Dear Editor,
I was involved in an accident with my motorcycle on the job as a rice extension officer. I was working at the time with an arm of the PPP and I became differently-abled. I was promised by the General Secretary of that organization that he will retain me in their employ because I was a faithful and hard worker. This promise fell through and I lost my job. I was the sole breadwinner in my house without any means of income and couldn’t provide for my family any more. My two sons who were university undergraduates and were still studying for degrees, went into the teaching profession. They then provided for me and their mother whom they loved very much.
I was taken through a lengthy and frustrating period with the National Insurance Scheme to try and secure industrial benefit, only to be compensated with sickness benefit. I received 50% instead of 100% compensation, although I had suffered injury on the job which my employer attested to. Having seen how people are being treated in this country and my own experience under the previous administration, I decided to write letters in Stabroek News, and to give a voice to those Essequibians who were voiceless and couldn’t speak for themselves. I am the only person who continues to write on behalf of this region and farther afield.
But I paid the ultimate price. I was sued for $5 million for a letter which was published in one of Guyana’s newspapers. I was taken before the High Court at Suddie, the primary aim being to shut me up from exposing corruption. When I received the court order, I contacted Mr Moses Nagamoootoo since he was a lawyer at the time, and he quickly got on to Mr Nigel Hughes who was coming to Essequibo to meet with AFC party
members to conduct an election for the Regional Management Committee (RMC) of the region.
My wife and I went to meet Mr Nigel Hughes with the court order. I showed it to him and he smiled and told me not to worry; he would take care of it. The case lasted for 6 months with Mr Hughes being my lawyer; all this time my wife was appearing on my behalf because I was differently-abled and couldn’t get up the stairs into the High Court. We had sleepless nights, but at last the matter was finished. All the PPP appointed Commissioners to Oaths and Affidavits that I went to refused to sign Mr Hughes’s reply to the High Court Order by which the lawyer sued me; only one was brave enough and signed it free. All the time the case was going on I kept writing more and more letters in the press, exposing wrongdoings and corruption. A female lawyer who was a staunch member of the PPP and a close aide of the late Janet Jagan, and who appeared for me at the first sitting of the case, told me to continue writing because the PPP was trying to shut me down from writing since I was the only voice for the region.
Most of the letters written by me were in support of the Alliance for Change which the previous administration disliked because Indians were moving away from the party and becoming members of the AFC. My victory was due to many factors: genuine solidarity and representation by AFC lawyers and supporters. So from that experience maybe, I am now well equipped. It gives people the idea of the type of pressure and difficult circumstances which I went through. Similarly in Guyana the regime resorted not only to attacking those who criticized it, but to putting pressure on those who had been courageous enough to expose them.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan