Sultan Mohamed has singled out Eusi Kwayana for consistent critical condemnation. I am a little bit perplexed as to why Brother Kwayana would continue to answer Mohamed’s defence of the PPP and its racial favouritism. In the SN of Tuesday, March 26, Mohamed joins three ethnic debaters on the exigency of having ethnic balance in the police force. The three are Ravi Dev who fronted the issue more than ten years ago, Vassan Ramracha from New York and Devanand Bhagwan from India
Missing from the polemic is the presence of an African input. It is either African-rights activists could not be bothered with these persons or are in neglect of their social obligation to the Guyanese people. The person under the name Sultan Mohamed wrote; “Seeking conclusive racial balance in Guyana’s armed forces and civil service should find urgent final resolution.” I am always amazed why any Guyanese with even a modicum of analytical capacity would want urgent ethnic balance in the armed forces and not in areas of the social structure where ethnic imbalance is so precipitous, ugly and dangerously poised.
If one examines the possession of land, wealth, real estate, property and related areas, the ethnic preponderance is easy to see as the perennial grass around us. In areas of financial houses, insurance, construction firms, governmental contracts, import-export trade, agricultural exports, the diamond and gold industries, the ethnic slant is easier to see than gazing at the stars. Why is there an urgent need for ethnic equality in the armed forces and not the economy? Any sociologist that is competent would tell you that there may be more deleterious consequences in these expressions of ethnic imbalances than in the armed forces. The case of the Chinese in Malaysia should be instructive to all Guyanese
No where in his dozen of years of complaining about the racial one-sidedness in the armed forces, has Ravi Dev ever pointed to the uneasiness that lies beneath the racial domination in the social sections I have mentioned. I am not concerned with Dev’s requests because he has a right to make them even if they are based on intellectually faulty premises. What bothers me is why those in Guyana that see the Dev polemic as too simplistic and biased refuse to submit an alternative paradigm with the same consistency as Dev, Ramracha, Bhagwan, PPP supporters and now Sultan Mohamed
Finally, in that letter Mohamed wrote, “Prime Minister Forbes Burnham fired the UK Sandhurst trained Major Abdul Sattur who headed the racially balanced Special Service Unit formed by Cheddi Jagan’s 1960 Government.” There is so much that is nasty and ugly about this kind of historical observation. For this reason we must pursue vigorously the revisionist reinterpretation of post 1950 Guyanese history. The newest goldmine for revisionist historians is the two volumes of Mohan Ragbeer’s work on Guyana’s history titled, “The Indelible Red Stain.”
The statement implies by juxtaposition that Jagan was more into racial equality than Burnham. It opines that Burnham came to power and altered the racial composition of the security forces by removing Sattur. But suppose Burnham did what Premier Jagan used to do and that President Jagan did fifty years after when he became President in 1992? As Premier, Jagan demoted his PS, Arthur Abraham, a Portuguese whose daughter was high up in one of the opposition parties and installed an East Indian school teacher from Queen’s College.
Would Sultan Mohamed acknowledge that what he accuses Burnham of doing when he became Prime Minister, Jagan pursued with extensive and intensive energy at Customs and Excise when he became President after 1992? For every Sattur Burnham fired, Jagan dismissed ten after he became President. I conclude with the advocacy that African-rights activists must as a matter of nationalist obligation reply to these ethnically conceived and racially slanted debates of people like Sultan Mohamed
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
