A semi-apology to the US Embassy in Guyana

Dec 08, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I hereby correct a misconception in my column of Thursday, December 1, 2022, captioned, “I’m accusing the US Embassy of discrimination.” In that commentary, I took the position that the US Embassy bankrolls a LGBTQ group in Guyana named SASOD.

The angle used in that column gives the impression that the US Embassy is the main financial contributor to SASOD. Let me offer a clarification and be unambiguous because I could mislead again in this article. There is only one wrong turn in that column. It gives the impression that the US Embassy at the moment is SASOD’s essential financial backer. I withdraw that section of the article but stand by my contention that the US Embassy gives continuous financial assistance to SASOD. I stand by the other dimensions of the column.

I hereby offer a semi apology to the US Embassy because I highlighted the US Embassy and not the EU mission in Guyana. I am not afraid to apologise and will willingly do so in the future. I have apologised several times on this page even when I was right just to avoid people suing me and the newspaper.

Now that time has passed and the statutory of limitation has kicked in, I can recant some of those apologies. Once more, I inform readers that even though I was right, there was pressure on me by the newspaper to apologise and save both me and the newspaper court proceedings.

Also I willingly apologise because of what Mr. Glenn Lall told me many, many moons ago. He said any libel I incur will have to be financed by me. I have written this three times before in my Kaieteur News column, and here now is the fourth. I have never had a reaction from Mr. Lall on this revelation because he knows it is the truth.

Since publishing that commentary on the US Embassy, I have been contacted by several persons who have given me information I didn’t know. It was really a surprise to me. I have been reliably informed that over the years, the EU mission on Sendall Place and Croal Street has provided amounts just as similar to those of the US Embassy to SASOD.

Here is what I have been informed about by people once connected to the EU embassy; that over the past years SASOD has been patronised by enormous amounts of funds from the EU Embassy that exceed that of the US Embassy.

One senior businessman who knows all the players in the diplomatic circles told me that over the years at the EU Embassy, many of its senior personnel from Europe were members of the LGBT community, which gave rise to generosity extended to SASOD. In fact, one current senior European official at the embassy just divorced his husband and has married a Surinamese male citizen.

Hold your horses! I do not have a problem with who is gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. My problem is why these western embassies give so much money to SASOD when SASOD is not the democratic body the kind of which democratic EU countries would admire.

I am aware that the EU funds many civil society organisations but SASOD is not an endangered entity in Guyana so why so much money? And by so much money, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.

One Euro is equivalent to $220 Guyanese. I think that over the past five years, SASOD received millions of Euros. Over that five-year period, SASOD would have gotten literally hundreds of Guyanese dollars.

I am warning readers not to shrug off that figure. It is factual that over a five-year period, SASOD has received hundreds of millions (Guyanese) from the EU mission. One million American Dollar is equivalent to 220 million Guyanese Dollar. I know absolutely that over the past five years, SASOD would have received prodigious sums.

Here is a fact that Guyanese do not know. NGOs like SASOD, Child-Link, etc. receive so much money from the EU mission that the employees of these NGOs are some of the most highly paid employees in Guyana with monthly income in the range of highly qualified technical staff in the public sector.

I regret the poor journalism in Guyana. I once read that Stabroek News, Founder David DeCaires’, his first love was journalism and not law. My first love was history and not to be a practising academic. I wanted to join my history training with journalism. There are so much journalistic scoops to be had in this country like the one on the EU Embassy and its relation to SASOD that I have now revealed above. If Guyana is poor in any aspect of its life, it is journalism.

(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.)

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