Oppositional elements are tearing this country apart for no good reason
The CNS TV suspension has triggered some kind of revival within the PNCR and a few other opposition elements. It’s always good to have an effective opposition; but it is always problematic when the opposition presents a distorted framework in their move to address issues of the day. Their presentation on rising cost of living seems to suggest that the Government of Guyana is totally culpable for the increased food prices.
I am not sure whether the opposition elements are aware of a global food crisis that had its origins in 2002; and where in 2007 alone, global grain prices increased by 42%.
We now know that food costs as a percentage of disposable income have skyrocketed. Nowhere is this clearer than in developing economies where nearly 75% of a person’s disposable income is expended on food.
The World Bank in a recent report concluded that wheat prices increased by 181% within the previous three years, with global food prices escalating by 83%.
And while crude oil price is US$117 per barrel, we need to note that Guyana purchases refined oil, meaning that that Guyana’s cost of oil per barrel is more than US$117.
Some causes for the rising food prices are well documented and now fully in the public domain. These causes include high oil prices; increased world population producing greater demand; limited supply of wheat due to drought; agricultural production, especially corn used to produce bio-fuels; and climate change.
The opposition groupings also should know that this Government has made effective responses to cushion the effects of the rising cost of living; and such cushions are greatly comparable to our CARICOM neighbors. Some cushioning includes an increased zero-rated VAT list; no excise tax on diesel, kerosene, and cooking gas; lifting of the Common External Tariff (CET), the current aggressive campaign to grow more food, and indeed, the Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture (JIA).
The JIA had its origins from 2002 when President Bharrat Jagdeo wanted help from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), together with CARICOM to transform the status of agriculture in the Caribbean. The JIA is expected to prioritize the Caribbean agricultural sector, in order to reach the level of sustainable development.
And then we have the CNS TV 4-month suspension issue that has attracted wide publicity and titillated the imaginations of the opposition forces and others. Any threat to kill any President of any country is more than serious; and a caller on the CNS TV ‘Voice of the People’ made such a threat. The broadcaster on CNS TV acknowledged the difficulty presented by this caller; and so CNS TV, through this broadcast, violated the conditions of the Licence as well as the law. Yet CNS TV effected three unedited rebroadcasts of this programme; the television station had sufficient time to edit out the ‘threat’; but failed to take corrective action.
Then there was the other charge by some groups that the President should have recused himself from the hearing as he was the aggrieved person. Well, the CNS TV team proceeded to file a court order to prevent Dr. Roger Luncheon, the President’s delegate, from administering the hearing on the ground that Luncheon had no authority to administer such a hearing; the CNS TV team succeeded.
According to the CNS TV team, it also sought a court order earlier to prevent the President and Minister of Communications from administering the hearing; but the court did not make a ruling on that day, as the matter was scheduled for hearing the following week.
And so the President in the presence of the Attorney General heard the Licensee. The Licensee was found to have violated the conditions of his Licence by broadcasting on four occasions content that encouraged the killing of the Head of State. I think it is important to note, too, that the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB) is a purely advisory body that makes recommendations.
And then we have the usual suspects presenting the usual distortions of the political history of this country. Here are some examples of their distortions: Guyana has no democracy; Guyana is a fragile state; Guyana is a failed state; Guyana has an elected dictatorship; and so on.
Transition to democracy came in 1992 after 24 years of authoritarianism; when no institution made the government accountable to its people; an age of coercion where the People's National Congress' (PNC) rulers saw no limits to their authority, and regulated all social life.
Today, the Guyanese people do experience democracy, albeit a fragile democracy. But if there is no democracy, as some claim, then there is authoritarianism.
If these ‘authoritarian’ things are really part of the woodwork in Guyana, then columnists in the print or electronic media would not be able to dispense their regular opposition and deception; but these ‘opposition’ commentators do spew out their regular diatribe within the ambit of the daily newspapers and the electronic media, without any governmental censure. I do not think a dictatorship would allow the opposition to use the spectrum and the print media in this way.
PREM MISIR
=====================
Wake up Sharma!
What is really going on in Guyana? I just read in the newspaper that the Opposition Leader in the country is saying that Carifesta is going to be affected if something is not done to remedy the Channel 6 suspension matter. I have to ask “What does that issue have to do with Carifesta?”
Is Guyana going to be remembered as a lawless country where people can just break the law and then be as the old folks would say, ‘wrong and strong’?
So, the Opposition Leader is now using Sharma’s story to cause problems for Guyana and its image to other countries. This is really ridiculous!
You know, I have to commend Stabroek News for its cartoon where it is depicting Mr. Sharma as a jackass being ridden by the Opposition Leader and others. I always thought this was the case but could never get the picture right. The cartoonist got it perfectly right. The Opposition Leader definitely does not care about Guyana or Mr. Sharma. Mr. Sharma’s story will now be placed in the book of other stories to be used as the excuse for the Opposition people wanting their way ‘or the highway’. This nonsense has to stop. Mr. Sharma broke the rules and is now paying for it. This is sad because that lady was out of place.
But Sharma cannot see that he is being used all around by the Opposition Leader, by the Mayor, some news media persons, the poor people who only use his programme but don’t vote for him, the callers who only call because that is the only channel where they could call and talk about any trash that comes to their mind, by the lawyers who set him up knowing full well that the President was also the Minister of Information, by Joey Jagan, by the Doctor with the fancy accent who said he would put his life on the line to defend him (we all know this is a lie), by everyone he comes into contact with…and I can go on.
As for Carifesta and whatever is being planned by Guyana’s selfish Opposition, this will only make Guyana look bad. Is this what Guyanese really want?
The Opposition leader and his Party and the others riding Mr. Sharma are simply selfish. Wake up Sharma! Politics is such a dirty game and Mr. Sharma has done a lot for the poor people. I sometimes feel sorry for this man.
MICHELLE YOUNGE
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
SHARMA: blatant infringements of basic broadcast rectitude, total ignorance in the belief that freedom rights will protect him from slandering govern
VIEWPOINT
By David de Groot
“Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” This age-old adage readily comes to mind whenever I encounter television owner Sharma, whilst flipping through the channels to settle on something that can stimulate my mind and attention.
On reflection, I am reminded of the advent of the Sharma channel on the television screen of our sets some years back. The recent history of this advent will disclose that it provided comic ignorance and became a light diversion from the more serious and informative programmes. In other words, no one took him and his station seriously, if only because of the abysmal ignorance being displayed by the politically aspiring Sharma.
There was blissful ignorance in pursuing a course of blatant infringements of basic broadcast rectitude, total ignorance in the belief that freedom rights will protect him from slandering government ministers, heads of public sector entities or any other public figure. Well, he will soon learn that freedom of speech does not permit anyone from bellowing “fire! Fire!” in a crowded and packed auditorium or cinema or any other similar situation.
This brings me to what I consider the uncalled hullabaloo that has been mounted by all the various elements that are opposed to the government over what must be a case of straight forward appropriate action against Sharma and his television station. There is clearly no doubt that he is guilty using his television station to advocate the killing of the president of the country. He is clearly wrong, and it is an infringement of the conditions of the licence under which he is permitted to operate a TV station. Indeed, Sharma himself pleaded guilty to the charge and attempted to apologise, but he deliberately and almost immediately committed the infringement by again airing the specific advocacy of the killing of the Head of State, not once, but thrice! What disrespect for the rule of law!
