Dear Editor,
I read the letter columns (December 9) and concluded that Prime Minister Hinds must be debating himself passionately, when he said that we need to debate differences in our positions and views. He and his government have locked out the rest of society from debate – from the state media and the National Assembly.
So, what debate is he talking about? Is it where he sits with himself and himself replicated in the others from one side, with one view and one aim – to destroy all else?
The Stalinists in his government are afraid of debates and open discussion, and use state and crony media to cowardly attack all who dissent, and threaten with impunity to destroy critics. The Prime Minister is silent on Mr Anil Nandlall’s “vituperative and vulgar” attacks on a section of the free press, but is somehow “shocked and pained” by Mr Freddie Kissoon for the odious remarks made by political kleptocrat Mr Ashni Singh whose unlawful spending of $4.5 billion triggered a no-confidence motion in parliament.
But Sam is Sam, and I will concede to his liberty to say: “Freddie is wrong and Ashni was right!”
Yesterday, we marked Human Rights Day. We do so under gloom that our democracy is threatened and we do not have legitimate governance.
Mr Hinds was part of our struggle for elementary human rights. I was doing so before him and, as a journalist, I am appalled at the destruction of free debate once again, and the closure of the people’s funded media to open discussion.
We can retrace our footsteps, and free up the media in a symbolic gesture that all that we fought for, all our sacrifices for freedom, to even be similar if not better than our colonialist and imperialist masters in human terms, have not gone down the drain.
It is a shame on the PPP that what we have become is far less than what we could have been and perhaps contrary to what we have dreamt.
Yours faithfully,
Moses Nagamootoo