Dear Editor,
I crave your indulgence to respond to some remarks directed to me by Mr Christopher Ram in a letter published in SN on March 3, captioned, ‘Phillips misrepresented the contents of the SARA bill’.
In his letter Mr Ram referred to a telephone conversation between the two of us in which he tried to convey an impression that was not entirely accurate. I had appreciated Ram’s call and the very brief discourse that entailed. At the time I treated it as a genuine attempt by him to mend fences. However, after having read his letter I am now forced to consider his motive for calling me.
It is not true in our conversation that I raised the issue of Mr Ram establishing a third force/party. It was Mr Ram himself who raised this matter and expressed his disappointment that I would make such a claim in my letter. He asked me if I believed that he would do such a thing. Because I did not respond to him immediately he pressed me for a response and I said to him “yes”. I went on to inform him that I have received information that he was actively engaged in trying to establish another political party in Guyana. He told me that he expected better from me and he was not forming any political party. At that point our discourse ended.
In his recent letter in SN Mr Ram said “…it appears that his problem with me is a concern that I am engaged in the formation of a third party”. Here Ram was misleading the public by trying to give the impression that it was based on our discourse he concluded my concern was about him forming a political party. As I have just stated this is misleading since that was not the central theme in my letter of March 1. I am sure that everyone who read my letter would not have missed the premise of my response to him since I had spelt that out clearly. Given the position Mr Ram is taking on this matter, I will now reiterate, in a concise way, the reasons for writing the letter. My response was motivated and influenced by the low political culture displayed by Mr Ram in his uncomradely attack on Prof Clive Thomas and the WPA relative to the SARA bill.
Mr Ram wrote, “I never thought that the exercise of a democratic right of a citizen would cause such a concern to a genuine freedom and resistance fighter, and I can only guess at the effect political power, absolute loyalty and employment have on people.” I find this sentence offensive; it is politically loaded with insults and Ram’s intent is clear. However, I will only address here his contention that my employment in SARU is responsible for my reply to his letter.
He is fully aware of my political history and his remarks are nothing but a smokescreen. He knows that whether or not I am employed in SARU I would have confronted him. In spite of this knowledge but in keeping with his present corrosive political culture, he has chosen to reduce my polemic with him to my employment. If truth be known I am not entirely surprised by his line of attack. To date not even the PPP has attacked me in that manner.
I end by saying to Mr Ram that his assurance of not establishing a political party is unnecessary and as he correctly proclaimed, it is his “right”. I do not and have not challenged his exercise of that right, notwithstanding the fact that the information I have of his most recent activism of trying to form a political party is months old. I have never in that period or, in earlier times, penned a single line on that matter and that was because I have always respected his democratic right to do so, even when he did so in the most clandestine manner. However, for the record I now issue a challenge to Mr Ram: Is this his first endeavour in this direction? If he chooses to deny that he was so involved let me use this opportunity to remind him of his behaviour in the past.
Christopher Ram knows that during the period 2005 to 2006 he functioned as a WPA executive member and in the process, participated in making decisions that one way or the other impacted national life. Yet, while he was so involved with the WPA he actively engaged in the formation of the Alliance For Change (AFC). For years Mr Ram had chosen to deny his involvement in the formation of the AFC until the then leader of that party, Mr Khemraj Ramjattan, reminded him on air on one of his Plain Talk programmes that he was so involved.
Yours faithfully,
Tacuma Ogunseye
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