Now that there could be no doubt that Sharma is guilty of a severe infringement of the conditions of the licence granted to him by a government agency, and considering that the very Sharma and his station were previously taken off the air, the infractions of another serious complaint, it is my view that the suspension of four months is extremely light. Serious consideration should be given towards closing down the station by the withdrawal of the licence.
To permit any television station to operate and to project the degree of non-educational programmes is tantamount to a national disgrace. The misuse of the English Language and generally poor quality of the programming on Sharma’s channel is clearly having a negative impact on the education of the younger generation of the viewing public.
Maintaining a higher standard must be a core intent of any properly-run station. Unfortunately, Sharma is obviously ill-equipped to undertake the kind of responsibility that is necessary to aim for the desired standard required.
To introduce specious arguments on the question of the denial of some freedom or other are quite palpable attempts at politicising the issue. Also for Sharma to cry out about his 30-odd workers being deprived of their earnings, he should have had them in mind in the first place. So as I started, I will end by emphasizing that: “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”
By David de Groot
“Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” This age-old adage readily comes to mind whenever I encounter television owner Sharma, whilst flipping through the channels to settle on something that can stimulate my mind and attention.
On reflection, I am reminded of the advent of the Sharma channel on the television screen of our sets some years back. The recent history of this advent will disclose that it provided comic ignorance and became a light diversion from the more serious and informative programmes. In other words, no one took him and his station seriously, if only because of the abysmal ignorance being displayed by the politically aspiring Sharma.
There was blissful ignorance in pursuing a course of blatant infringements of basic broadcast rectitude, total ignorance in the belief that freedom rights will protect him from slandering government ministers, heads of public sector entities or any other public figure. Well, he will soon learn that freedom of speech does not permit anyone from bellowing “fire! Fire!” in a crowded and packed auditorium or cinema or any other similar situation.
This brings me to what I consider the uncalled hullabaloo that has been mounted by all the various elements that are opposed to the government over what must be a case of straight forward appropriate action against Sharma and his television station. There is clearly no doubt that he is guilty using his television station to advocate the killing of the president of the country. He is clearly wrong, and it is an infringement of the conditions of the licence under which he is permitted to operate a TV station. Indeed, Sharma himself pleaded guilty to the charge and attempted to apologise, but he deliberately and almost immediately committed the infringement by again airing the specific advocacy of the killing of the Head of State, not once, but thrice! What disrespect for the rule of law!
Now that there could be no doubt that Sharma is guilty of a severe infringement of the conditions of the licence granted to him by a government agency, and considering that the very Sharma and his station were previously taken off the air, the infractions of another serious complaint, it is my view that the suspension of four months is extremely light. Serious consideration should be given towards closing down the station by the withdrawal of the licence.
To permit any television station to operate and to project the degree of non-educational programmes is tantamount to a national disgrace. The misuse of the English Language and generally poor quality of the programming on Sharma’s channel is clearly having a negative impact on the education of the younger generation of the viewing public.
Maintaining a higher standard must be a core intent of any properly-run station. Unfortunately, Sharma is obviously ill-equipped to undertake the kind of responsibility that is necessary to aim for the desired standard required.
To introduce specious arguments on the question of the denial of some freedom or other are quite palpable attempts at politicising the issue. Also for Sharma to cry out about his 30-odd workers being deprived of their earnings, he should have had them in mind in the first place. So as I started, I will end by emphasizing that: “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Putting self-loathing joker Kissoon on warning; Inciting violence
Putting Kissoon on warning
I AM tired of seeing Freddie Kissoon referring to me in his articles. In his response to Ravi Dev on 17 April in Stabroek News, this is what he wrote:
“Did Dev have in mind those who turned their backs on the country of their birth like Dr. Randy Persaud and his brother, Walter, David Dabydeen, Rickey Singh, Vishnu Bisram and countless others who live and work in classy environments in post-modern countries and use ultra-modern washroom facilities at their work place while in Guyana…”
I don’t know why Kissoon writes such things about me or why I am an object of his “immense resentment.”
Anyway, whatever the reasons for his intense resentment, I would like to ask Mr. Kissoon to desist from making references to me in his future columns. My reason is that I believe his writing is not constructive. More often than not, it seems to be deliberately trying to aggravate people and sow conflict in Guyana. He and Sharma seem to be bedfellows. Whatever may be his problems, one thing is for sure: he has become a liability to Guyana.
Moreover, Mr. Kissoon ought to take a good look at himself in the mirror when he goes about condemning one person after another, all of whom are more qualified, successful and honorable than himself.
About turning my back on Guyana, well, destructive people like Mr. Kissoon have indeed made Guyana a difficult place to live. It makes constructive use of my knowledge and experience difficult in Guyana, and tolerates all forms of violence that are inimical to my nature. Mr. Kissoon can celebrate this achievement if he likes; that is the kind of thing he works for.
Meanwhile, I am very happy where I am and all I can say to Guyanese in Guyana is that I feel sorry for you for having to put up with a destructive person like Mr. Freddie Kissoon.
Again I would urge his boss to give him a long holiday to sort himself out. He deserves it.
Dr. Walter H. Persaud
Thailand
Those who incite violence must be dealt with
THE letter by Khushi Kumar published in the Friday’s edition of the Kaieteur News raises some important points. It questions whether the threat made on Channel 6 by a caller and repeated on three occasions was illegal. Kumar’s argument is that the call was made at a time when fear had gripped the minds of many people and therefore should be treated lightly.
Kumar seems to have more information than most since he knows that it is a 71-year-old woman who made the call. But the reason for the action as pointed out by the President and supported by two other notable persons in the broadcast media (Adam Harris and Tony Vieira) was the re-broadcast of the call.
I am not sure that Kumar heard the call, but I did. To my mind it had the potential to incite persons to commit the act, so even if that person did not commit the act she could have caused some one else to act, the fact that it was repeatedly shown made it even more volatile.
Abu Izzadeen or Omar Brooks, a British citizen, was found guilty in a British court of ‘inciting terrorism overseas’ for a speech he made at a mosque in London. He had previously heckled the Home Secretary John Reid during a speech in London. He and five others are facing the possibility of life imprisonment – that is the UK today. If something like that had happened in Georgetown, Guyana, the Opposition and all other critics would have been protesting and claiming discrimination.
It is good to forgive, but when persons are bent on leading innocent persons to commit all manner of evil due to their ignorance, they must be dealt with or there will be anarchy.
EDWARD SIMON
I AM tired of seeing Freddie Kissoon referring to me in his articles. In his response to Ravi Dev on 17 April in Stabroek News, this is what he wrote:
“Did Dev have in mind those who turned their backs on the country of their birth like Dr. Randy Persaud and his brother, Walter, David Dabydeen, Rickey Singh, Vishnu Bisram and countless others who live and work in classy environments in post-modern countries and use ultra-modern washroom facilities at their work place while in Guyana…”
I don’t know why Kissoon writes such things about me or why I am an object of his “immense resentment.”
Anyway, whatever the reasons for his intense resentment, I would like to ask Mr. Kissoon to desist from making references to me in his future columns. My reason is that I believe his writing is not constructive. More often than not, it seems to be deliberately trying to aggravate people and sow conflict in Guyana. He and Sharma seem to be bedfellows. Whatever may be his problems, one thing is for sure: he has become a liability to Guyana.
