“Freddie “Janus” Kissoon-voluminous duplicity

Dec 17, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Freddie ‘Forgetful’ Kissoon, on December 11, in his erstwhile, decades-long ‘outcast’ newspaper, the Chronicle (but now his life line), asks “Are Dr. Alissa Trotz and Stabroek News not ashamed?”  So, instantly, I answer on their behalf, and it’s a resounding ‘NO.” I have my reasons for arrogating to myself the ‘right’ to make a collective response to this ‘Pretend-to-Forget’ PPP/C palterer.

As per usual, Freddie’s piece is quite stodgy, being characterised by unmatched verbosity and monotony that drown his miniscule and evanescent point. So, in this regard, I will limit my response to a few things therein, but they can be very much applied to all of his pieces wherever they are. Freddie iterates that “I have done several columns condemning the unprofessional approach to journalism by Dr. Alissa Trotz of Canada, who edits the column in the Stabroek News (SN) titled, “In The Diaspora (ITD).” His big grouse is that “This is a weekly feature in SN and to date it has not carried even one writer that takes a positive position on the Guyana Government.”

Here is my immediate response. Your accusations on Dr. Alissa Trotz and SN resided in you; you were exactly the same regarding the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (their leaders and followers too). Have you forgotten? Are you in denial?

I mean just read this excerpt, my fellow Guyanese. The last line in the veteran writer, Freddie Kissoon, in “The rise and role of paranoia in the PPP (Jul 21, 2008 KN)” states that “Not only is the PPP a culture by itself, it is also an immense tragedy for Guyana and the world.” In that article, he was manifesting great angst, as then President, “Mr. Jagdeo (was daubing) everyone with the same brush. Rickford Burke and Gerry Gouveia got the same tongue-lashing even though one is involved in political commentary while the other is a human rights activist. When Mr. Gouveia assessed the two recently bought helicopters as a bad deal, he was subtly referred to as “an expert who knows everything.” His explanation was that “Mr. Jagdeo has two styles in his reaction to criticism–one is to see malice in the media, the other is to spontaneously hit out. This type of attitude can lead the commentator (Freddie) to believe that a creeping paranoia is on the rise.”

This little piece evokes my laughter. Freddie wrote that “Those writers who are presently afraid to castigate the PPP will be mentally liberated to write bravely.” He was anticipating and predicting the disappearance of the PPP/C.  In fact, recently, on March 12, 2019, in “Guyana Politics: The Freudian mind of the PPP,” he wrote that “The PPP is on auto-pilot. The PPP is in self-destruct mode. This means the PPP will not be in power in 2019…We come now to two dates in the 2019 calendar that support the theory that the PPP will not be in power in 2019… The first one is January 19.

Irfaan Ali is elected to become the PPP’s presidential candidate. The explosive news was overshadowed the next day by what Frank Anthony and Vindhya Persaud told close relatives and friends – they were asked to withdraw. (Please Note) “This columnist (FK) has incontrovertible evidence of this admission by Anthony and Persaud. (and) The second date is last Sunday – March 10, 2019 when on podium at Babu John, there was no apologies from any of the PPP’s Speakers, and they should have. Again, in the said piece, he noted that “In 2015, Jagdeo lost another election. In 2019, Jagdeo chose Mr. Ali over winnable candidates like Anthony, Persaud and the towering personality of a learned lawyer, Anil Nandlall” (SC). “In 2019 Jagdeo will lose another election. Jagdeo is living out the Freudian instincts of 1957. The PPP can never lose… The PPP will always win. Of course, not only is the PPP self-destructive, the man, Jagdeo is also.”

So, I am asking Freddie Kissoon, for the umpteenth time, “Why should anyone be different and switch like this new ‘born again’ convert. But is he a convert, or a betrayer? Or maybe, out of fear, he was coerced into serving a new master, his once despised PPP/C. Maybe, he is just enjoying an episode of masochistic servility. Mind you, Freddie did boast that he “… dealt with the rise and role of paranoia in the PPP in several pieces stretching back to the later eighties when I became a newspaper columnist.” I mean in all that time did he not find anything good about the PPP/C?

I guess I can sum up what happened in a jiffy too (maybe three or four months). In the words of Freddie Kissoon: “One could very well understand what Lloyd Searwar wrote when he said that if an enemy walked into Burnham’s office he leaves as a friend, but when a friend goes into Cheddi Jagan’s office he comes out as an enemy.”

Reversal: Freddie, the PPP/C’s enemy walked into the PPP/C’s office and met Jagdeo, Irfaan and Anil, and he, Freddie, left as a friend.

Secondly, Freddie talks of the “Why is this poor scholarship? (referring to Trotz and SN).

Since I have made my point, I will just stitch in this dessert. In “Freddie Kissoon replies to Randy Persaud,” (Dec 27, 2009 -by the way, this once (For Freddie) low-rated PPP/C lackey is now a stupendous scholar) Freddie was in ‘hot, buse-out mode’. Reason:   Randy had objected to Freddie’s article “The tyranny of elected dictatorship in Guyana,” (Kaieteur News, December. 21).

Here is a reproduction of the part that scares Dr. Persaud, according to Freddie Kissoon: “As Guyana grew older and as a phantasmagoria of evil policies, autocratic edicts, appalling practices of anti-African racism and unbelievable and incredible levels of corruption enveloped Freedom House, the PPP and the Government of Guyana, no one ever wanted anymore to hear about a bad President named Burnham.” (as) He had become a saint after what they saw the PPP was capable of doing and did.”

In his rejection of my observation, Randy Persaud deliberately left out the last line of Burnham becoming a saint after what the nation saw the PPP doing. I got news for Dr. Persaud. I stick to that opinion. And I do so unapologetically and I can assure him using different juxtaposition of words I will repeat that sentiment again and again.

I believe in what I wrote in that article of December 21, 09. Now Dr. Persaud wanted the Kaieteur News editor to have edited that section of my essay because of the language used. He claimed any responsible editor would have done so.”

Freddie asserts that “Persaud has now joined Misir in calling on the Kaieteur News editor to show more responsibility. (But) I think the Kaieteur News editor dealt with Misir’s call condignly in an editorial a few months back and we heard nothing further from that quarter.

Summation: “It is nothing but pure, unadulterated hypocrisy on the part of Misir and Persaud to seek to lecture the Kaieteur News editor when they are both columnists for one of ‘the world’s most obscene and gutter newspapers, the Chronicle.’”

“The Chronicle is a newspaper that has been brought into the gutter by this regime (PPP/C). Under the Burnham and Hoyte Government such a descent into journalistic miasma would not have taken place …It is possible that Misir and Persaud write for the Chronicle but don’t read it. Who reads the Chronicle? Not me! Who writes for the Chronicle (now)? Who has no choice? Who has morphed or switched? Maybe, it is time someone officially rebrand Freddie Kissoon to Freddie ‘Jag-Jag Ir-Kissoon.”

I rest my case.

Yours truly,

Prescott Mann

(“Freddie “Janus” Kissoon-voluminous duplicity)

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• Frank Anthony, human rights activist, Lloyd Searwar, Progressive Party/Civic, Vindhya Persaud

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