Caribbean Airlines has been doing this for too long

Dec 06, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I can’t publish names but you know the number of people, some well known that have spoken harshly to me about not writing about oil. My response has been routine.

“Why don’t you ask yourself why you do not write on the things I condemn all the time on this page and on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show,” is what would be my immediate reaction. I am disgusted when people ask me about the oil question as if Guyana is going to perish because we signed a bad deal with EXXON. But why Guyana wasn’t going to fall off the cliff between March and July in 2020 when the very existence of Guyana was threatened with the success of fraudulent general elections and impending international sanctions?

You would not believe that many of the well known persons that would probe me on my avoidance of writing on oil have never discussed the five month election saga with me. They never bother to ask me about a plethora of cruel violations that I write about so often.

They never bothered to join me in at least penning even a short letter on these cruel mistreatments of Guyanese citizens. Why do I have to write on the heart-breaking violation of a senior citizen’s right by Caribbean Airlines when other columnists in other newspapers and civil society groups should do it?

That is their obligation. Anyone who reads this page would know I have zero tolerance for a majority of civil society organisations with special wrath assigned to the Guyana Human Rights Associations.

Its very name denotes the concern for human rights. Where are these civil rights bodies that suppose to champion the rights of people? They do not exist in other countries such crass class contempt by civil society groups for ordinary people as I see in this country.

If you can picket governmental offices on transparency and governance issues, why can’t you picket Caribbean Airlines? There was a heart-breaking accusation by a 74-year-old Guyanese passenger who arrived in Guyana without one of her suitcases.

The woman related to the media how all her medications and gifts for her relatives and family members are gone. However, the missing suitcase is not the issue in my perception. Airlines lose passengers’ suitcases around the world. When that happens, customer service kicks in.

This is what the passenger is angry about. Despite filling up her lost baggage claims and several enquiries, she has not received a satisfactory explanation from the airline. This kind of complaint has characterized Caribbean Airline’s attitude to Guyanese since it went under the name, BWIA and I was in short-pants.

It is a traumatic experience when you return home and your luggage is gone. It mentally hurts badly because your kids and spouses cannot receive the nice things you brought for them.

Why such a hurtful thing can occur to a citizen, the story is carried in the media and it begins and ends there. Where are the political parties that beg for our votes? Where are civil society groups that want Guyanese to believe that the raison d’être of these entities is to help Guyanese people enjoy a better life?

The airline lost the suitcase of a 74-year-old woman who is out of the medications she bought, the airline has treated her contemptuously and she is left unprotected. Yet tomorrow, civil society groups will run amok shouting all over the place that government is hard-headed and don’t listen.

But is Guyana a place where wrong things only occur within the governmental sphere? Aren’t there wrong things being done to other people from the corporate world in Guyana, from lawyers and doctors, landlords, private schools, etc.?

Is it right for MovieTowne to rent out their car-park to a private person to hold a concert where the resulting noise is nerve-shattering and the event goes right through the evening until sunrise the next day?

I ask in all sincerity, how political parties that want you to vote for them remain silent on these moral depravities? Who is to help that woman get back her luggage?

So today, it is the suitcase and the crass attitude of Caribbean Airline. As night follows day, there will another occasion like this tomorrow and the next day. And people’s pain goes unnoticed. Just look how morally sickening in this country. The Bar Association and some lawyers protested outside the police station because a lawyer was arrested but you don’t hear the voice of the association in this country as if it does not exist. There was an outpouring of letters in the press about the Charrandass incident in India. What about the lady without her suitcase?

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