Moreover, Mr. Kissoon ought to take a good look at himself in the mirror when he goes about condemning one person after another, all of whom are more qualified, successful and honorable than himself.
About turning my back on Guyana, well, destructive people like Mr. Kissoon have indeed made Guyana a difficult place to live. It makes constructive use of my knowledge and experience difficult in Guyana, and tolerates all forms of violence that are inimical to my nature. Mr. Kissoon can celebrate this achievement if he likes; that is the kind of thing he works for.
Meanwhile, I am very happy where I am and all I can say to Guyanese in Guyana is that I feel sorry for you for having to put up with a destructive person like Mr. Freddie Kissoon.
Again I would urge his boss to give him a long holiday to sort himself out. He deserves it.
Dr. Walter H. Persaud
Thailand
Those who incite violence must be dealt with
THE letter by Khushi Kumar published in the Friday’s edition of the Kaieteur News raises some important points. It questions whether the threat made on Channel 6 by a caller and repeated on three occasions was illegal. Kumar’s argument is that the call was made at a time when fear had gripped the minds of many people and therefore should be treated lightly.
Kumar seems to have more information than most since he knows that it is a 71-year-old woman who made the call. But the reason for the action as pointed out by the President and supported by two other notable persons in the broadcast media (Adam Harris and Tony Vieira) was the re-broadcast of the call.
I am not sure that Kumar heard the call, but I did. To my mind it had the potential to incite persons to commit the act, so even if that person did not commit the act she could have caused some one else to act, the fact that it was repeatedly shown made it even more volatile.
Abu Izzadeen or Omar Brooks, a British citizen, was found guilty in a British court of ‘inciting terrorism overseas’ for a speech he made at a mosque in London. He had previously heckled the Home Secretary John Reid during a speech in London. He and five others are facing the possibility of life imprisonment – that is the UK today. If something like that had happened in Georgetown, Guyana, the Opposition and all other critics would have been protesting and claiming discrimination.
It is good to forgive, but when persons are bent on leading innocent persons to commit all manner of evil due to their ignorance, they must be dealt with or there will be anarchy.
EDWARD SIMON
Saturday, April 19, 2008
KISSOON ashamed he is Indian; Noisemakers
Freddie Kissoon performs the duties
of an intellectual gadfly
Dear Editor,
Even though many have advised that I should leave unanswered, what I dubbed in 1992, “Mr. Fredrick Kissoon’s querulous polemics”, I do believe that he performs a yeoman task in this country – that of a public intellectual gadfly.
This is not an inconsiderable contribution in the creation or maintenance of a democratic society. But I do wish he would be a tad more careful with some of his utterances that he issues so definitively as “facts” – and when these are shown to be erroneous, blithely goes on to make other, just as outrageous, allegations.
In his Monday (14-04-08) column, referring to my use of the words, “our country (meaning his and mine)”, he asserted: “I need to point out to Dev that Guyana is my land. I hold no passport for another country, unlike Mr. Dev.” To drag this allegation into a discussion about the regimes of the PPP and Mr. Burnham’s PNC could serve no other purpose than to burnish Mr. Kissoon’s patriotism vis a vis mine, and confer on him a greater legitimacy to this land. I responded unambiguously: “I have never had a passport other than a Guyanese one in my entire life, unlike what Mr. Kissoon claims so categorically. It has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but I do believe that Mr. Kissoon has earned the right to say, “Guyana is my land”. Without even an acknowledgement of his misstatement, much less an apology, Mr. Kissoon veered off to declare that as far as “patriotism as a refuge of scoundrels” was concerned, in “Freudian terms” I was thinking about my “friends in the US” and some named expatriate Guyanese, with whom he disagrees. Evidently, overseas Guyanese cannot be as patriotic as Mr. Kissoon, because they enjoy “luxuries” abroad.
I raise this issue at this time because this tactic is an old one with Mr. Kissoon – he made the same allegations about myself back in the early nineties. He further claimed that I “chose to attack someone like me (Mr. Kissoon) who fought for the re-creation of the circumstances that would allow Dev and the PPP to be free once more…” Isn’t this ploy reminiscent of the “Where was Ravi Dev?” from the very PPP, whom Mr. Kissoon excoriates for using “dictatorial” tactics? What I would like to remind Mr. Kissoon, once again, is that overseas Guyanese played a vital role in the struggle for free and fair elections here.
The group of which I was part (and of which Mr. Vishnu Bisram also was) and so many others, lobbied Senators (especially Kennedy), Congressmen, the National Endowment for Democracy, and numerous US institutions including the Carter Center, to consider Guyana’s plight.
We picketed PNC officials when they appeared and hosted (as well as gave financial support) to all opposition parties. An essential point I would like to make about the overseas Guyanese involvement is that it would have been easier for them to enjoy their “luxuries” then (as today) but it was their love of this land that made them get involved.
Today, if the MFI’s can comment on our affairs because they have forgiven some debts, then Guyanese who send back over US$400 million annually have certainly earned the right.
But Mr. Kissoon does not deny all Guyanese the right to comment on Guyanese affairs – he has quoted approvingly from some of his old colleagues in the WPA who are also presumably enjoying those crass “overseas” luxuries, with nary a censure from him - but only those whose views differ from his politically.
Is this the mindset by which he hopes to build democracy in Guyana? Remember the old adage: ends are merely consummated means and thus the two can never be disjunctured. And isn’t this one of the practices of the PPP that Mr. Kissoon also castigates?
Finally, unmindful and unrepentant of his recent categorical misstatements (that the African Security Dilemmas was added to the Indian one “to save my sinking ship”; that I was a citizen of another country, etc) Mr. Kissoon offers another whopper: I have a “niche at Freedom House or New Garden Street”. All because, to his assertion that, “I believe the rule of the PPP has degenerated in forms that are worse than under Forbes Burnham.” I wrote: “Analyses of social phenomena, by their very nature, suggest strategies of action for the citizenry. In a country where some have launched violent attacks on citizens and state, care should be taken when an analysis may justify such strategies for regime change.” The words, “care should be taken” are interpreted as an “attack” by Mr. Kissoon. If I knew even an iota as much about Freud as Mr. Kissoon asserts he does, I may be tempted to suggest (not assert) that Mr. Kissoon is a bit paranoid. He should have waited for my analysis of the PPP’s regime in next Sunday’s Kaieteur News.
Ravi Dev
Finding another noisemaker
The word dictatorship is becoming increasingly popular in the vocabulary of many people these days and chief among those who are keen to use the word is Freddie Kissoon, who has a perennial grudge against the government and the opposition political parties.
Ever since the government decided that it would no longer tolerate the lawlessness that passes for so many things, including freedom of expression, it is being characterized as a dictatorship.
The first time this began to happen, the government allowed it to pass unnoticed because it was certain that this was just a passing phase in the game that is currently being played by all and sundry who feel that there is nothing better to do than to blame the government.
They wanted to see a reduction in the value added tax and thus a reduction in the quality of service being provided to the less fortunate in the society and when this did not happen, they said that they were living in a dictatorship.
The accusations continued more recently with the decision to suspend the broadcast licence for CNS Channel 6.
