Inaccurate attacks on Ramharack by Ramotar and Rohee

Dec 19, 2021 Letters

---

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – Reference is made to the attacks by Clement Rohee (KN Dec. 13) and Donald Ramotar (Dec 4) on Prof Baytoram Ramharack’s epistle commenting on the political and ‘cultural’ flaws of the late Cheddi Jagan. The duo focused on the writer while Ralph Ramkarran, Harry Hergash, Ramesh Gampat, Leyland Roopnarine, and I focused on the content of his missive. The attack on Ramharack as a person could as well be an attack on me since I happen to subscribe to several conclusions on Jagan. I would like to address the incorrect description of Dr. Ramharack as anti-Jaganite and middle class and the struggle that benefitted the PPP.
I first encountered Ramharack as a student at City College of NY (CCNY) in September 1977 when we were Freshmen at 17 years old. We both migrated to NY the same year to pursue tertiary education and coming from humble backgrounds, we came to America penniless, and our families were farmers, his from Bohemia and mine from Port Mourant.
Our families could barely afford the cost of the ticket to fly to NY, and at any rate, Burnham did not allow Guyanese, least of all Indian Guyanese, to leave with any money even as students. In NY, we were both financially struggling students coming from working class parents and living in apartments in the Bronx. We could barely afford to pay our tuition and purchase books. We had to find part-time work to meet living costs. So clearly, neither he nor I could be middle class.
At CCNY, we were initially enrolled in pre-medical studies as our parents wanted us to be doctors, a cultural norm of Indian families. We met Vassan Ramracha, who chided us for not starting a student struggle to combat racism in Guyana and Burnham’s dictatorship. He encouraged us to study Political Science to prepare us for such a struggle. Ramharack switched major to do a BA in Pol Sci, while I continued my studies earning a BS in Bio-Chemistry and then completed the majors in Pol Sci to gain admission for the MA in International Relations.
At CCNY, in 1977, we attempted to join the Caribbean Students Association. Club hours were on Thursdays, from noon to 2:00 PM. We were resented in CSA on account of ethnicity; Indo-Caribbeans were not welcomed. Vassan Ramracha encouraged Indo-Caribbeans to join the India Club but it was not very active, and one could sense that the Indian nationals were uneasy with our presence, as we were not from India. Vassan encouraged us to found our own students association (Indo Club that welcomed Indians of any nationality – Trinidad, Guyana, India, Singapore, Africa, etc.). We organised and hosted many programmes and activities pertaining to Guyana. Vassan and I ran for office in the student government and we won. He served one year as Treasurer. I was re-elected three times as Senator and Vice President of Education and later as President of the Graduate Students Council and he as Treasurer of the Council. During our tenure in office, we were successful in funding a number of programmes related to Guyana — lectures by Dr. Jagan and Janet Jagan at CCNY and several symposiums by other speakers, including Arjune Karshan, Mel Carpen, Chuck Mohan, Joey Jagan, Ralph Gonsalves, Maurice Bishop, Michael Manley, Tchaiko Kwayana, and so many others who would be considered as “progressives”. Ramharack was an executive of the Indo Club and assisted in organising our activities and programmes. Does that sound like someone who was anti-Jagan or in bed with imperialists as painted by Ramotar and Rohee? I supported and organised several activities for Jagan, but opposed his socialist ideology. Does that make me anti-Jagan and an imperialist apologist?
We were all Jaganites (in terms of advocating good governance, anti-corruption, serving the less fortunate, combating racism, etc.), but we were not socialists (Marxists) and we are/were pro-America, and culturally rooted, as can be gleamed from the club we formed and the activities we hosted like celebrating Eid, Holi, Diwali, Indian Arrival, etc. We also were very active in the struggle against the Burnham dictatorship from the inception of our university studies, producing newsletters, organising protest marches and picketing exercises, etc. Every weekend, we were on 14th Street, spending hours, distributing handouts about persecution and human rights violations in Guyana. At times, we crossed path with ACG (PPP support group) activists. Similar activism was carried out on Liberty Avenue, which Vassan and our group coined as “Little Guyana” since the late 1970s.
We consistently critiqued Jagan on socialism, because we recognised it did not serve the interests of Indo-Caribbean people and Guyana. We lobbied Members of Congress (Solarz, Engel, Kennedy, etc.), Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Sally Cowal, etc. We visited Washington several times pleading for assistance for the restoration of democracy in Guyana. We made annual trips to Guyana combating Burnhamism. We conducted surveys that found the PPP winning an election. Some of us were beaten and/or terrorised. We had guns pulled on us by Burnham’s thugs. Our struggle continued well beyond 1992 when the PPP was elected to office.
While we were battling Burnham in the US and in Guyana, Rohee and Ramotar spent some eight years in Czechoslovakia. I visited Czechoslovakia and several East Bloc countries including Soviet Union. There was/is no freedom to engage in struggle for (liberal) democracy in Guyana or to work and earn an income. We worked in America and spent our money to help liberate Guyana from Burnhamism. The Western countries have allowed us to champion human rights and democracy in Guyana. Our training in political science provided us with the knowledge that the US or the West would never allow a Marxist (Jagan) led government in Guyana. We sought to moderate Jagan’s ideological position to make him acceptable to the US. We helped to lay the groundwork for Jagan to meet Members of Congress and the Carter Center. Why would Jagan want to meet American officials if he had not recognised that he erred in his anti-Americanism?
We are eternally grateful to the US for helping to restore democracy to the homeland. Jagan and the PPP have been beneficiaries of Ramharack and our struggle. It is ‘nimakharamism’ to attack Prof. Ramharack who has only one house and lives a modest Jaganite lifestyle in the US volunteering to empower less fortunate Guyanese. Is there anyone who is defending Jagan’s legacy and who is living a Jaganite lifestyle?

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram

---

---