I appreciate and applaud the independent direction of Isabelle DeCaires

Feb 12, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Ms. Isabelle DeCaires has provided evidence to me that she came out against the election rigging on three occasions and expressed her rejection at what happened to the sugar workers under the APNU+AFC government.
I thank Ms. DeCaires for these corrections and sincerely welcome them. In doing what she did, she distinguished and separated herself from the school of civil society voices that dangerously, horribly and tragically let down this nation during the no-confidence vote (NCV), the five months of election rigging and the violent attacks on Indian people during racial incitement by the opposition personalities in Region 5 last September.
Given her influence in Guyana through the ownership of the Stabroek News, Ms. DeCaires can and will make a difference in the negative and harmful direction independent minds have gone since the NCV. I have spent all my life in Guyana as an activist and academic and at no point, I repeat no point, since I was a polling agent for the PPP in the 1968 elections, have I seen the downright racist and anti-democratic outlay by civil society in Guyana as it is now.
As a trained academic, I say in all honesty, a huge section of civil society poses a great threat to eradicating racist thoughts and strengthening democratic freedoms in this land. Against this sinister reality, Ms. DeCaires must know her independent and objective polemics will be valuable.
I personally hope she will increase her interventions. I may not agree with everything she pontificates on (for example the actual contents of the Natural Resource Fund Act) but the independent, objective mind has been badly missing in Guyana since the NCV. Ms. DeCaires’ continued expressions of what is right and wrong in the political sphere can act as a deterrent to those in civil society whose agenda is dangerous and will definitely impact on the stability we need in Guyana, stability that keep eluding this nation since the beginning of the 1950s. That is 71 years. That is much too long to ask the Guyanese people to wait for an inviting future.
I have no personal motivation when I ask here and now that Ms. DeCaires takes a firm hands-on approach on the Stabroek News (SN). I am a social analysis and my studies of Guyanese society led me to think that the SN has completely, and I repeat completely, lost its journalistic mission since the Irfaan Ali presidency came into power.
I honestly don’t know what motivates the SN, who or what agenda drives it, but the glory days of the SN, pioneered by Ms. DeCaires’ father is gone. In making this appeal, I offer Ms. DeCaires the evidence. 1 – During the election rigging, I was attached to Kaieteur Radio monitoring the events. The Kaieteur News told its editorial staff that the paper knew the election was being rigged and exposing such was the editorial position of the paper.
On this basis, the paper did not accept support of election rigging from editors, columnists and letter-writers. Such columnists were removed or removed themselves. The editor was removed. SN went in the opposite direction. Its columnists were in support of the rigging and were insulting to the international observers. Mr. Ralph Ramkarran is excluded since he is not a SN columnist.
2 – SN in five editorials argued against the removal of Dr. Vincent Adams as CEO of the public institution – the Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Adams sits in the hierarchy of a parliamentary opposition party. It is unadulterated nonsense to ask one of the leaders of an opposition party to head a sensitive public institution.
3 – SN rejects any member of the private sector commission being on the natural resource fund board. It concluded in an editorial that those members are too close to the government to be objective. But this is ugly hypocrisy and miasmic double standards because Dr. Adams is close to the opposition.
4 – SN continues to give extensive coverage to an organisation that exists on paper only – the Guyana Human Rights Association. It is no exaggeration to say that SN keeps this entity alive. 5 – SN offered weekly column space to a disgraceful, ugly and fetid organisation named Transparency Institute- Guyana INC. (TIGI).
There is nothing civil or transparent or patriotic about TIGI. It has chosen not to denounce the machinations of the government after the NCV was passed. It chose not to denounce the lack of transparency in the election counting. In its first column last year, it barefacedly noted, it will choose which subject to speak on. My God, Ms. DeCaires! Isn’t a rigged national election such an issue? In closing, once again I thank Ms. DeCaires for her critical positions on the election and the sugar workers.
(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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