Dear Editor,

As I stepped into Freedom House my words to the official there were, “She whom I seek is not here,” and then the tears began to flow. I make mention of Mrs Janet Jagan my friend, my mentor and a great icon. Even as I pen this letter the tears still flow because I know that I have lost a good friend and Guyana is all the poorer for her loss. There is so much to be said about this great lady that it will fill volumes, but I shall mention only a few things.

There are two Caribbean leaders who will remain engraved in my mind and these are Sir John Compton and Dr Cheddi Jagan, and by extension his wife Mrs Janet Jagan. Their lifelong energies were centered on the development of their nations’ peoples, all the people, which made them tower above the rest of them from that era. I was privileged to have met Mrs Jagan when she became Guyana’s President in 1997 and ever since that time I would write letters to her and hold discussions with her, sharing my thoughts on many developmental matters for my country. In fact, there was a meeting scheduled for the very same week that she died, but as fate would have it she passed to the great beyond.

Mrs Jagan’s work as a tireless worker for people’s rights and for them to earn the dignity of human beings started when she became the Minister of Health, Labour and Housing. She instituted labour laws which stopped the exploitation of domestic workers and ensured that they got a fair day’s pay. Under her watch low-cost, working-class houses were built.  Some of her detractors would like us to forget these achievements but they are there etched on the landscape for all to see. So when those in the opposition try to demonise her, they must first judge her by her works which have that touch of excellence which no one can take away from her.

I was reliably informed that the PNC and their acolyte TV stations gave hours of broadcast coverage to the tossing of the court order by Mrs Jagan at a time when they should have been showing her achievements. I say Mrs Jagan was very modest about it, and I would not have been. Mrs Jagan did not make herself President of Guyana; she was elected by the people, and at that stage of the proceedings she was asked to form the next government which was her legitimate right, not a privilege.

Yours faithfully,
Neil Adams