The Chronicle: People’s Power, No Dictator

Jun 11, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

This column should have been done for Saturday. That is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Walter Rodney. I haven’t got a clue why I am publishing it three days before June 13. Maybe it has to do with my piece yesterday with the words, “People’s Power, No Dictator” in the caption.
I thought I would follow it up today with a repetition of those words. I remember those words so vividly. I left for studies abroad shortly after Walter coined it. But it will forever remain alive in political demonstrations in this country. Once governments disregard people’s rights, fighters will take to the streets, shouting: “People’s Power, No Dictator”.
I will have to do another column of the great heroic figure of Walter Rodney for June 13. Please look out for that publication because I will candidly condemn those who are alive today and in the worst manifestation of raw, moral criminality, betray the legacy of this man who gave his life for Guyana. Many of them are unapologetic sycophants for the people who have attempted to rig the 2020 general election thereby disenfranchising the people who Walter gave his life for.
For now here is the repeat of his mesmerizing slogan in yet another column of mine. Is there any country in the world since the Second World War (WW2) whose political sociology has remained unchanged and unchanging as Guyana’s? Russia comes close to mind but there are hundreds of dissimilarities between Guyana and Russia since WW2. One outstanding feature is that the economy of Russia is one of the most robust in the world.
Here are the words of Rodney, in one of the best oratories ever delivered in the history of this country. This gem is now in published form under the title of “People’s Power, No Dictator”. It was given in 1979. Rodney was making reference to the state-owned Chronicle. As you read what Rodney had to say about the Chronicle, think of the year he uttered those condemnations and look at any issue of the Chronicle since the no-confidence motion was passed in December 2018. Rodney condemned the Chronicle in 1979. That is 41 years ago. Today, in 2020, the Chronicle’s miasma in support of dictatorship and rigged elections make the Chronicle under the presidency of Forbes Burnham look like a sparkling bottle of vintage champagne.
Here now is Rodney on the state owned Chronicle; “Today, the Chronicle newspaper is proud to announce itself as the ‘Sister’ of the New Nation publication which is the official organ of the PNC party. Here in Guyana, several persons and organisations have called for a boycott of the lying and vicious publication called the Chronicle, which uses the people’s money to abuse the people. Such a boycott would represent an example of non-cooperation. It has to be agreed on and implemented as a collective action.”
Mahatma Gandhi once observed that “non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.” We can no longer seek non cooperation and a boycott of the Chronicle because the Chronicle has fallen. David Granger, Moses Nagamootoo, the autocrats in the PNC and AFC that have reduced the Chronicle to a rotting carcass. They have been ignominiously swept aside by the relentless strides of Hegelian dialectics.
Rodney must be turning in his grave when he read Eusi Kwayana quoting from the Chronicle a PNC candidate, Ganesh Mahipaul, that in the 2020 election spreadsheets were used in other districts to count the vote. Make no mistake, Kwayana was subtly asking what was wrong in Mingo using a spreadsheet to tabulate the votes for district 4. Of course, Kwayana knows all too well that Mingo’s figures came from the haunted house at Hague on the West Coast of Demerara that all Guyanese were so afraid of that it was torn down.
Rodney must be turning in his grave to see David Hinds sending his letters to the Chronicle in support of rigged elections. This is the same David Hinds who when he was arrested by the Burnham dictatorship, the Chronicle of Forbes Burnham painted him as a criminal on its front page.
I love Walter Rodney but I can’t help using the words, “poor Walter.” Look what the Chronicle has become 40 years after you were assassinated. Look where your fellow revolutionaries are today. Look at what type of system they are supporting in 2020. Surely, one cannot help saying, “poor Walter,” but not as an insult but as a regret and as a reflection. I close by saying to you Walter, thanks for the phrase, “People’s Power, No Dictator”.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)