a radio interview with Mark Benschop.
My dissertation on the performance of APNU+AFC centres on superior governance. Guyanese expected this from APNU+AFC. Not only did superior governance fail to show, but there are areas of authority where the level of arrogance, autocracy and victimization exceed what was practiced under the PPP.
I am an authority on three areas of this country – the Georgetown seawall, the Botanical Gardens and the National Park. I literally spent my childhood era right up to teenage years in the Botanical Gardens. In those days, the caretaker of the Gardens (like the zoologist of the zoo) lived in the gardens.
My mother’s cousin and her husband lived in the Botanical Gardens. I spent my entire years of study for my GCE subjects in the gardens. I first saw Forbes Burnham there. He was on horseback. He looked down at me. I looked up at him. Both Burnham and I would never have imagined that we would come to be volcanic adversaries, and victimizer and victimized.
My father was the chief groundsman for Saint Stanislaus school ground. I left school and spent endless days roaming the seawall. No one in Guyana knows that place more than me. It sounds chauvinistic, but is the gargantuan truth. I never left the seawall, except when I went abroad to study. I will never leave the seawall. I told my daughter I want my ashes to be thrown on the ocean opposite the Saint’s ground when I die.
I have spent over fifteen years jogging and exercising in the National Park daily. There has never been a Christmas Eve morning and Old Year’s morning that I was never in the park. The National Park is one of the areas that has deteriorated badly since APNU+AFC came to power. I see manifestations of cruel management style in that place and because I have spoken out, the National Park monarchs have sought to victimize me. Many times these columns have publicized the violations I have seen in that place for years now, but especially since APNU+AFC put its own people in charge.
One of the things in one of my columns that has upset these little monarchs is the lack of recognition of workers’ rights. GAWU as the representative union is utterly unfit to represent the employees of the National Park. The bigwigs there were upset because I highlighted that the security ranks protecting the newly-built car park had no shelter from the elements. They had to endure the harshness of sun and rain. Let me beat my own drum. It was through my exposure of this violation in one of my columns that a guard hut was built.
First, they stopped me from parking my bike in a guard hut that is seldom used. I parked without hindrance since the late nineties. There was no diplomatic approach. I quote from the edict sent to me by Ms. Denise Fraser, the head of the Protected Areas Commission (PAC); “We hereby demand that you immediately cease and desist from parking your bicycle…if you fail to comply the Commission will be forced to take legal steps.”
Fraser, Dr. Raquel Thomas, the chairman of the National Park board, and the political head of the PAC, Ms. Ndibi Schwiers and their political bosses in APNU+AFC do not know me. I am no walkover. I refused to remove my bike. But they defeated me. They locked the guard hut, so I couldn’t access my bike for weeks. Then when I got my bike, they locked the hut so I couldn’t put it back. They won round one.
They won round two last year. The guards informed me I am banned from entering the compound where the head offices are. We are now engaged in round three. I met a tabby cat that resembles my tabby at home. For months now I have been feeding the cat. Last week, they said I can no longer feed the cat near to the guard hit where the tabby sleeps. I have refused.
I went to Mark Lewis, the administrator for security of the PAC. He refused to discuss the issue. I insisted that the security ranks told me it came from him, Ms. Fraser and Ms. Bentick, the manager of the Park. That poor cat has become a victim of those who don’t like Freddie Kissoon. I will not stop feeding the cat. Let Fraser, Thomas, Schwiers and others continue to underestimate me.

(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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The National Park bosses stopped me from feeding a stray cat

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