Adam Harris responds to Freddie Kissoon

Sep 08, 2021 Letters

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Dear Editor,

For some people, trouble follows them regardless of where they go or what they do. The most careful motorist would get into an accident through no fault of his. Just this week, a vehicle slammed into a truck driven by a man who was taking all the care in the world.
The vehicle simply drove into the path of the truck.
I have known of people standing on the parapet being struck dead by some careless driver. It has been the case with cyclists who try to take all the care in the world.
There have also been people who took every precaution to avoid COVID-19. They obeyed all the regulations, including avoiding crowds. Lo and behold, some of them actually became infected because a trusted relative who was not as cautious brought the virus into the home.
I have almost all my life tried to avoid confrontation of any kind. There are people who would say to me that they have never seen me angry; that I always smile. Of course, I do get angry but that would be a relatively rare occasion.
I stay out of the maddening crowd but some members of the crowd simply follow me. Freddie Kissoon is one. I have maintained my distance from anything controversial but Freddie Kissoon wrote a few days ago that I did an interview with Mark Benschop less than a fortnight ago.
Freddie Kissoon was a University of Guyana lecturer whom I knew for probably four decades. We shared the same space in Kaieteur News; he wrote and I edited. There were clashes over facts. I remember Bonita Bone-Harris saying to me that Freddie Kissoon was wrong to write that Ronald Waddell was buried in the Gulf—a section in the Buxton backlands.
Waddell was actually cremated on the Lusignan foreshore. When I published Bonita’s objection, Freddie Kissoon became angry.
When he wrote that I appeared on a Mark Benschop programme a fortnight ago and said certain things about him, I called him. Most of what he subsequently wrote was true. He did not write that my objection to his date of the interview got the retort that the date of the interview did not matter.
My last interview with Mark Benschop was April 8, 2021. There were three of us on that programme. One of the persons has gone on to become the Lieutenant Governor of New York.
Freddie Kissoon said that I spent some 10 minutes denigrating him and accusing him of all manner of things. He did say that he had the recording, all 10 minutes of it, featuring me. I did ask him to send the recording and he did say that I should collect the recording from Benschop. I did.
When I asked Kissoon to share his recording, I simply wanted to match it with mine. When he refused, I immediately asked myself whether he actually had a recording. I have since read that three people sent him this recording.
The entire recording is one hour, thirty minutes. I don’t know if these three people sent the entire recording. Perhaps, as Freddie Kissoon suggested, they simply sent the last 10 minutes of me telling the world that the PPP paid Freddie, and all manner of things.
I would normally ignore things said about me whether right or wrong. I remember back in 1992, a fellow named Earl Bousquet writing that if the PPP were vindictive, I would have been in jail for theft. I got angry then said let it ride. Today, all those years later, not even the staunchest PPP supporter would recall that incident.
I remember Freddie Kissoon running afoul of the tax man. At the time, the head was Khurshid Sattaur, God rest his soul. Freddie knows what he did for him. He was so desperate that he came to my home.
Perhaps, I am being childish here to recall something like that. But I am not being childish when for decades I kept telling Freddie to write about issues rather than people. That is an impossible task. And he cannot take the heat. Ralph Seeram, now resident in Florida, gave Freddie a dressing down for an attack against Seeram.
Seeram likened Freddie to Saga Bay, a donkey that roamed New Amsterdam. With tears in his eyes, Freddie went to Glenn Lall and got him to drop Seeram from among his columnists.
Well, this time around, I must state that I shared the video of the so-called interview with Benschop. Dr Asquith Rose was one with whom I shared the video. For the entire one hour and thirty minutes, he could find nothing of what Freddie Kissoon spoke. He then said that perhaps there was another interview.
So I go back to my corner with the words of Dr. Rose ringing in my ears. “Adam, ignore Freddie. Once you reply, he will jump to write something else.”
And as an aside, I noticed that the lack of an invitation to my 70th birthday party is still a sore point. Three years later and Freddie still remembers.

Adam Harris

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