Dear Editor,
Professor Kean Gibson writes in Stabroek News as follows regarding Mr. Carl Greenidge who was Finance Minister from 1983 to 1985 under the late dictator, L.F.S. (Linden Forbes Sampson) Burnham’s Government of Guyana,
“I have never heard any such allegations leveled against him when he was Minister of Foreign Affairs.”
Somewhat extraneous and a bit of a stretch, no?
Mr. Carl Greenidge who recently held the important portfolio of Foreign Affairs in the current Government of Guyana made the most serious and damaging charge against my government, the Government of Canada,
Canada a country with an extremely high standing on standards of integrity in the world, the 2nd best place to live on the planet and upholds the Rule of Law in its strict application.
https://www.kelownanow.com/news/news/National_News/Canada_ranked_as_the_second_best_country_in_the_world_in_2018/
“The evidence suggests that the High Commission and, by extension, the sending State, are complicit in an attempt to overthrow a sitting government, which was democratically-elected,” Greenidge wrote.
Yet Professor Kean Gibson holds Mr. Carl Greenidge, it appears, in high esteem enough to utilize him as a standard of comparison against the tolerance of corruption in the current Government of Guyana.
The professor continues: “I would argue that the PPP’s tolerance of corruption is motivated by religious beliefs; but maybe the current President’s tolerance is motivated by naivety”.
That Mr. David Granger, the current President of Guyana is naive and by definition in one of Google’s dictionary references, shows ‘lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment, innocence, lack of sophistication’, Professor Kean Gibson, it appears, sees nothing beyond the tolerance of corruption as to the relatively recent closure of several sugar estates sending thousands of East Indian families into the breadlines, in the distinct absence of any social alleviation programmes, with some heads of households committing suicide in desperation.
The raison d’être provided is that the sugar industry is unprofitable.
Yet the current government, under Mr. David Granger’s presidency and leadership squanders more than $70M, the equivalent of $350,000.00 (US) from the public purse on the overall cost of legal defence of cases currently before the Caribbean Court of Justice.
Please think for a moment, if you may, that if a leader within the People’s Progressive Party/Civic such as Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo had done the equivalent, let’s say sent off Guyanese families of African descent into a similar situation,
The list of transgressions committed under Mr. David Granger’s direct leadership is long including a senior minister saying in a party forum that she would only recruit persons within the People’s National Congress and, by extension, mostly persons of African descent with absolutely no actions taken against her, his public pledge of personal allegiance to the late dictator L.F.S. (Linden Forbes Sampson) Burnham, the appointment of the current Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission, Mr. James Patterson, an octogenarian retiree in the absence of any consultation with the Leader of the Opposition after dismissing all the suggested and eligible persons from three submitted lists, etc.
Yet Professor Kean Gibson is supposedly blind to these realities.
If Professor Kean Gibson wishes to speak on corruption within the current illegal government, she certainly has the academic reach to discuss this issue in a reasonable and acceptable frame of reference consistent with integrity and a high regard for the truth and not just on the basis of naivete.
Are we that naive to buy into the professor’s supposed ‘naivete’?
Yours faithfully,
Kris Kooblall
Toronto, Canada
