Dear Editor,
Reference is being made to Frederick Kissoon’s letter, `Ludicrous for Lewis to say that I am behind industrial dispute at UG’ (SN, 4th June 2019). Freddie is right that there is an industrial dispute at the University of Guyana (UG). What there is also is a “confusion” created by his machination and interference which he denies by claiming not to be in touch with the trade union leaders on campus. But it is this same Freddie, while making these claims, in another writing of his on the UG declared that, “last year [he] facilitate[d] a meeting with the two UG unions” and a “senior Cabinet Minister” (KN: 21st May, 2019).
Kissoon has no locus standi in the UG but even the deaf is aware that he has intimate interest not of a journalistic knowledge but of an aggrieved worker-kind in the institution, its management and affairs. Whilst this interest may appear to be covered by him in writing as a columnist no one with an iota of analytical reasoning, even those who didn’t read Gramsci, can deny the destructive, self-serving nature of it.
He is still bearing the angst of his services being terminated. After all this man thinks a lot about himself, as an academic and intellect, and feels that he has a right to remain in the employ of the UG for as long as he desires and performs as he desires without interruption or sanction. It is a pity he didn’t stop to study the rules of performance and deliver, with an unblemished record, to the UG what he was being paid for.
He who claims to know what everybody must be doing, what principles they are not following, what rules they must follow or are breaking is never interested to understand what rules he must follow and what he must do. Had he done so he might have still have a job at the university. Like everything else misery likes company. So Freddie seeks to inform readers about performance issues he claims to have been told about me. I challenge him now to put every single issue that he heard about my performance in the public right now. Let us talk.
Let him expose everything he said he has been told including my undemocratic behaviour that he speaks about. His manner of adding names, left, right and centre in his responses are no validation of any of his claim and as an academic he should know this. I notice whilst he sought in his usual divisive manner to be referencing names of associates at the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Vice President Eon Andrews, he has not said what Andrews said. If it was of consequence he would not have missed the opportunity to extol.
I have chosen to respond to Kissoon not because I have nothing else to do or nothing better to do, but enough is enough, and I am not prepared to sacrifice my years of work and reputation or the GTUC’s, for a bitter and disgruntled worker who seems to have refused to move on from the UG and out of the limelight on this issue. This is a person with a fixation who is compelled to create and engage in destructive, often nasty little writings and gossips, as an esteem booster and validation of academic prowess.
His desperation to prove that the no-confidence vote (NCV) which I addressed, making it very clear of my and the GTUC’s response to the matter which can easily be proven by releases to the media and a scripted speech from which I spoke on Labour Day, did not serve him well. In his retort he claimed that he was there at the Rally and heard me “proclaiming that 44 votes should be required to pass an NCV.” Such a claim represents the desperation he must be feeling from my responses or to label me by any means necessary.
The position taken by me, that was translated in the Demerara Waves, 1st May 2019 headline, “Oil money must fund free education, healthcare; no-confidence passage must require 44 lawmakers – GTUC General Secretary” must have fooled Freddie into believing what he wants to believe. Said headline represents an interpretation of my address that stated, “We of the Guyana Trades Union Congress calls for immediate amendment to Article 106(6) of the Guyana Constitution to allow for at least two-third or 60 percent votes of all members of the National Assembly for a no-confidence vote to be passed. This is important to circumvent the risk of one vote in the National Assembly swaying the will of the people.”
The record of the GTUC and myself on matters surrounding the confidence motion are public and thank God for electronic archival data the world can see. This is the behaviour of a dishonest analyst or propagandist who seeks to influence the minds of others in a distorted way. This is the behaviour that makes our nation vulnerable for it is used against leaders, institutions and people not to advance Guyana’s development but to create division. The distortion is not academic but represents a warp mindset, driven to create division, tension and chaos.
My wife is Mrs. Minette Bacchus Lewis. Freddie conjured a lie to put her name in the public domain that I claimed he “insulted” her. I reassure him had this been done she is quite capable of responding to him appropriately. In his own writing convolution, in the last sentence of paragraph four he claimed, “I have not engaged her” but revealed his dishonesty or amnesia in the first line of paragraph five where he stated, “I can remember only once engaging her….” It is clear that this academic sees, hears and believes what he wants to, whenever he wants to.
In closing, I anticipate his response and it will not be spared, and hopefully he is not thinking that he will be given an unfair advantage in Stabroek News, which he was not allowed in another media, because he first attacked me.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis
