Dear Editor,
I resent with much disgust the statement by Mr Peter Ramsaroop, the new convert to the PPP’s position (‘The core of Jagdeo’s comments…’ SN, April 20) that, “Mr Nigel Hughes must take his position seriously and realize that in representing a lawsuit whose main premise is a racial defence approach only adds to this dilemma we face as a nation.” Mr Ramsaroop is referring to Mr Jagdeo’s libel suit against me. I am not a lawyer but I think he may be treading on contempt of court. But more importantly, it is the nonsense of saying that Mr Hughes must not defend a client who is facing a libel suit in which the plaintiff is asking for ten million dollars plus aggravated damages.
Mr Ramsaroop by penning his foolishness is clearly saying that my lawyers should abandon the case because to keep defending me is to aggravate the ethnic dilemma Guyana is in, as if I was the person who instituted court proceedings, and more sickeningly, as if I had something to do with Guyana’s ethnic divisions. Mr Jagdeo was president for 12 years and as president he served me with a libel writ. In those twelve years, Mr Jagdeo has been accused by many in of policy-making that discriminated against African-Guyanese. Instead of asking Mr Jagdeo to stop the case that he started, he is asking my lawyers to stop defending me.
If this is Mr Ramaroop’s entry into PPP politics then he has clearly started out in a most sycophantic fashion that could only end in making him a figure of fun among those that he was once associated with in the opposition.
In closing I will recommend that Mr Ramsaroop read the April 17 column of a former minister who served for seventeen years in the PPP government from 1992, ten of which were under Mr Jagdeo. In that column, Dr Henry Jeffrey adumbrated a policy of the domination of African Guyanese by the very government Dr Jeffrey served. After seventeen years in the cabinet, Dr Jeffrey must know what he is taking about.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
