Freddie Kissoon’s Contretemps

Feb 14, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

A fun-filled and frivolous Freddie Kissoon is at it again. But first, I want readers to revisit his September 2008 article “The nature of power: The Chronicle then and now.” Honestly, sometimes I am loath to deem his high-schoolish dabblings as ‘articles,’ ‘columns,’ and ‘commentaries’, etc.

So, look at this excerpt: “Countless pages have flowed from the pen of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C’s) functionaries about the nature of newspapers in the sixties-the owners used them to instill their ideology, their agenda. Today, the very PPP that excoriated media owners of the sixties has a similar style when it comes to domination and propaganda. What the Argosy and Chronicle were like in the sixties is what the Chronicle, NCN television and NCN radio are today. Guess who is in charge of all three?”

Please note that many ‘PPPites,’ during the Granger era, referred to the Chronicle as the “Daily Rag.” Plus, if ever the Chronicle, during all of the previous PPP/C years, had a verbally violent attacker, it was the said Freddie Kissoon.

And by the way, I am so pleased that Kaieteur News’ Freddie Kissoon’s columns are readily accessible. I hope someone will collate all and offer them in book-form, just so that the common, non-internet folks, can enjoy the comedy that now is so effusive therein.

That excerpt continues: “Look at the Chronicle letter columns in these times (and I add in the post 2020 tenure of the PPP/C). Five pieces are penned each day by writers using false names. In almost all instances, the signatures are not Indian names but Christian ones. This is to create the impression that quite a large number of non-Indians support the PPP because look how many of them write missives in the Chronicle, eulogizing the Guyana Government. Out of those five, one must be on Frederick Kissoon.”

For now, the letters are fewer and monotonic and Freddie has at least a temporary haven.

Editor, now I go to the article, “The anti-government editorial writer of the Stabroek News,” by Freddie Kissoon on February 6, 2024. Freddie noted that “Twice I heard Timothy Jonas, the General Secretary of the opposition party, ANUG, refer to the Chronicle as a rag. In one instance, I took him up when he repeated it on the Freddie Kissoon Gildarie Show. Mr. Jonas is yet to define what is meant by a newspaper being a rag. When he does, the debate will start, and I will jump into it.”

Well, I know that Timothy Jonas will not waste time browbeating a puerile school boy. In fact, all he has to do is point readers to Freddie’s view about the PPP/C’s Chronicle. So, to counter his senseless challenge, all that TJ has to do is to ask him, Freddie Kissoon, to explain why he was, during the pre-2020 PPP/C tenures, so “… consistently vulgar and irrational (as a self-appointed opposition spokesman, that his helpless penchant was in overdrive, that he was) “… blind and malicious (in his) condemnations of the elected (PPP/C) Government of the day.”

Editor, only then, then I, (like Freddie) “would like to see an argument that tells me such a newspaper does not meet the criterion of being a rag.”

In short, what Freddie posed as (in terms of his political posture), and what he wrote about the Chronicle and the PPP/C is his own hard-core and incontrovertible answer. He should be ashamed (if he has a modicum of dignity) to ask the ‘elite’ lawyer this question. Afterall, he answers himself in an irrefutable and profuse manner.

Now for a word on what is ‘rag’ regarding the Chronicle, then and now, as nothing has changed. And this is outside of the ‘protean-pouting’ Freddie Kissoon.

In “Freedom of the Press 2012- Guyana” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted that “Over the years, the government (PPP/C) has employed various tactics, including advertising boycotts, to stifle criticism, but in the run-up to the November 2011 General Election, members of the ruling party grew increasingly hostile to sections of the media regarded as favouring the opposition, and cases of censorship were reported.”

For example, at the beginning of October 2011, “Jagdeo ordered a four-month suspension of CNS Channel Six, a privately owned TV station, due to a comment made by an opposition parliamentarian during a programme broadcast in early May.” However, “After local and international media rights groups condemned the move, which would have forced the station off the air during the election period, Jagdeo announced that the ban would begin in December.”

Ragamuffin!

And as we know, irrespective of the postponement, the Association of Caribbean Media Workers described the (PPP/C) ban as “evidence of efforts to stifle free expression.” (And) Following the elections, the Commonwealth Election Observation Mission criticized the media, stating that the code of conduct for political parties and the media had not been respected, and indicated that state-owned television, radio, and print media had shown overt bias toward the government and ruling party.” PPP/C of course!

I can hardly wait for the next series of switch-hitting from this double-gaited Freddie Kissoon.

1. I bet only KN will publish this letter; for sure not the Chronicle and the Guyana Times.

Yours truly,
Gaylord Riley

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• Freddie Kissoon Gildarie Show, schoolish dabblings, The anti-government, The Chronicle then and now, The nature of power, the Stabroek News

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