Less than five days after he fired Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran for verbally abusing a woman, including threatening to slap her and have her stripped, President Donald Ramotar has said that he feels sorry for his former minister who was “entrapped” and “provoked”.
The president also said the second set of comments made by the minister in which he called rights activist Sherlina Nageer a miscreant and said that she needed psychiatric help took on a life of its own and was taken out of context.
The Head of State was at the time being interviewed by host of the ‘Hard Talk’ I-radio programme, Chris Chapwanya, aired every Sunday during which he also said that Attorney General Anil Nandlall was illegally recorded and was set up. He also said that his controversial comment in December last year to a heckler at Aishalton, Rupununi that Bharrat Jagdeo would have slapped him had he been there was an off-the-cuff remark.
President Ramotar had come under tremendous pressure following Ramsaran’s abusive remarks outside of the Whim Magistrate’s Court in which he threatened to have Nageer stripped and slapped and called her a “piece of shit.” Numerous local organisations as well as the representatives of the US, Britain and Canada—all publicly condemned the former minister’s remarks. The pressure escalated after a recording of the exchange began circulating and Ramsaran issued an apology in which he claimed to have been provoked into anger and uttering harsh words which he regretted. However, the next day, the minister was recorded calling Nageer a “miscreant,” accusing her of spitting on him and saying she was in need of psychiatric help. He was speaking to Regional Health Officers at a Georgetown hotel.
“I think he was entrapped too. I think it was very clear that he was provoked. I know him I know he is a kind person he has high regard for people’s rights, he has a record – he is a political fighter for human rights and freedoms and these things. I think he allowed himself to become entrapped. And then continue to make the mistake again, he get carried away with these issues,” the President said when asked for his personal views on the former minister’s comment.
Asked why he took more than a week to fire Ramsaran, the president said he was out of town most of the time and it would not have been the decent thing to “knock off anybody on cell phone.”
About the second recording, Ramotar said that the former minister said he was taken out of context and that it had taken on a life of its own.
“This is where again the opposition got a jump on him and got the maximum thing on him. While I did what I had to do I still feel sorry for him in a way because it was clear he was set up it was a deliberate attempt to set him up probably they know of his temperament and played on that,” the President said in the interview..
He also said while the minister’s first round of abusive language was inappropriate he might not have fired him based on that instance alone but the second recording is what did the former minister in.
“I think I would have done it without the political pressure but I can’t prove that now because these things were blown way out of proportion before I made that judgement so I will leave that for your ….,” the president said.
On April 20, Ramsaran was recorded verbally abusing Nageer, saying he would slap her for the fun of it and have her stripped in a public place.
Ramsaran had journeyed to Whim to support former president Jagdeo, who was expected to attend court there to answer a private criminal charge filed against him by attorney Christopher Ram. The confrontation occurred after the minister labelled Ram a “wife beater” while being interviewed by reporters. Nageer interjected and proceeded to confront him about the deaths of women and children in the health care system under his watch.
At this point Ramsaran could be heard calling Nageer a little “piece of shit” and an “idiot” before asking her to get out of his face.
Nageer later classified Ramsaran’s firing as an election time gimmick.
Meantime, asked why the same action was not taken against Nandlall, who apart from soliciting sexual favours for his uncle, was overheard speaking about his knowledge of criminal activity and his use of government funds for personal expenditure, the president said he was entrapped.
“It was treachery on the part of the friend to be recording him and to be egging him on to speak and to do that type of thing,” Ramotar told the I-radio programme.
He said Nandlall showed a lot of remorse and never repeated the comments.
“I think it was terribly unfair, it was set up, it was clearly set up to entrap him and I don’t think he deserved that… Also I reprimanded him…to fall into such a trap but I also had to take into consideration that this was someone who he knew for many, many years, someone who he had regarded as a friend and I don’t think he thought that this friend would have done something like that to him,” the Head of State said of his attorney general.
He also said he finds it obnoxious that people in the media want to hang Nandlall high and anyone in the government “who do that” but nothing was said about Raphael Trotman in a case “where a little boy who claim he was actually physically abused.”
An adult -Johnny Welshman – had publicly claimed that Trotman sexually abused him while he was a child but following an investigation by the police, the Director of Public Prosecutions advised that there was no charge for the former Speaker of the National Assembly to answer to. The issue was widely reported in all sections of the media.
Nandlall has not denied that it was his voice on the recording and had said that the conversation was a private one between himself and a longtime friend.
The President was also asked about remarks he was overheard making, calling an Aishalton teacher “stupid” during a public meeting in Region Nine. The recording had been released 27 days after John Adams alleged that he was slapped by a presidential guard after he heckled the president during a speech at the same event.
In the recording, the President was heard bashing the opposition. There was a brief gap before he was heard saying, “You don’t know anything ’bout Jagdeo. If he been hey, he might have slap yuh cause yuh stupid.”
“I was responding to a heckle, I was speaking and I responded to someone who heckled me…and I said to him that you don’t know anything about Jagdeo all you are doing is parroting what you heard you don’t know anything about Jagdeo. What I was trying to tell him was guard yourself against propaganda like that. I didn’t put it in those words,” the President explained.
Specifically asked if he had used the word slap the president said he probably did but that “it was just an off-the-cuff speaking at a public forum and someone heckled and I responded. I responded to a heckle that was thrown at me.”
“The president is a human being too…I explained the context in which it was made,” he added.
Asked if he regretted the comment, Ramotar said if he probably had the chance to think about it before he spoke he would not have said that even as he questioned the interviewer whether he did not think the man was disrespectful to heckle him while he was speaking.
“That is so petty, and it gives you an idea the kind of pettiness that goes on in society and it is blown out of proportion,” he further commented.
