Freddie Kissoon got the story wrong

Dec 07, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Your columnist, Freddie Kissoon, in his December 6 column accused me of criticizing him for being silent on the PPP’s excesses since it came to power in August. According to Freddie. “David Hinds, I was told, in an online newspaper – the Buxton Voice – lambasted me for my silence since the PPP/C came into power on August 2.
The implication is obvious – I wasn’t silent from March to July and now I am in December.” Freddie got the story wrong. I actually did not criticize him on that issue, so it must be his own guilt that is weighing on his mind.
That he sees March-July as unconnected from anything before or after is a matter Freddie has to work out for himself.
That he is obsessed with the “crooked politics” of March-July and totally silent on the “violent governance” of August-December is an inconsistency that must bother even an unbothered commentator like Freddie.
But I did draw attention to another Kissoon inconsistency. Writing in the Village Voice, I said this “When the PPP returned to office in 1992 it embarked on the very cleansing of the government of mainly African Guyanese. One remembers for example the cleansing of the then foreign service of its African Guyanese officers.
One of the few that survived the cleansing was an African Officer with an Indian Guyanese name.
The Desmond Hoyte-led PNC introduced the term ‘ethnic cleansing” to describe the government’s action.
Ultimately, this discrimination against the “other” continued throughout the PPP’s term in office.
Many commentators, including Mr. Christopher Ram and Mr. Freddie Kissoon were convinced that these actions indeed flowed from an ideology that was grounded in racial domination.
Mr. Christopher Ram actually instituted private charges against Mr. Jagdeo for alleged racial statements uttered at a public gathering at Babu John. Mr. Kissoon was sued by Mr. Jagdeo for asserting that he Jagdeo was practicing “ideological racism.”
This commentator was recruited by Mr. Kissoon as his “expert witness” in that case. To support his case, Mr. Kissoon produced a booklet in which he chronicled the ethno-racial character of the government service of that time.
The Freddie Kissoon of those times must be turning in his grave to see how the Freddie Kissoon of today has betrayed him.
The Freddie of today can hardly be called a Kissoonite. Dr. Henry Jeffrey, a former PPP government Minister, has since accused the PPP of being driven in part by the need for Ethnic Domination by Indian Guyanese.
David Hinds

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