Dear Editor,
Gentleman and former minister Dale Bisnauth died yesterday, April 4th, 2013.
I received the sad news at 6:33 am from Khemraj Ramjattan, my party leader.
Guyana has once again lost another truly great son, author, reverend and patriot.
Personally I have lost a father figure.
I had planned on my next visit to Guyana to visit Dale and to seek copies of his publications.
We shared many a good time before and after the 1992 General and Regional Elections. This included many arguments over cricket and the administration of sports in Guyana on the advent of the PPP/C Administration in 1992.
Dale used to thoroughly enjoy my wife’s bunjal pork.
On coming to office Dale took me on many of his outreach tours and would unannounced ask me to speak on youth and sports matters. After my presentations he would pontificate and deliver his decisive messages with clarity and lucidness which I enjoyed. There was always some measure of banter in his presentations.
Little did I know that through this measure he was assessing my qualifications to be appointed as his Director of Sports. He offered me the position four times and I declined every time as I knew the position of the Party boys to have Neil Kumar appointed to the post and I did not want Dale to have to counter them. After he finally accepted my position he told me that he would then advertise the post which he did.
Dale was a tremendous Minister of Education, Sports and Culture in that epoch-making period of the PPP/C coming to power. He stood out as a calm, educated, bright and absolutely ready individual for the task of nation building and he managed to mix his religion with his practice of politics with clarity and love.
My sincerest condolences to his wife, Pat, his former wife and all of his offspring, family and friends.
I know that this is a severe body blow to his nephew Pulandar Kandhi.
May his grand soul rest in peace and here is a cricket ball buddy!
Peace!
Yours faithfully,
Lionel Peters
