Dear Editor,
First a little prefatory note: only the Kaieteur News publishes letters indiscriminately, giving equal opportunities to all. “A book on Guyanese ironies is needed” is what Freddie Kissoon suggested on September 23, 2023. And how coincidental, that right after he posited that, he made himself a prime candidate to be highly featured in such a book. The “Scandalous headline on Charrandass Persaud,” by the very man who really wants this book on Guyanese ironies, wrote of the ‘scandalous’ pertaining to Charrandass, yet the very article that he referenced (“Stabroek News’ “Charrandass Persaud summoned by Legal Practitioners’ Committee”) is bereft of anything scandalous. If one were to read the article, he/she would end up ‘gasping for breath,’ ‘trying to grasp’ what was scandalous therein. Headline and content; it was simply information without a slant.
Now concerning, not the ironic, but contradictory, Freddie Kissoon, he did a PR job for Charrandass Persaud that has a miasmic reek to it. Sparing the minutiae, he is basing Charrandass’s nobility as being his “… long-standing friend for over 35 years.” Talk about fallacious reasoning!
Then Freddie Kissoon goes on to write that “… the nasty hypocrisy and ugly double-standards in this country should teach us to stick with our friends rather than make them permanent victims…” So here is my question? What is there to refute ‘recorded evidence’ of Charrandass’s repugnant behaviour, language and attitude? How can that be extenuated? Why was the matter held ensconced and not made public with alacrity? I repeat that we are talking ‘hard-core’ evidence. Juxta-posing this against the Jagdeo marriage controversy, Freddie Kissoon was confronted with ‘hear-say’ and yet boasted that “I have written four times, I repeat, four times that I am convinced that in most, if not a majority of countries in the world, given the statements issued by Ms. Singh against the President, the Head of State could not have preserved his career.” No wonder the Bharrat Jagdeo/Varshanie Singh issue died a hurried death.
Editor, here is another ‘biggie’ for the readers. Freddie Kissoon’s “The non-existent legacy of Cheddi Jagan’ on Jul 18, 2008 that “In Guyana, it is my belief that the greatness of Cheddi Jagan has been exaggerated both by Jagan himself in his autobiography, “The West on Trial” and by his protégés.” He details that “I also believe that there is a conspiracy in Guyana and the Diaspora to preserve a picture of Jagan as a hero as a reaction to the facts that are slowly tumbling out that he was an extremely flawed and incompetent political activist.” Like wow. He gets more elaborate and adds that “Those who write about the positive legacy of Dr. Jagan, people like Dr. Randy Persaud et al. … need to cast off their emotional attachment to Jagan and dispassionately examine the growing body of research material that exposes his infamous, myopic and narrow-minded approach to politics.” My questions: Which party is he, Freddie Kissoon, now waxing lyrical about? Will he dare criticize Jagan in the Chronicle, to which he has been harnessed? And how about his panegyrics for Randy Persaud? Can he risk opposing him?
Very soon Freddie Kissoon will have to address his ‘turn-around’ and say that his epiphany was the 2020 elections rigging attempts; this is a joke. Leading up to 1992, Guyana was in throes of a regime that normalised rigging. If we had a day or five months of rigging attempts, that cannot be compared to what Burnham and Hoyte did for decades. Here is a good closure for consumption and hopefully will irritate Freddie Kissoon into a defence for his duplicity. In ‘Letters not published’ (Stabroek News June 24, 2010), Randy Persaud, way back then, queried why “… several letters to the editor of mine were not published. I have also noted that the vast majority of letters published in the newspaper are, broadly speaking, critical of the current PPP administration, and that many are inflammatory or outright anti-government. I have also noted that some letter writers get their pieces published the very next day, and that these same writers are published as a matter of routine. I can name them if you so desire.”
This is like so silly, and Freddie, like Randy, did comment on this issue recently. Well, how about the many letters of many people, writing in praise of the Opposition, or accusatory of the Administration, are not being published in the Guyana Chronicle or Guyana Times? I rest my case and await the “Man of Ironies; naah, Contradictions” to refute me.
Sincerely,
Prescott Mann
