Freddie Kissoon can’t compromise my love for country and the working class

May 05, 2020 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

I note the Kaieteur News (KN) newspaper is not uncomfortable with Frederick Kissoon using this media to abuse me. I hope said paper will not be uncomfortable with my response. Reference is made to his letter, “Lincoln Lewis’ credibility is over” (KN, 4th May 2020). First, let me remind Freddie that I shall stand in his and the lawless cabal way to make sure they respect rights and the rule of law in this country. The election management and governance will have to be conducted within the purview of the law and not what he and the lawless societal crew feel.
I don’t care about the 17, 000 votes he claims to know the PPP won by. I note the PPP leadership quoted different numbers- 20k, 18k, 15k. The Coalition has too said it won and the declarations before GECOM supports this view. The National Recount, which I am interested in, will allow for laying the issue to rest and must be allowed to proceed lawfully in an environment of peace. I shall not be silent by those seeking to intimidate and threaten the workers of GECOM and their families with various acts of subversion and interference.
Kissoon should be the last to speak of credibility because if credibility falls on his lap he won’t recognise same. This is a man who went on sabbatical and received money to do research, did not do it nor had the common decency to return the funds. When he was asked by the University of Guyana (UG) about the failure to submit his work, his response was “go read the newspapers,” suggesting that his writing a column could suffice for serious academic work.
A recommendation came to the UG Council for his services to be terminated. As Labour’s representative on the Council in principle, I represented him as a worker. I questioned due process and the management’s position could not withstand the test of scrutiny because they had failed to write him on the matter. That is how he was allowed continuity in employment.
His problem with me is multi-dimensional. Any man, like me, who writes or takes a position, particularly if strident, he feels his is the task to seek to discredit him for he must be the only one to speak for and interpret the reality of this community. Readers are invited to examine his record, be it from Burnham, Hoyte, Corbin, Hinds, Kwayana, Ogunseye. I have been his recent target since I expressed a dissenting view to his on an industrial matter at UG. I say to him the gloves are off and I am prepared to come into his crab-hole habitat, where his mind dwells, and do battle with him. I remind Kissoon that I am a trade unionist. All my life I know to fight when fighting becomes necessary.
I suspect one of his problems is me writing for KN and the influence he perceives I derive from so doing.
On the matter of integrity unapologetically I say Kissoon cannot hold a candle to me. All I ask and demand of every administration is good governance, respect for workers/citizens’ right and the rule of law.
He who accuses me of plagiarising Trump and Salvini, though there is no need to, should be afraid and ashamed to use this word. It is this academic shame of plagiarism that serves to demonstrate the history and depth of his credibility that caused him not to complete his PhD. Further, when I accused the PPP government of economic genocide in the African community it was Kissoon who took me on as a columnist and influenced another media house not to carry my letters mentioning this term or delete same even though the situation I described fitted the United Nations’ classification. But then again he appoints himself the sole authority to speak to the welfare of the African community.
Instructively, when Bharrat Jagdeo took him to court for libel he reached out to me for my writings on the issue and used same without attributing credit, claiming it to be his. Today he toes the line due to Jagdeo dropping the court case and according to him he cannot reveal the agreement signed that resulted in the case being dropped. I say to Freddie, reveal the agreement.
Unlike him, no one in this society has anything on me that will compromise the principles I hold dear and the love I have for the working class of this country.
To his obsession with my age I do not have to defend same. I recognised age as honour and testimony of not only genetic but ability to stave off challenging conditions that could affect longevity. As a representative of labour I pay homage to all our labour force- past, present and potential- and will not do as Freddie does, seek to denigrate anyone based on age, race and other factors over which they have no control. I leave that to small minds like him.
Let us debate performance, which is the essence of person and their career. Even if I was in my late 90s, as I am likely to live given my genetic makeup, what matters is my performance. To date, at this matured age, I have had no complaints in any area of performance. I have doubts Freddie can speak so definitively about all round performance. So while this fellow pensioner, someone of my generation, the midwife who cannot remember my age is obsessed with same, I judge him on performance, and his university and public performance leaves much to be desired.
Let me also remind him that Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan and David Granger attained the presidency older than me. And since he thinks he knows when is the time for me to leave the Guyana Trades Union Congress he should resign from his job at KN and hand it over to a younger person.
Finally, I stand by my position of his mischief making antics in referencing trade unionist Coretta McDonald being a candidate for the coalition and ignoring a fellow trade unionist, who is alive and a candidate for the PPP. Intelligent people aren’t fooled by the deception he practiced in referencing Chand who is deceased.

Lincoln Lewis

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