AFC, Stabroek News and my advice to Aubrey Norton

Feb 01, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I once had a disagreement with one of my closest friends, the late Colin Smith, who at the time was the editor of the Catholic Standard. Then Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj had secured a security advisor from Trinidad and the news was broken.
Colin got hold of Gajraj and he denied the story. Colin came to me and said he has a scoop; Gajraj has denied it. I warned Colin against publishing Gajraj’s statement because since time immemorial, you have to be careful with what politicians tell you because from ancient times, right up to modern times, politicians are people who cannot afford to level with journalists because of the fear of public fall-out.
The Stabroek News (SN) printed a story after the newspaper claimed it spoke confidentially with a highly placed executive of the AFC. SN has three times repeated what it was told and on all three occasions has interpreted it as a position of the AFC. It is that Aubrey Norton will have the endorsement of the AFC’s parliamentarians to be opposition leader in the House.
My job is to monitor what takes place in the world of politics in Guyana. I write on politics in Guyana for the country’s leading newspaper thus I need to peep into all types of political corners. There is no official statement from the AFC that says its parliamentarians will vote for Aubrey Norton. There has been no formal meeting of the AFC’s management committee or the AFC’s executive committee that has come to that position.
What SN has failed to do is to ask that anonymous voice that it interviewed if his/her attitude is a reflection of the AFC’s totality of attitudes and if the decision was formalised within the AFC. I am suggesting the SN senior editors call me at 614-5927 or email me at [email protected] and I will make available one of the most disgusting and horrible episodes in the history of colonial and post-colonial politics in this land and it involves the AFC.
The then Minister of Home Affairs, and leader of the AFC addressed his senior staff in a farewell mode at his ministry. Using language that was pellucid, unambiguous, and direct, the AFC leader conceded election defeat.
It is a delivery that lasted for more than half an hour in which Mr. Ramjattan accepted the PPP won the election and, in language that was emotional, thanked his staff for their service. The speech consists of words of election defeat that if denied in front of a judge, Mr. Ramjattan would be chased out of the court.
There isn’t a parallel elsewhere in the world today, where the man who made that speech continues to deny the words he used that thousands have heard and thousands have access to. It is like a human saying that Nadal didn’t win 21 grand slams. And when you show him on video Nadal winning, he says that is not Nadal in the frame. It is as insane as that.
Against this background, SN must ask itself if it can trust that executive it spoke to. Is this the party that journalists must trust? The AFC is yet to reveal who ordered then Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman to sign the Exxon renewal contract even though the AFC said he was ordered.
The AFC is yet to provide evidence that a group of Russians came in February 2020 to help rig the election for the PPP. Two AFC ministers – Catherine Hughes and Ramjattan himself made that disclosure at a press conference on March 5, 2020.
The AFC is yet to reveal what were the dimensions of the renewed Cummingsburg Accord in February 2020 that had to remain secret. The AFC is yet to acknowledge its secret document titled “The Way Forward” in which it has accepted the document’s adumbration that it is time to leave the coalition with the PNC. Just before Christmas, Ramjattan’s son on his Meta page announced that the APNU+AFC lost the election and it is time the AFC go on its own. I will deal with that revelation in another column.
My advice to Aubrey Norton is not to embrace what SN was told by that AFC executive. The AFC consists of people who have made Hamilton Green look like Mother Theresa. My advice to Aubrey Norton is that the AFC has proved itself to be a school of politicians that has no idea what right and wrong are and what are principles. Norton should be aware of the nature of the AFC. I hope he is.
(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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AFC, Stabroek News and my advice to Aubrey Norton

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