Walter Ramsahoye, the nature of humans and correcting history

Aug 22, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

We humans are inherently dishonest and uncaring. We only show concern for life when it directly affects us. We never stop to put ourselves in the place of others. When the former Acting Chief Justice, Ian Chang, died, I felt no emotions whatsoever. I don’t care how good a lawyer he was, for me he was an unacceptable person.
When Mark Benschop and I were languishing for three days in the Brickdam Police Station holding cell for a traffic violation that carried a $7,000 fine, Chang refused to look at a writ of habeas corpus filed by Nigel Hughes. When Glenn Lall objected to what he did, he told Lall, he wanted to go home to see cricket.
If I had died in that lock up for a harmless traffic offence, my daughter may have never seen a university door because she would have had no father to finance her education. There is the saying: “who feels it, knows it.” Those who sang the song of praise to Change, then jumped in their $40 million vehicle and went to dine at the Marriott, should cross my path and I will lecture to them on philosophy then let them have my scatological vocabulary.
If we choose not to write about the bad deeds of people because of some silly tradition of not saying bad things about the dead then we are falsifying history by our silence. Walter Ramsahoye died two days ago and if we do not contextualize his infamy in Guyanese society then we are allowing history to be falsified.
Ramsahoye sued the Kaieteur News for libel four times. Twice I was the first defendant. In all four libels, Ramsahoye had as his chief witness, Ramon Gaskin. Gaskin and Ramsahoye went on the witness stand and said fictional things that should never come out of the mouths of a human and the courts in Guyana allowed these infamies.
In one of those cases, Gaskin told the court that one of my professors at the University of Toronto was his friend and the professor told him my doctoral dissertation was rejected. None of my professors would want to even look at Gaskin muchless talk to him. When asked by my lawyer to name the professor, Gaskin could not remember him. Yet this man was Gaskin’s friend. Obviously, Gaskin and Ramsahoye lost.
Each time Ramsahoye came to court, he would point out his white skin colour and tell me it was such a colour that rules Guyana. He would say the most racist things quietly so the judge would not hear and when in one of the cases, the judge warned him, he sought in the next hearing to have her removed. When in one of the cases, Adam Harris was called as a witness, all hell broke out before the judge could take her seat.
In writing about Harris, I always mention that I am married for 41 years (soon to be 42) and I have known Harris longer than I know my wife. Ramsahoye referred to Harris’ dark skin and told him that he was a nobody at Queen’s College. In my 42 years of knowing Harris, I never saw him so enraged. Harris rose from the bench he was sitting on, and told Ramsahoye, “Would you like to say that to me outside?”
We produced a video in court of a Channel 6 television programme with Ramsahoye and CN Sharma in which Ramsahoye referred to me as ugly, dark-skinned with fake university degrees. Yet this was the very man who sued the Kaieteur News four times. One of the libels originated from a column of mine in which I brought up the issue of the University of Guyana withdrawing an invitation for Ramsahoye to speak. He told the court that was untrue. We produced the evidence.
Then editor-in-chief of the Stabroek News, David De Caires, penned an editorial note to one of Ramsahoye’s libelous fulminations informing the reading public that Ramsahoye criticizes people but refuses to take criticism. When the De Caires note was brought up in one of the trials, Ramsahoye in what can only be one of the most malignant and repugnant answers ever heard in a court of law in Guyana, told the judge that he doesn’t mind being criticized but they aren’t people in Guyana who are in his class and matches his learning to criticize him. I will never forget the look on the face of that judge when she heard those words. After losing his libels, and owing Kaieteur News about a million dollars in cost, Ramsahoye told Lall he will not pay. He didn’t live to pay.

(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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Walter Ramsahoye, the nature of humans and correcting history

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