Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter by Dolly Hassan in SN of June 11 headlined, ‘The PNC should concede that certain mistakes were made during its tenure.’ I find the contents with its assessments offensive.
It is one thing for a Guyanese to ask the PNC for an apology but it is a completely different sphere of thought when in the same breath you deny similar mistakes by the present PPP regime, cast the PPP administration as a democratic government and obnoxiously blame the PNC for the horrible mistakes in Guyana as Dr Hassan did with the garbage ubiquity.
It is crass insensitivity for an Indian to openly declare that an African-dominated government must say sorry for its mistakes from 1968-1985 but an Indian dominated regime from 1992 to 2014 is excused from the same politically decadent, socially depraved and culturally reprehensible pathway.
Words cannot describe the disgust I feel when people like Dr Hassan write the utter miasma that passes for honest opinions. Here is a graphic example from Dr Hassan’s pro-PPP stance: “Mayor Hamilton Green exemplifies how we can decay as a nation when we are governed by race-based politics… the stench of Green’s Georgetown is a metaphor for the nation.”
There is so much that is morally corrupt about such a perception and it truly sickens one to the core. Why is Georgetown, Green’s Georgetown and not Jagdeo’s Georgetown? Mayor Green has had less power and control over Georgetown from 1999 to 2011.
That was the period when Bharrat Jagdeo was President. Mr Jagdeo was an executive president. The mayor of Georgetown never had executive power within the city council.
Where has Dr Hassan been living for all these years? Dr Hassan must know that our fundamental problem since the PPP imploded in the fifties is that we have lived with race-based politics from Jagan in the fifties as Premier through the long years of PNC rule right up to the present.
Dr Hassan writes: “If I were to cast my ballot today it would not be for the PNC or the AFC. They have not yet developed the wisdom and the maturity or wisdom to govern.” Can you believe this is a person asking for the PNC to apologize? Can you imagine what will happen to PNC leaders at town hall meetings across the country when they consult with their supporters about apologizing and someone gets up and reads out aloud the June 11 letter of Dolly Hassan?
Dr Hassan’s letter has realized our worst fear – there are some who will not stop demonizing the PNC and openly deifying the PPP.
For this reason, I am boycotting the Rodney Commission, and I think the PNC, WPA and others should do the same. How can anyone say that the PNC and AFC haven’t got leaders with the capacity to govern but the PPP has?
I close with the assertion that any research into the abuse of power between the Burnham junta and the Jagdeo cabal would find that Burnham was the lesser of the two evils. I end on a personal note.
Mr Burnham never tried to harm me physically even though I was a harsh critic of his rule. Twice since 1992, there have been attempts on my life. I know who sent my assaulters.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
