Dear Editor
The comments attributed to Mr David Granger, set out in the Stabroek News of Friday, October 1, 2010 on page 8 made me nauseous. Specifically, he is quoted as saying, “So the pictures of soldiers carrying boxes into trucks and so on, they were from a logistical function… they had nothing to do with what was in the boxes or determining the results of the election.”
The elections of 1973 remain a festering sore in the conscience of this nation. Not yet an adult, I was a polling agent for the PPP in 1973 at St Winifred’s Primary School, situate at Garnett Street, Newtown Kitty. I was prevented from sealing the ballot boxes and I was forcibly evicted from the polling station. I ran behind the truck into which the boxes were loaded and saw the truck with the boxes enter the GDF Compound at Camp Ayanganna.
People like me, Ranji Chandisingh, Vincent Teekah and Halim Majeed understood the dynamics of 1973. Some who left the PPP with us, for instance the noble Ramesh Deonarine, were never able to become members of the PNC. Even after the murder of my friend and comrade Vincent Teekah, and even after the main witness to his murder was spirited out of the country, I went to work on Prime Minister Burnham’s staff as his Special Political Assistant. For me it was a matter of a higher morality. My actions were dictated by the imperative of historical forces. Even now, with hindsight, I would follow the same path.
But, as a historian, Mr David Granger cannot rewrite history to advance himself for his own aggrandisement. I am of the humble veiw that he has eliminated himself as a potential leader of the Guyanese people. I admit that he is eminently qualified to lead the PNC.
Yours faithfully,
Vic Puran