Dear Editor,
I’ve learned with great sadness the passing of Mr Lionel Peters who was very active politically in the PPP, Hoyte’s PNCR and later the AFC. I first met Lionel in 1993 when he invited me to attend Accabre, an ideological training camp, at Freedom House. Lionel was the organizer in those days and his obvious political talents came out clearly. I was quite impressed by his nuanced views on politics and international relations at Accabre in the face of the more rabid ‘isms’ coming from Dr Jagan and some of his new ministers.
I got to know him better during the AFC days. Lionel was an active letter writer, but he went on to do a lot more. As a matter of fact, Lio’s actions during the 2011 election campaign were heroic. With a failed kidney, he went back to Guyana to campaign for the AFC. After campaigning in the Guyanese humidity and heat, he went numerous times to a local private hospital for dialysis. Although visibly weak he pushed on. No doubt Lio made a heroic contribution in the historic post-independence election outcome of 2011, helping the AFC and bringing down the PPP to 48% of the votes.
He was never a souptunist (I don’t use the word opportunist since that was Dr Jagan’s favourite word he reserved for those who made him insecure), although he had the opportunity to be one when he was with the PPP. He had the opportunity to go back to the PPP, but he refused, sticking instead to his political convictions. To the very end, he was a great optimist expecting to recover and moving back to Guyana to become the AFC’s campaign manager.
I don’t know what happens now, but I hope he gets a special place in the grand scheme of an expanding universe with Albert Einstein’s ‘God.’
Yours faithfully,
Tarron Khemraj
