Only in the mind of Freddie Kissoon

Jun 16, 2021 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

I refer to Freddie Kissoon’s columns published in the Kaieteur News, June 14 and 15, 2021 editions, captioned, “This country has produced one of history’s most demonic, evil political parties” and “The documents have the stamp of Thomas and Roopnaraine” respectively. Much of what Kissoon wrote in his columns are not worthy of a response as it would be dignifying nonsense. However, I will deal with aspects of each column.
Kissoon in his June14 column is claiming that the WPA is the most demonic and evil political party Guyana has produced. By any standards, this is an idiotic position that can’t be supported by evidence. And it is coming from a man who sees himself as a foremost intellectual versed in social, historical and political theory. The nonsense he writes brings disgrace to that special group of learned men/women called intellectuals.
He posed a challenge to the WPA, which should not go without a response. Before I address that matter, let me deal with his statement: “But the WPA never, never discussed at the party level anything whatsoever about bringing up Rodney’s legacy with the Guyana Government of which it was a part.” In making this declaration, Freddie is doing his usual devious propagandising and self-promotion, creating the impression that he knows what is discussed in the WPA executive – which he doesn’t. Now let me return to his more important utterance that warrants my response: “…the WPA needs to explain to the Guyanese people why it did not do between May 2015 and July 2020 what the PPP did in August 2021 in support of Rodney.” In the above, I am replacing “in” with since to make sense. This huge obsession of Freddie Kissoon with what the WPA did or did not do when it was part of the coalition government, be it Rodney or otherwise: has a simple answer. The WPA was never in a position to do what the PPP did since it was not in the government in the same way as the PPP.
In his June 15, 2021 column Freddie Kissoon’s crusade against the WPA continues. This time, he slides deeper in the cesspit of deception and misinformation, which has long become his trade mark in his public writings. It is also clear that he has absolutely no intelligence about WPA’s configuration and inner workings.
His claim that Clive Thomas was responsible for the closure of GuySuCo is malicious and slanderous; Kissoon knows when the decision to close the respective sugar estates was made. Thomas’s stewardship of GuySuCo board had ended. He is also aware that it is the AFC’s Minister of Agriculture who made the decision to close down the estates. What the “know all” Kissoon is apparently unaware of is that the AFC’s decision and public announcement forced the Cabinet to endorse the decision. None of this has anything to do with Clive Thomas.
In political terms, Kissoon is labelling the APNU+AFC coalition government as PNC/WPA government not revisionism but gross disrespect for Guyanese intelligence. It is public knowledge that the then government was 60 percent APNU and 40 percent AFC yet Kissoon claimed otherwise. Why? His utterances says it all, he is seeking to portray the WPA as having hostility to Indian sugar workers/their families and the interest of the wider Indian community. He wrote, “…On the contrary, the PNC/WPA government sought vendetta. It jeopardised the livelihood of 28,000 East Indians on the sugar estate when it dismissed 5,000 sugar workers.” This is Kissoon playing the race card, and actively promoting political and ethnic division.
In another of his mythical fancies, he reduces the recent WPA statements to the work of Clive Thomas and Rupert Roopnaraine and not the party executive. He contended, “The press releases have the stamp of Clive Thomas and Rupert Roopnaraine.” There is method in Kissoon’s madness. He is banking on the fact that neither Thomas nor Roopnaraine have ever responded to his wicked rumblings. And in this case, they would not do so now.
I also note with interest, Kissoon’s efforts to avoid a polemic with Dr. David Hinds. He removes Hinds from having anything to do with the writing of the WPA statements. He needs to return to his crystal ball. And by the way Kissoon, Brother Deon’s surname is Abrams not Abraham.
In ending this polemic, I must state that Freddie Kissoon’s contention that the WPA is demonic and evil, and his claim that the WPA’s recent statements are the work of Clive Thomas and Rupert Roopnaraine are fictions of his imagination, and a reflection of a corrupted mind unleashing a poisonous dislike for the WPA. Why? Why all this ferocity against a political party that he consistently claims is dead?
The record will show that the WPA never engaged in communal violence, never killed/assassinated any political opponent or any Guyanese, was never in control of government, repressed any group of people or built a criminal state or dictatorship. Without having these reprehensible credentials, how on earth can the WPA be credibly described as politically demonic and evil? Only in the mind of Freddie Kissoon, this is possible.

Tacuma Ogunseye

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