Oil hypocrisy meets election hypocrisy

Sep 27, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – In its editorial yesterday, the Stabroek News wrote the following words: “While more voices are needed, the yeoman’s work being done by members of civil society in relation to the travesties in the oil and gas sector must be strongly applauded.”

With the exception of Mr. Glenn Lall and Mr. Christopher Ram, those voices are hypocritical, obnoxious and unpatriotic. Those voices have not done any yeoman’s work for Guyana. Those voices do not speak for me and the Guyanese people. There are questions, which the Guyanese must put to these hypocrites about their questionable morality.

Whatever work they have done and are doing was/is to massage their monumental egos. There must be constant exposure of these depraved minds that were silent when the 1968, 1973, 1978, 1980 and 1985 cancer of rigged elections returned in March 2020 to eat away at the anatomy of Guyana. I advocate to all Guyanese not to be fooled by these publicity seekers.

I have no problem when Mr. Glenn Lall and Mr. Ram open their mouths to speak on oil. They took a principled stand on the desecration of the constitution when the APNU+AFC regime arbitrarily appointed a GECOM chairman and refused to recognise a legitimate no-confidence vote (NCV).

Lall and Ram were principled voices during the five months of rigged election. During the rigging, I co-hosted a programme with Leonard Gildarie on Kaieteur Radio. Mr. Lall made it clear to his staff that the Kaieteur News official position was that the election was being rigged.

I witnessed in front of my eyes, the tsunamic disagreement, Mr. Lall had with his editor, Adam Harris. It was clear to me that Harris was not in support of the official position of the newspaper and that brought about his departure.

Juxtapose the Kaieteur News policy on the election during the five-month election saga with the Stabroek News. All the columnists (Ralph Ramkarran is not a Stabroek News’ columnist) were writing in support of the rigging and were blatant about it.

Where were the pens and voices of these oil crusaders during the five months of rigging that the Stabroek News feel should be joined by others? None of them, I repeat not one of them was visible during the arbitrary appointment of a GECOM chairman, the caricature of the 2018 NCV and the five months of attempted rigged elections.

After Dr. Ali was sworn in as president and the legal victor of the election settled down to do their work, these oil critics suddenly appeared. You couldn’t help asking where they came from. Where were they before 2021?

I saw with my own eyes, opposition politician and prominent attorney, Timothy Jonas in 2022 pointedly asking the head of Transparency International- Guyana Chapter over a Zoom programme to explicitly state on behalf of his organisation that there were attempts to rig the March 2020 election. Do the logical deduction. Why would Mr. Jonas ask that question in 2022? What was he getting at?

Moray House did not hold even one symposium on the NCV and the election crisis. The column, “In The Diaspora” did not devote at least one article to the NCV and the election nightmare.

We had Minister Priya Manickchand as our guest on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show. Because of her presence, I went and did the research on women groups in Guyana. I examined all the four dailies for March-July, 2020. There wasn’t one letter from any women rights organisation condemning the election rigging.

Let me make my position pellucid. I believe the oil contract could have been shaped to give Guyana more income. I have seen people that belong to the government echo that sentiment. Former president Donald Ramotar was a guest on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show and he described the oil contract as a bad one.

But I do not think Guyanese deserve to listen to hypocrites who have conveniently found their voice and when they discovered that they have a voice, it is only capable of pronouncing on one issue – the oil contract.

Please do not take my word for it. Please do a little research. Make a list of the people that the Stabroek News noted that gave yeoman service (service to whom?) and go back from the NCV in December 2018 right up to August 2, 2020 when Dr. Ali was sworn in and see if you can locate the voices of those people.

I don’t have a problem with persons who condemn the EXXON oil contract. My problem is that Guyana does not deserve to have hypocrites lambasting the oil contract because EXXON and the Government are not going to listen to such people who they feel have nothing redeemable about them.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)