Dear Editor,
I read the newspapers as soon as our paper girl drops them off. After reading the Lawrence Lachmansingh interview in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek, I rushed to the keyboard to type this letter. Under Mr. Lachmansingh’s guidance, the Catholic Church has become a reactionary organization.
As a young man in Guyana, I witnessed firsthand the phenomenal greatness of the Catholic Church in the huge struggle for democracy and free and fair elections. It was mentally destabilizing to see just months after the successful defeat of election rigging, the Catholic Church formed a civil society alliance with the Trades Union Congress with the Catholic Bishop and the trade union boss, Lincoln Lewis featured in a photo shoot in the Stabroek News for the launching of the alliance.
Here are the words of Lincoln Lewis during the election rigging; “Mr. Presi-dent, it behoves you to cancel these elections. You have the power, you have the right to so do… Mr. President, for the good of Guyana, her laws and people, cancel these elections.” (Jul 28, 2020).
Can Mr. Lachmansingh tell Guyanese how a nation can achieve peace and reconciliation as he stated in the Sunday Stabroek when those who want a united Guyana are on a sermon of racial preaching and political division?
Reading Mr. Lachmansingh was an exercise in mental tiredness. Each day, I see people calling for the need for adversaries to have dialogue but those very callers are part of Guyana’s problem. I do not see Mr. Lachmansingh as part of any effort to civilize political discourse in Guyana because he is part of civil society that is anti-government.
You cannot achieve reconciliation in Guyana by being pro-government and anti-government. You have to be independent. Mr. Lachmansingh isn’t.
I end with this observation. For Guyana to improve on its political reaching out, those who are part of the problem cannot contribute to solving the problem. How and when the solution will come I don’t know but the solution will take longer when those who want to have it contribute to Guyana’s social deterioration
Sincerely,
Frederick Kissoon