The PNCR decided that the government was a dictatorship but only after Freddie Kissoon concluded that Bharrat Jagdeo was worse than Burnham.
The pattern is that any time the government does not accede to a demand by the various forces arrayed against it then that government is a dictatorship.
On Tuesday, President Jagdeo decided to break his silence over the Sharma issue.
The Kissoons and the Corbins and the Ramjattans all decided that Sharma was an angel and that the government was picking on him. When people began to point out that Sharma was known for intemperate language, the clarion call was that Sharma was harmless and that he was uneducated.
This, to their mind, was that Sharma should be allowed to say and do what he pleased because he did not know better and that he was only for entertainment. If that was the case, how then could so many people take their woes to him and provide him with a platform to accuse the government of every conceivable ill under the sun?
If Sharma could be allowed to say and do as he pleased on the public airwaves, because he was harmless, what was there to stop other broadcasters from doing the same and pointing to Sharma as their example? In Guyana people have a way of pointing to the ills of others to justify their own.
But that argument never occupied even the smallest portion in the minds of the critics, among them people who claim to be journalists and who rushed to the side of Sharma knowing all along that he would not have been allowed to broadcast in any other part of the world.
They then concluded that a dictator had picked on Sharma because he was a critic of the government.
The government and other rational minded people in the society pointed out that Sharma had committed an infringement, a fact that the critics were forced to acknowledge and to change their tune. No longer was the issue that Sharma was innocent and harmless but that the penalty was too severe.
If a man commits a crime and the penalties for that crime are clearly stated, how is it that all of a sudden the penalty should only be imposed at the whims and fancies of the critics?
This time around, the penalty, which could have been much more severe had the authorities stuck to the rules clearly stated on the broadcast licence, is too severe.
By the same token a three-year jail term for smoking a “little weed” should be considered too severe and should evoke the same level of protest that we see now.
But such is not the nature of the critics who pick the issues that could give them maximum attention.
The focus has suddenly shifted from Sharma to the people employed at the television station.
The dictatorship has taken bread from the mouths of people and is forcing them to join the breadline. The man who goes to jail for his “little weed” is also being removed from his family for whom he is a provider. There is no protest, however.
Sharma created the conditions to cause his staff to suffer. The blame is all his but the critics do not see it that way. For the sake of talking and blaming the government they jump on their hobby horse and blame the government.
In a matter of days the dust would have settled and the issue would fade from public view because the critics know that they are on shaky ground but rest assured, there will be something else that would allow the Kissoons and the Corbins and the Ramjattans and the Woolfords and the Chabrols to blame the government.
of an intellectual gadfly
Dear Editor,
Even though many have advised that I should leave unanswered, what I dubbed in 1992, “Mr. Fredrick Kissoon’s querulous polemics”, I do believe that he performs a yeoman task in this country – that of a public intellectual gadfly.
This is not an inconsiderable contribution in the creation or maintenance of a democratic society. But I do wish he would be a tad more careful with some of his utterances that he issues so definitively as “facts” – and when these are shown to be erroneous, blithely goes on to make other, just as outrageous, allegations.
In his Monday (14-04-08) column, referring to my use of the words, “our country (meaning his and mine)”, he asserted: “I need to point out to Dev that Guyana is my land. I hold no passport for another country, unlike Mr. Dev.” To drag this allegation into a discussion about the regimes of the PPP and Mr. Burnham’s PNC could serve no other purpose than to burnish Mr. Kissoon’s patriotism vis a vis mine, and confer on him a greater legitimacy to this land. I responded unambiguously: “I have never had a passport other than a Guyanese one in my entire life, unlike what Mr. Kissoon claims so categorically. It has been said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but I do believe that Mr. Kissoon has earned the right to say, “Guyana is my land”. Without even an acknowledgement of his misstatement, much less an apology, Mr. Kissoon veered off to declare that as far as “patriotism as a refuge of scoundrels” was concerned, in “Freudian terms” I was thinking about my “friends in the US” and some named expatriate Guyanese, with whom he disagrees. Evidently, overseas Guyanese cannot be as patriotic as Mr. Kissoon, because they enjoy “luxuries” abroad.
I raise this issue at this time because this tactic is an old one with Mr. Kissoon – he made the same allegations about myself back in the early nineties. He further claimed that I “chose to attack someone like me (Mr. Kissoon) who fought for the re-creation of the circumstances that would allow Dev and the PPP to be free once more…” Isn’t this ploy reminiscent of the “Where was Ravi Dev?” from the very PPP, whom Mr. Kissoon excoriates for using “dictatorial” tactics? What I would like to remind Mr. Kissoon, once again, is that overseas Guyanese played a vital role in the struggle for free and fair elections here.
The group of which I was part (and of which Mr. Vishnu Bisram also was) and so many others, lobbied Senators (especially Kennedy), Congressmen, the National Endowment for Democracy, and numerous US institutions including the Carter Center, to consider Guyana’s plight.
We picketed PNC officials when they appeared and hosted (as well as gave financial support) to all opposition parties. An essential point I would like to make about the overseas Guyanese involvement is that it would have been easier for them to enjoy their “luxuries” then (as today) but it was their love of this land that made them get involved.
Today, if the MFI’s can comment on our affairs because they have forgiven some debts, then Guyanese who send back over US$400 million annually have certainly earned the right.
But Mr. Kissoon does not deny all Guyanese the right to comment on Guyanese affairs – he has quoted approvingly from some of his old colleagues in the WPA who are also presumably enjoying those crass “overseas” luxuries, with nary a censure from him - but only those whose views differ from his politically.
Is this the mindset by which he hopes to build democracy in Guyana? Remember the old adage: ends are merely consummated means and thus the two can never be disjunctured. And isn’t this one of the practices of the PPP that Mr. Kissoon also castigates?
Finally, unmindful and unrepentant of his recent categorical misstatements (that the African Security Dilemmas was added to the Indian one “to save my sinking ship”; that I was a citizen of another country, etc) Mr. Kissoon offers another whopper: I have a “niche at Freedom House or New Garden Street”. All because, to his assertion that, “I believe the rule of the PPP has degenerated in forms that are worse than under Forbes Burnham.” I wrote: “Analyses of social phenomena, by their very nature, suggest strategies of action for the citizenry. In a country where some have launched violent attacks on citizens and state, care should be taken when an analysis may justify such strategies for regime change.” The words, “care should be taken” are interpreted as an “attack” by Mr. Kissoon. If I knew even an iota as much about Freud as Mr. Kissoon asserts he does, I may be tempted to suggest (not assert) that Mr. Kissoon is a bit paranoid. He should have waited for my analysis of the PPP’s regime in next Sunday’s Kaieteur News.
Ravi Dev
Finding another noisemaker
The word dictatorship is becoming increasingly popular in the vocabulary of many people these days and chief among those who are keen to use the word is Freddie Kissoon, who has a perennial grudge against the government and the opposition political parties.
Ever since the government decided that it would no longer tolerate the lawlessness that passes for so many things, including freedom of expression, it is being characterized as a dictatorship.
The first time this began to happen, the government allowed it to pass unnoticed because it was certain that this was just a passing phase in the game that is currently being played by all and sundry who feel that there is nothing better to do than to blame the government.
