Dear Editor,
The PPP/C was returned to the government in 2020 by the Guyanese electorate; this is not a debatable statement. This fact consigns Neville Bissember’s entire opinion piece (SN.13.08.24) to the dung heap, for his premise outlined in his opening paragraph contains an outrageous lie! “thanks to the Trump Administration and a robust campaign by the Mercury public strategy firm, that their party was returned to office.” Bissember ‘doubles down’ on this in his closing paragraph “So, to those residing in Region 11, I urge them to realize that the help that was needed from the Trump Administration to unseat the government in 2020 would not be required this time around”, these lies (I cannot find a more appropriate nor polite word) cannot be allowed to go unnoticed or unchallenged.
President Trump stood up for democracy in Guyana when he forced the APNU+AFC/David Granger administration to accept the will of the people as expressed at the ballot boxes or face personal sanctions; it was not ‘help’ or anything to do with PR firm Mercury, who by the way, was let go by the PPP long before the elections in March 2020. Neville Bissember may want to ask Guyanese living in the USA to vote for Kamala Harris and, he is free to do so and make as many arguments for that as he wishes, he (Bissember) is not however, free to rewrite Guyana’s history in the process.
The Stabroek News should also guard carefully against misuse of its columns to disguise propaganda as news and/or opinion; one can take paid adverts for the promotion of one’s political ideals and candidates (as I have on more than one occasion, including urging Guyanese- Americans to vote for Trump 2024).
Neville Bissember should apologize to the Guyanese people for his attempt to rewrite our history and consider that a career in diplomacy has better prepared him for ‘fence sitting’ and not opinion writing. The Stabroek News is diminished for allowing this thinly disguised propaganda and lies to pass as an opinion. I sincerely hope to see an explanation from the publication on how this ‘big lie’ escaped their safeguards for as Lenin said “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” And that we cannot brook, ever.
Sincerely
Robin Singh