Dear Editor,
Please allow me the opportunity to respond to the letter of Mr Kwame Mc Coy that appeared in Stabroek News on October 19 (‘By virtue of the key role he played in the education of soldiers, David Granger bears some responsibility for the ballot box killings’) and in KN, October 15, in reply to my letter in SN on October 14 (‘We need to have the true story of what happened in Guyana’) and in KN.
Let me say how pleased and encouraged I am that Mr McCoy found time and opportunity to do so. Three points of note. First, the letter seemed interesting enough for him to have read. Second, it was provocative enough to have induced a response. And third, it was challenging enough to prompt his own research – commendable attributes all. How about the narrative itself and, what appears to be, the point of Mr McCoy’s concern: that Mr Granger bears some responsibility for the tragedy at the place of poll at No 64 Village during the 1973 elections? Most critics will dismiss much of what Mr McCoy has to say as guilt by association. There is no “smoking gun.” It is not established that Mr Granger had anything to do with the GDF firing shots that killed the two persons. As per army training, education, PNC propaganda, ideological suasion and the usual instruments of socialization that influence behaviour, Granger becomes the needle in the haystack that has been conveniently pulled out and ‘targeted‘ for discipline.
In addition, opinions from several lawyers (four were clear while two refused to offer an opinion – in case they were quoted) agree that Mr McCoy’s evidence is poor grounds for the charge he proffers against Mr Granger. Moreover, the official inquiry into the incident conducted by Judge Dhan Jhappan (September 1973) nowhere mentions Mr Granger as in the vicinity of the incident or in contact with the army unit that was dispatched to the Berbice area during the period.
The officers that are identified include Captain Johnson, with overall responsibility for Berbice, while Lieutenant Henry and another contingent were assigned to the Upper Corentyne (Hogstye to Crabwood Creek). Finally, the fact that Mr Granger subsequently commented on the matter is proof of nothing. We may agree that the intervention of the army in the 1973 elections was a bad thing. But there is no evidence that Mr Granger was in any way responsible for it or for the death of the two persons. We may criticize him for poor judgement or partisan assessment, but only after the fact, none of which individually or together supports Mr McCoy’s charge. More of this below.
Ironically, it appears that Mr McCoy may have been badly served by either his informants or researchers. Freedom House, it appears, may have rethought the whole episode.
In November 2009 the sign at the memorial site was changed. When the memorial was erected in 1993 the sign read: “Jagan Ramessar and Bholanauth Parmanand were shot and killed by the G.D.F. on July 16th, 1973, NATIONAL ELECTION.”
The changed sign now reads: “Jagan Ramessar and Bholanauth Parmanand were shot and killed by P.N.C. Agents on July 16th, 1973, (NATIONAL ELECTION).“ Where do we go with this one? Did the party come up with additional information to suggest that the original claim and the official investigation are in fact mistaken?
Notwithstanding the doubts and confusion, PPP/Civic spokespersons continue to take the President’s lead, burrowing through the same furrows, handing out the same old placebo to the faithful. Mr Lumumba, for example, at the PPP/Civic rally on October, 23, sought to tag Mr Granger with the very misdeed, without accompanying evidence. What is most worrying in all of this is that it takes its cue from the head of state who is supposed to be the individual and institutional expression for the rule of law.
Mr McCoy, in his hurry to find additional ‘evidence‘ seems to have missed the point of my argument on this issue. I indicated that on this question the PPP/C seems trapped in its own dilemma: on the one hand the President and others within the party, evidence notwithstanding, were only too pleased to deploy the strategy to undermine the campaign of APNU and its leader, while, on the other, presidential candidate Ramotar was saying that such populist claims were a non-starter since he was only interested in evidence that could withstand scrutiny in a court of law.
Is this the ruling party’s double-speak which allows it to cast blame while refusing the need for a publicly-organised enquiry and the necessary evidence?
If we are to take Mr McCoy at his word, convinced that there is evidence to convict Mr Granger, should he not join with APNU and insist on the establishment of a publicly organised enquiry, a Truth Commission perhaps, to put these matters to rest?
Without that are we not back at the old blame-game and tit-for-tat politics which may give leverage to some but never resolve the underlying problems on the ground?
The other issue that Mr McCoy sidestepped is the time-line and historical horizon in which we cast the present difficulties that afflict us. To surgically remove one portion of that history and then hurl it at some Africans and the PNC leadership is not only bad history but maybe poor theory as well.
If Mr McCoy is genuinely interested in resolving the matter rather than seeking moral high ground from which to deny our claims, he will have to meet us half way.
He may want to do so, for starters, by reminding his colleagues at NCN that the daily history they write and stories they tell, seems, as a matter of policy, to exclude both critics and the opposition.
And as an old sage was fond of telling us when they lack its dialectical other it is nothing more than propaganda.
Yours faithfully,
Rishee Thakur