They wanted to see a reduction in the value added tax and thus a reduction in the quality of service being provided to the less fortunate in the society and when this did not happen, they said that they were living in a dictatorship.
The accusations continued more recently with the decision to suspend the broadcast licence for CNS Channel 6.
The PNCR decided that the government was a dictatorship but only after Freddie Kissoon concluded that Bharrat Jagdeo was worse than Burnham.
The pattern is that any time the government does not accede to a demand by the various forces arrayed against it then that government is a dictatorship.
On Tuesday, President Jagdeo decided to break his silence over the Sharma issue.
The Kissoons and the Corbins and the Ramjattans all decided that Sharma was an angel and that the government was picking on him. When people began to point out that Sharma was known for intemperate language, the clarion call was that Sharma was harmless and that he was uneducated.
This, to their mind, was that Sharma should be allowed to say and do what he pleased because he did not know better and that he was only for entertainment. If that was the case, how then could so many people take their woes to him and provide him with a platform to accuse the government of every conceivable ill under the sun?
If Sharma could be allowed to say and do as he pleased on the public airwaves, because he was harmless, what was there to stop other broadcasters from doing the same and pointing to Sharma as their example? In Guyana people have a way of pointing to the ills of others to justify their own.
But that argument never occupied even the smallest portion in the minds of the critics, among them people who claim to be journalists and who rushed to the side of Sharma knowing all along that he would not have been allowed to broadcast in any other part of the world.
They then concluded that a dictator had picked on Sharma because he was a critic of the government.
The government and other rational minded people in the society pointed out that Sharma had committed an infringement, a fact that the critics were forced to acknowledge and to change their tune. No longer was the issue that Sharma was innocent and harmless but that the penalty was too severe.
If a man commits a crime and the penalties for that crime are clearly stated, how is it that all of a sudden the penalty should only be imposed at the whims and fancies of the critics?
This time around, the penalty, which could have been much more severe had the authorities stuck to the rules clearly stated on the broadcast licence, is too severe.
By the same token a three-year jail term for smoking a “little weed” should be considered too severe and should evoke the same level of protest that we see now.
But such is not the nature of the critics who pick the issues that could give them maximum attention.
The focus has suddenly shifted from Sharma to the people employed at the television station.
The dictatorship has taken bread from the mouths of people and is forcing them to join the breadline. The man who goes to jail for his “little weed” is also being removed from his family for whom he is a provider. There is no protest, however.
Sharma created the conditions to cause his staff to suffer. The blame is all his but the critics do not see it that way. For the sake of talking and blaming the government they jump on their hobby horse and blame the government.
In a matter of days the dust would have settled and the issue would fade from public view because the critics know that they are on shaky ground but rest assured, there will be something else that would allow the Kissoons and the Corbins and the Ramjattans and the Woolfords and the Chabrols to blame the government.
Broadcasters are held to a high standard of public
Broadcasters are held to a high standard of public
responsibility
April 19, 2008
Dear Editor,
In 2005 when the licence of CN Sharma’s television CNS
TV6 was suspended at the time of the flood disaster by
the Prime Minister, who was then the Minister
responsible for telecommunications, for what appeared
to be a deliberate attempt to make the President
appear contemptuous of the conditions of the flood
victims, I wrote at some length endeavouring to
provide information and explain what we should expect
of a licensed broadcaster.
It seems appropriate, given the suspension of CNS TV6
licence, to, once more, repeat much of what I said
then.
In every case the constitutional protection offered to
every citizen of freedom of expression has been
invoked on behalf of Mr Sharma. However, what we are
yet to understand, far less accept, in Guyana is that
the broadcaster is held to a much higher standard of
public responsibility in exercising freedom of
expression granted by his licence than is a newspaper,
printed publications or the ordinary citizen.
A broadcaster is granted a licence, in a democracy, on
the condition that he uses it to serve, to use the
language of the USA’s Federal Communication Commission
(FCC), “the public interest, convenience and
necessity”.
The broadcaster, in essence, is granted the privilege
of using the broadcast spectrum, to serve as a “public
trustee”, while benefiting from its commercial use
because he is being allowed the use of a limited
public resource, the broadcast spectrum.
The conditions under which the broadcaster must
function as a “public trustee”, are spelt out in the
licence and are governed by the regulations under
which the licence is issued.
In effect, the broadcaster who is granted a licence to
use the electromagnetic spectrum for commercial
purposes, is granted exclusive free speech rights
denied to others and, to justify this privilege, is
constrained to serve as a “public trustee” of the
airwaves.
Unlike the rest of the media, the broadcaster is bound
by statutory and regulatory obligations to serve the
public interest in a defined way which would abridge
the constitutional right of free speech which other
media and published speech enjoy.
There is no constitutional right to hold a broadcast
licence and monopolise a broadcast frequency to the
exclusion of others as some in Guyana seem to believe.
Where there are adequate broadcasting regulations, a
potential licencee must first justify at public
hearings by the regulating authority, his or her
qualification to be granted the right to a broadcast
licence.
In Guyana licenced broadcasters were, unfortunately,
given licences without hearings, without having to
establish their qualifications for a licence, without
any public justification for being granted the
privilege. Our broadcasters were granted licences
simply because they either first squatted illegally on
the frequency, or the government was persuaded to
grant them the licence.
The US Supreme Court has, as has every other Court in
the major democracies of the world, consistently
upheld the requirement that the broadcaster must serve
as a “public trustee” of the licence he holds and must
“conduct himself as a proxy or fiduciary with
obligations to present those views and voices which
are representative of his community and which would
otherwise by necessity, be barred from the airwaves”.
The Federal Communications Commission of the USA in
July 1960, issued a “Report and Statement of Policy”
which summarise the Commission’s powers over a
licencee’s programming and the responsibilities of the
broadcaster in this regard. These operational
guidelines should long ago have been applicable to the
granting of television broadcast licences in Guyana,
had not both the governing and opposition parties,
ever since we became independent, refused to agree to
a professionally drafted broadcasting act and
regulations to be implemented by an independent
Broadcasting Authority:
* The principle ingredient of the licencee’s
obligation to operate his station in the public
interest is “to make a positive, diligent and
continuing effort to determine the tastes, needs and
desires of the public in his community and to provide
programming to meet those needs and interests”.
* “The licencee, is, in effect, a “trustee” of the
public interest in the sense that his licence to
operate his station imposes upon him a non-delegable
duty to serve the public interest in the community he
has chosen to represent as a broadcaster”.
* “Broadcasting licencees must assume responsibility
for all material which is broadcast through their
facilities. This includes all programmes and
advertising material which they present to the public.
With respect to advertising material, the licencee has
the additional responsibility to take all reasonable
measures to eliminate any false, misleading or
deceptive matter and to avoid abuses with respect to
the total amount of time devoted to advertising
continuity as well as the frequency with which regular
programmes are interrupted for advertising messages”.
* “The broadcasters should consider the tastes, needs
and desires of the public he is licensed to serve in
developing his programming and should exercise
conscientious efforts to not only ascertaining them
but also to carry them out as well as he reasonably
can”.
* “Broadcast stations should not become the private
preserve of certain individuals or groups to serve
their special interests nor should they serve the
exclusive interests of certain social, economic,
political or religious philosophies or of particular
business enterprises”.
