Super Pendulous Freddie Kissoon

Feb 05, 2024 Letters

---

Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – The amusing Freddie Kissoon, on January 15, 2024, penned the barren piece, “When a newspaper becomes an opposition party.”  At best, it was an exercise in otiosity, and the only nice comment on it is that it found its home, the Guyana Chronicle. Freddie is making full use of his PR status there.

Editor, here is a man (not a scholar nor analyst, as he wants to be recognized), who characterizes the writer of that Stabroek News editorial as being “vicious, vituperative, and ‘venal spewing’ of hatred for the Government of Guyana … and whose emotional overdrive and irrational hatred should never find its way in an editorial of a newspaper.” He adds that “SN has literally become an opposition platform.”

Well, well! I mean, on a quick parsing of Freddie’s shallow piece, I want to know how come ‘venal-spewing’ fits in? And who was the ‘one-man opposition’ to the People’s Progressive Party/Civic for ‘donkey years?’

Amusement indeed surfaces, as frivolous Freddie always saw the PPP/C Government leaders as most unsuited to be leaders of Guyana, deeming them as very immoral. In fact, he boasts about the number of columns and length of time he has spent as a ‘writer’ and in my quick count, over 80 percent of his pieces spew unjustified hatred for the PPP/C overall.

Personally, I feel that Freddie Kissoon still sees (but cannot say anything) and hates the PPP/C, but he has been rendered helpless.

Let me revisit mid July 2015, when a very small Kissoon-led group of anti PPP/C activists were not pleased with the news that Former President Bharrat Jagdeo will be heading to Parliament as the Leader of the People’s Progressive Party Opposition.  The ‘Freddie Chant’ was that Jagdeo must be recalled by the PPP from being Opposition Leader. And that Attorney General Anil Nandlall must be disqualified from entering parliament.

He did ask then “How can the Opposition Leader in Guyana perform his national duty when he is perceived not only to be a racist, but to be someone who has made the worst sociological statements against African Guyanese?”

Before that, in October 2014, Freddie, immersed in “vicious, vituperative, and venal- spewing hatred’ for the PPP/C screamed that the “GUYANA GOVT PPP/C STINKS: In any other country, the government would have fallen.”

At that time, he “… strongly urge(d) all Guyanese to keep in front of their eyes, the big picture in relation to the Anil Nandlall tape… (as)… It is the story of a cabal inside the Government of Guyana that came to a decision on what to do with Glenn Lall and the Kaieteur Newspaper itself.”

He surmised that the Nandlal ‘evil’ was symptomatic and “the big picture will be lost if we keep Nandlall in the frame as the main culprit. He is not. The chief conspirator in this drama is the cabal. Nandlall is just one of the players who mouthed off to a journalist he knows well.”

I recall Freddie asking “Why did the Government (PPP/C) in less than 24 hours, issue a statement supporting Nandlall? Because the statement was in support of the PPP/C Government itself.

The hatred spewing Freddie went into rehearsal mode, rehashing that “The Anil Nandlall tape, enunciated that there will be a planned violent attack on Lall and his staff,” and that was the story of an entrapped government. This is not about an entrapped Minister. I repeat; the context of this thing must be seen as a confrontation with Lall and the leadership of the cabal.

He detailed that “Nandlall, in those twenty minutes, spoke in the plural. You have to be completely deaf not to hear him say that the continuous criticism has reached a stage where certain people (note the plural) have now become sensitive. The tape is punctuated with anger by Nandlall himself about the salvoes fired at him. But time and time again in that ‘deadly’ 20 minutes of rampage, he constantly referred to the plural.

According to a ranting Kissoon, the “(PPP/C) people have weapons and that they will use them against KN and Mr. Lall. Who are these people with their weapons? Who are the people that have become sensitive? The answer is simple – the extended cabal which takes in the major political players high up the PPP ladder and inside the Government of Guyana and their close associates.

At that time, Freddie asked “Will the cabal still go through with their war at Saffon Street? He answered that “I don’t know, because if people die through fire or guns at Kaieteur News in the coming months then I cannot see how the PPP can survive in power.”

The way Freddie Kissoon ‘carried on’ at that time, I got the impression, from his language and tone, that KN and Lall were about to be finished-bombed or shot down. Yet today, we have this said KN as the premiere news paper in Guyana, and Lall’s voice as quite convincing and filled with incontrovertible truth.

Freddie was not only in over-drive; he was in over-length. His ennui went on to “… remind readers of the brutality in that tape. It is about a planned violent attack on the offices of Kaieteur News with the specific purpose of maybe killing Mr. Lall and his staff.  Mr. Nandlall made it pellucid that he was referring to people, not an individual. Those people reach high up in the seat of government.”

Well, what do we have today? I point a strong finger to Freddie, saying that it is the said PPP/C who are in power. They are the Government, and in a more vintage manner. It is Jagdeo who has most influence within the PPP/C. And of course, it is AG Anil Nandlal who head all things legal, and who maybe the next President.

I ask, is Kaieteur News to be on the ‘lookout?’ Will it be attacked? After all, KN has never changed policy or position. Today it is far more potent, reliable and far-reaching. It is the top media outlet in Guyana. So, maybe it should live in Freddie’s once ‘concocted’ and ‘imaginary’ fear as Kaieteur News has never ever vacillated, nor in Freddie-like manner, has ever been sycophantically ‘pendular.’

Freddie is now sermonizing the PPP/C, and of recent, since I think this goes against his innate disdain for the PPP/C, he has shied away from ‘cussing out’ his confronters. I wonder how long he will ‘stifle his conscience?

Yours truly,

Prescott Mann

---

• Anil Nandlall, Freddie Kissoon, President Bharrat Jagdeo, Stabroek News

---