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May Jackson’s Soul Rest in Peace
Dear Editor,
Glowing tributes were paid to Rashleigh Jackson. One does not say bad things about the dead. But the country must not forget that Mr. Jackson condoned election rigging from 1968 thru 1992, and he served an illegal regime that was not democratically elected. Mr. Jackson was also silent during the banning of basic foods, violation of human rights, and persecution of Guyanese on account of politics and race.
Mr. Jackson served at Foreign Affairs from the 1960s thru 1990s. He was PS at Foreign Affairs Ministry and was head of various Guyanese overseas missions that were responsible for overseas rigging in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1980, and 1985. The Ministry and the missions gave the PNC almost all of the overseas votes including those of traditional PPP supporters who would have accounted for some 60% of Guyanese settled abroad.
Mr. Jackson never apologised for the rigging unlike his immediate predecessor ,Fred Wills. Wills had a fall out with Burnham. He served as FM between 1975 and 1978 before he was sacked and replaced by Jackson. I do not recall if Wills was FM during the July 1978 referendum rigging. But in lectures in New York, when he was a visiting scholar at Rutgers University, Wills and I had several exchanges when he would come to City College for guest lectures organised by the Black Studies Department and co-sponsored by the Student Government where I was an elected leader. He publicly condemned Burnham and Hoyte’s elections rigging. He apologised for serving Burnham’s illegal government. For the 1992 election, he advised that Jagan’s PPP and other political parties should not participate unless the ballots were counted in the presence of observers at the places of voting.
Unlike Wills, Jackson never dissociated himself from Burnhamism and never repudiated election rigging. In fact, he also did not chastise those who attempted to rig the March 2020 elections. May his soul rest in peace!
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
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