* “Broadcasters must have a wide range of discretion
and freedom of choice in deciding on their individual
programmes and are to be judged by the overall
operation, presentation and balance of programme
measured in terms of satisfying community needs”.
CN Sharma’s use of his broadcast licence and the
unique privilege it grants and his right to continue
to broadcast are, therefore, conditioned by the
regulations under which he is granted the licence and
which hold him to observe the standard accorded to a
public trustee of the frequency he is allowed to use.
If Mr Sharma or any other broadcast licencee
broadcasts material which violate the standards set as
a condition of the licence, the Constitutional right
of free speech does not of necessity, guarantee him
the right to continue to hold a broadcast licence.
The Amended Regulations made under the Post &
Telegraph Act (Cap 47:01) Section 63(5) governing the
granting of a licence issued for the operation of a
television broadcasting station contains the following
conditions amongst others:
(a) the licencee shall ensure that nothing is included
in programmes which offends against good taste or
decency or is likely to encourage or incite or to lead
to public disorder or to be offensive to public
feeling;
(b) the licencee acting reasonably and in good faith.
Shall ensure that any news given (in whatever form) in
the programmes of the licencee is presented with due
accuracy and impartiality; and
(c) the licencee shall ensure that due impartiality is
preserved by the person providing the service in
regard to matters of political or industrial
controversy or relating to public policy.
The Amended Regulations establishing the Advisory
Committee on Broadcasting defines the appointment and
composition of the Committee and its functions. The
functions include advising the Minister (at first it
was the Prime Minister and is now the President) “on
compliance with the terms and conditions of licences
or otherwise” and recommending “appropriate action” to
be taken and “including revocation of licence”.
It is the responsibility, therefore, of the ACB to
advise the Minister on the action which should be
taken if or when any licencee, in the opinion of the
ACB, fails to comply with the conditions of the
licence set out in the Amended Regulations of June 27,
2001.
The legislation does not empower the ACB to do
anything or take any action which is not within the
functions of advising the Minister, unless the ACB is
specifically directed by the Minister under Clause 23
B 4(c).
The Wireless Telegraphy Regulations of the Post &
Telegraph Act at Section (63) 5, Clause 26(1&2),
however, provides for the Minister to act without the
intervention or advice of the ACB to cancel or suspend
the broadcaster’s licence for a period up to 12 months
or more, if he considers that the broadcaster has
failed to comply with any of the Regulations under the
Act.
The President, therefore, certainly had the right to
act. Did Sharma fail to comply with the conditions of
the licence?
In making that judgment, the President will have taken
into account the fact that the country remains under
threat of the heavily armed criminals who have
massacred 23 people and are still at large.
Clearly, in these circumstances, broadcasting a threat
to kill the Head of State and then re- broadcasting it
on a number of occasions is wholly irresponsible and
could be said “to encourage or incite or to lead to
public disorder”.
The Constitutional protection of free speech does not
protect a broadcaster from losing his licence if any
of the conditions set out in the licence are
considered by the Minister to have been violated.
Broadcasters, however, regardless of the conditions
which require them to serve as “public trustee”,
remain entitled to the common law protection of
“natural justice” and there is no precedent in
broadcast law which denies the broadcaster the right
to a fair hearing prior to any punitive action being
taken by a regulator against him.
The President did give a hearing to Mr Sharma and his
attorneys prior to taking action to suspend the
licence of CNS TV6 for four months.
It’s unclear exactly what advice, if any, was given by
the ACB to the President. It’s also unknown whether
the President sought the advice of the ACB, though,
given the existence and intent of the Regulations
establishing the Committee, it’s reasonable to expect
that he would have done so and in writing.
In any event, as I have already pointed out, under the
law the President does not have to rely on the ACB’s
advice.
Mr Jagdeo and Mr Hoyte did enter into a political
agreement that, as a condition of Mr Hoyte’s
endorsement of the Amended Regulations, the government
would not act independently of the ACB’s advice. The
Agreement does not legally bind the government to
honour it.
Was the President’s decision fair and reasonable,
taking into account the prevailing conditions in the
country as well as the fact that this is the second
serious offence committed by the station? The fact
that the law gives the power to the Minister and, in
this case, the Head of State who was the subject of
the threat, is unfortunate.
Guyana now remains the only major country in the
Caribbean without modern broadcasting law instituting
a politically independent Broadcasting Authority to
administer and regulate broadcast licences.
The legislation establishing the ACB was, at best, an
interim measure agreed to by the two major political
parties to bring some minimum order to the use of the
broadcast spectrum.
We have had broadcast legislation, in one form or
another, in draft in Guyana since 1969, but, to date,
the political will to legislate a modern Broadcasting
Act which will relinquish political control over
broadcast licensing and regulations, remains absent.
At the end of the day, Mr Sharma, because we are a
democracy, is getting his day in Court. We should,
nevertheless, remember that free speech is not an
absolute right, and, for the broadcaster who is
granted the privilege of a licence, it is a right
abridged by very specific conditions demanding
standards of public trust which all of our
broadcasters, including the State owned television and
radio stations, continue to treat with little respect.
Yours faithfully,
Kit Nascimento
responsibility
April 19, 2008
Dear Editor,
In 2005 when the licence of CN Sharma’s television CNS
TV6 was suspended at the time of the flood disaster by
the Prime Minister, who was then the Minister
responsible for telecommunications, for what appeared
to be a deliberate attempt to make the President
appear contemptuous of the conditions of the flood
victims, I wrote at some length endeavouring to
provide information and explain what we should expect
of a licensed broadcaster.
It seems appropriate, given the suspension of CNS TV6
licence, to, once more, repeat much of what I said
then.
In every case the constitutional protection offered to
every citizen of freedom of expression has been
invoked on behalf of Mr Sharma. However, what we are
yet to understand, far less accept, in Guyana is that
the broadcaster is held to a much higher standard of
public responsibility in exercising freedom of
expression granted by his licence than is a newspaper,
printed publications or the ordinary citizen.
A broadcaster is granted a licence, in a democracy, on
the condition that he uses it to serve, to use the
language of the USA’s Federal Communication Commission
(FCC), “the public interest, convenience and
necessity”.
The broadcaster, in essence, is granted the privilege
of using the broadcast spectrum, to serve as a “public
trustee”, while benefiting from its commercial use
because he is being allowed the use of a limited
public resource, the broadcast spectrum.
The conditions under which the broadcaster must
function as a “public trustee”, are spelt out in the
licence and are governed by the regulations under
which the licence is issued.
In effect, the broadcaster who is granted a licence to
use the electromagnetic spectrum for commercial
purposes, is granted exclusive free speech rights
denied to others and, to justify this privilege, is
constrained to serve as a “public trustee” of the
airwaves.
Unlike the rest of the media, the broadcaster is bound
by statutory and regulatory obligations to serve the
public interest in a defined way which would abridge
the constitutional right of free speech which other
media and published speech enjoy.
There is no constitutional right to hold a broadcast
licence and monopolise a broadcast frequency to the
exclusion of others as some in Guyana seem to believe.
Where there are adequate broadcasting regulations, a
potential licencee must first justify at public
hearings by the regulating authority, his or her
qualification to be granted the right to a broadcast
licence.
In Guyana licenced broadcasters were, unfortunately,
given licences without hearings, without having to
establish their qualifications for a licence, without
any public justification for being granted the
privilege. Our broadcasters were granted licences
simply because they either first squatted illegally on
the frequency, or the government was persuaded to
grant them the licence.
The US Supreme Court has, as has every other Court in
the major democracies of the world, consistently
upheld the requirement that the broadcaster must serve
as a “public trustee” of the licence he holds and must
“conduct himself as a proxy or fiduciary with
obligations to present those views and voices which
are representative of his community and which would
otherwise by necessity, be barred from the airwaves”.
The Federal Communications Commission of the USA in
July 1960, issued a “Report and Statement of Policy”
which summarise the Commission’s powers over a
licencee’s programming and the responsibilities of the
broadcaster in this regard. These operational
guidelines should long ago have been applicable to the
granting of television broadcast licences in Guyana,
had not both the governing and opposition parties,
ever since we became independent, refused to agree to
a professionally drafted broadcasting act and
regulations to be implemented by an independent
Broadcasting Authority:
* The principle ingredient of the licencee’s
obligation to operate his station in the public
interest is “to make a positive, diligent and
continuing effort to determine the tastes, needs and
desires of the public in his community and to provide
programming to meet those needs and interests”.
* “The licencee, is, in effect, a “trustee” of the
public interest in the sense that his licence to
operate his station imposes upon him a non-delegable
duty to serve the public interest in the community he
has chosen to represent as a broadcaster”.
* “Broadcasting licencees must assume responsibility
for all material which is broadcast through their
facilities. This includes all programmes and
advertising material which they present to the public.
With respect to advertising material, the licencee has
the additional responsibility to take all reasonable
measures to eliminate any false, misleading or
deceptive matter and to avoid abuses with respect to
the total amount of time devoted to advertising
continuity as well as the frequency with which regular
programmes are interrupted for advertising messages”.
* “The broadcasters should consider the tastes, needs
and desires of the public he is licensed to serve in
developing his programming and should exercise
conscientious efforts to not only ascertaining them
but also to carry them out as well as he reasonably
can”.
* “Broadcast stations should not become the private
preserve of certain individuals or groups to serve
their special interests nor should they serve the
exclusive interests of certain social, economic,
political or religious philosophies or of particular
business enterprises”.
* “Broadcasters must have a wide range of discretion
and freedom of choice in deciding on their individual
programmes and are to be judged by the overall
operation, presentation and balance of programme
measured in terms of satisfying community needs”.
CN Sharma’s use of his broadcast licence and the
unique privilege it grants and his right to continue
to broadcast are, therefore, conditioned by the
regulations under which he is granted the licence and
which hold him to observe the standard accorded to a
public trustee of the frequency he is allowed to use.
If Mr Sharma or any other broadcast licencee
broadcasts material which violate the standards set as
a condition of the licence, the Constitutional right
of free speech does not of necessity, guarantee him
the right to continue to hold a broadcast licence.
The Amended Regulations made under the Post &
Telegraph Act (Cap 47:01) Section 63(5) governing the
granting of a licence issued for the operation of a
television broadcasting station contains the following
conditions amongst others:
(a) the licencee shall ensure that nothing is included
in programmes which offends against good taste or
decency or is likely to encourage or incite or to lead
to public disorder or to be offensive to public
feeling;
(b) the licencee acting reasonably and in good faith.
Shall ensure that any news given (in whatever form) in
the programmes of the licencee is presented with due
accuracy and impartiality; and
(c) the licencee shall ensure that due impartiality is
preserved by the person providing the service in
regard to matters of political or industrial
controversy or relating to public policy.
The Amended Regulations establishing the Advisory
Committee on Broadcasting defines the appointment and
composition of the Committee and its functions. The
functions include advising the Minister (at first it
was the Prime Minister and is now the President) “on
compliance with the terms and conditions of licences
or otherwise” and recommending “appropriate action” to
be taken and “including revocation of licence”.
It is the responsibility, therefore, of the ACB to
advise the Minister on the action which should be
taken if or when any licencee, in the opinion of the
ACB, fails to comply with the conditions of the
licence set out in the Amended Regulations of June 27,
2001.
The legislation does not empower the ACB to do
anything or take any action which is not within the
functions of advising the Minister, unless the ACB is
specifically directed by the Minister under Clause 23
B 4(c).
The Wireless Telegraphy Regulations of the Post &
Telegraph Act at Section (63) 5, Clause 26(1&2),
however, provides for the Minister to act without the
intervention or advice of the ACB to cancel or suspend
the broadcaster’s licence for a period up to 12 months
or more, if he considers that the broadcaster has
failed to comply with any of the Regulations under the
Act.
The President, therefore, certainly had the right to
act. Did Sharma fail to comply with the conditions of
the licence?
In making that judgment, the President will have taken
into account the fact that the country remains under
threat of the heavily armed criminals who have
massacred 23 people and are still at large.
Clearly, in these circumstances, broadcasting a threat
to kill the Head of State and then re- broadcasting it
on a number of occasions is wholly irresponsible and
could be said “to encourage or incite or to lead to
public disorder”.
The Constitutional protection of free speech does not
protect a broadcaster from losing his licence if any
of the conditions set out in the licence are
considered by the Minister to have been violated.
Broadcasters, however, regardless of the conditions
which require them to serve as “public trustee”,
remain entitled to the common law protection of
“natural justice” and there is no precedent in
broadcast law which denies the broadcaster the right
to a fair hearing prior to any punitive action being
taken by a regulator against him.
The President did give a hearing to Mr Sharma and his
attorneys prior to taking action to suspend the
licence of CNS TV6 for four months.
It’s unclear exactly what advice, if any, was given by
the ACB to the President. It’s also unknown whether
the President sought the advice of the ACB, though,
given the existence and intent of the Regulations
establishing the Committee, it’s reasonable to expect
that he would have done so and in writing.
In any event, as I have already pointed out, under the
law the President does not have to rely on the ACB’s
advice.
Mr Jagdeo and Mr Hoyte did enter into a political
agreement that, as a condition of Mr Hoyte’s
endorsement of the Amended Regulations, the government
would not act independently of the ACB’s advice. The
Agreement does not legally bind the government to
honour it.
Was the President’s decision fair and reasonable,
taking into account the prevailing conditions in the
country as well as the fact that this is the second
serious offence committed by the station? The fact
that the law gives the power to the Minister and, in
this case, the Head of State who was the subject of
the threat, is unfortunate.
Guyana now remains the only major country in the
Caribbean without modern broadcasting law instituting
a politically independent Broadcasting Authority to
administer and regulate broadcast licences.
The legislation establishing the ACB was, at best, an
interim measure agreed to by the two major political
parties to bring some minimum order to the use of the
broadcast spectrum.
We have had broadcast legislation, in one form or
another, in draft in Guyana since 1969, but, to date,
the political will to legislate a modern Broadcasting
Act which will relinquish political control over
broadcast licensing and regulations, remains absent.
At the end of the day, Mr Sharma, because we are a
democracy, is getting his day in Court. We should,
nevertheless, remember that free speech is not an
absolute right, and, for the broadcaster who is
granted the privilege of a licence, it is a right
abridged by very specific conditions demanding
standards of public trust which all of our
broadcasters, including the State owned television and
radio stations, continue to treat with little respect.
Yours faithfully,
Kit Nascimento
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
KISSOON ashamed he is Indian
What a pathetic slob is this Kissoon guy! Now, he is exposed by a fellow columnist and by Moses Nagamootoo
Peeping Tom
FREDDIE - THE ULTIMATE HERO
Very few have been spared the wrath of Freddie Kissoon’s pen. He has attacked all and sundry in his long stint as a columnist, first with the Catholic newspaper, then Stabroek News, in his own television programme, and now as a daily feature in the Kaieteur News. In that regard he has been consistent and credible.
But while he has flayed far and wide, his most vicious swipes have been reserved for Indian academics and intellectuals.
He has railed against even his old comrades, including on occasions against Dr. David Hinds, but he has reserved the greatest venom for East Indian intellectuals such as Ravi Dev, Dr Prem Misir, Dr Cheddi Jagan and Dr. Randy Persaud.
He even went emotionally overboard one day and said that, because of the way East Indians voted in the last elections, he was ashamed to be an East Indian.
He should be forgiven for that faux pas, because he is not against any race, much less his own.
No one should make the mistake of concluding that Freddie has anything against his own people. No one should mistakenly assume that Freddie does not identify with his own race. He does, and does so deeply, so much so that the main reason why he reserves his most forceful assaults against East Indian academics is because he wants to be seen as the ultimate Indian hero of Guyana, the number one Indian academic and columnist.
He ensures that no East Indian voice other than his gains prominent recognition locally. Thus, no sooner does any credible East Indian voice attain prominence or threaten to do so, Freddie takes that person apart through his arguments.
Even Vishnu Bisram, who does not fall into the category of an intellectual, has faced the fury of Freddie’s pen. Kissoon would not allow Bisram to gain a valuable foothold as an opinion-maker. No, that place is almost exclusively reserved for Freddie, who wishes to be seen as the ultimate East Indian hero of Guyana.
I have studied this character for some time now, and I am convinced that Freddie is driven by the fear that other East Indians will steal his thunder as the chief opinion-maker.
He would, like he did yesterday, lash out against others whom he sees as threatening his position. In yesterday’s edition he made some sweeping statements about Ravi Dev; and then, as is he prone to do, misrepresented what the man had said some time ago.
Ravi is capable of defending himself against the likes of Kissoon. In fact, he is far more than capable.
Dev, however, continues to engage in fruitless exchanges with the professor, because he does not understand the psychology of the man. Dev sees Kissoon as someone who, unlike himself, is willing to deny his ethnicity.
He is wrong. Kissoon, in attacking East Indian commentators, is merely fulfilling his aspirations as the ultimate East Indian hero of Guyana.
Kissoon patterns himself after his Bollywood hero, Amitabh Bachchan. Most persons believe that Uncle Freddie sports a hippie hairstyle because he has a romantic obsession with the seventies of his radical youth. In fact, his long hairstyle is an imitation of his film-star hero, Bachchan, the man who in movies railed against all injustices.
Freddie used to go to the Empire cinema to see Bachchan, and this is why he has never cut his hair. Deep within his psyche he desires to become a real-life hero, fighting the same sort of injustices as Bachchan did in the movies.
By not understanding the psychology of Kissoon, Dev continues to engage in fruitless intellectual exchanges with a man who will consistently place spin on what you say so as turn it to his advantage; or, like he did recently in accusing Dev of inventing the African ethnic security dilemma, display selective amnesia.
Kissoon ought to have known that, long before anyone else, and way before the PPP came to power, and with remarkable and matchless insight, Ravi Dev was the one who outlined these twin ethnic security dilemmas, a postulation that was formerly spurned but which is now, to Kissoon’s great dismay, gaining widespread acceptance.
Kissoon’s trademark defence is misrepresentation and spin. These must be corrected, because they are often wicked and devious. For example, he says that in 1992 Cheddi assured the Americans that he was no longer a Communist and thus was allowed to rule Guyana.
This is intended to remake Jagan as someone who would trade his beliefs for political power, a view that supports Kissoon’s own theory that both Burnham and Jagan were only interested in power.
Jagan never assured the Americans that he was no longer a communist. Jagan went to his grave as an unrepentant communist. What Jagan did in 1992 was to issue a statement just prior to the elections that the building of socialism in Guyana was not on his agenda.
It could not have been. The world had changed and the splintering of the mighty Soviet Union meant that it would have been impossible for a small country like Guyana to pursue the leftist path.
On Sunday, Freddie also misrepresented Dev by accusing him of saying that, had it not been for Indians, Guyana would have been a wasteland. What Dev said was quite different from the spin that Kissoon places on it.
Dev said that without Indians the coast would have been returned to mangroves. As a historian, Kissoon himself should realize that it was East Indian immigration that saved the sugar industry, which dominates the landscape of Guyana’s coastal plain.
Dev never said that Guyana would have been a wasteland. That is a wicked and devious interpretation by Freddie, the man with ambitions to be the ultimate East Indian hero of Guyana.
Peeping Tom
FREDDIE - THE ULTIMATE HERO
Very few have been spared the wrath of Freddie Kissoon’s pen. He has attacked all and sundry in his long stint as a columnist, first with the Catholic newspaper, then Stabroek News, in his own television programme, and now as a daily feature in the Kaieteur News. In that regard he has been consistent and credible.
But while he has flayed far and wide, his most vicious swipes have been reserved for Indian academics and intellectuals.
He has railed against even his old comrades, including on occasions against Dr. David Hinds, but he has reserved the greatest venom for East Indian intellectuals such as Ravi Dev, Dr Prem Misir, Dr Cheddi Jagan and Dr. Randy Persaud.
He even went emotionally overboard one day and said that, because of the way East Indians voted in the last elections, he was ashamed to be an East Indian.
He should be forgiven for that faux pas, because he is not against any race, much less his own.
No one should make the mistake of concluding that Freddie has anything against his own people. No one should mistakenly assume that Freddie does not identify with his own race. He does, and does so deeply, so much so that the main reason why he reserves his most forceful assaults against East Indian academics is because he wants to be seen as the ultimate Indian hero of Guyana, the number one Indian academic and columnist.
He ensures that no East Indian voice other than his gains prominent recognition locally. Thus, no sooner does any credible East Indian voice attain prominence or threaten to do so, Freddie takes that person apart through his arguments.
Even Vishnu Bisram, who does not fall into the category of an intellectual, has faced the fury of Freddie’s pen. Kissoon would not allow Bisram to gain a valuable foothold as an opinion-maker. No, that place is almost exclusively reserved for Freddie, who wishes to be seen as the ultimate East Indian hero of Guyana.
I have studied this character for some time now, and I am convinced that Freddie is driven by the fear that other East Indians will steal his thunder as the chief opinion-maker.
He would, like he did yesterday, lash out against others whom he sees as threatening his position. In yesterday’s edition he made some sweeping statements about Ravi Dev; and then, as is he prone to do, misrepresented what the man had said some time ago.
Ravi is capable of defending himself against the likes of Kissoon. In fact, he is far more than capable.
Dev, however, continues to engage in fruitless exchanges with the professor, because he does not understand the psychology of the man. Dev sees Kissoon as someone who, unlike himself, is willing to deny his ethnicity.
He is wrong. Kissoon, in attacking East Indian commentators, is merely fulfilling his aspirations as the ultimate East Indian hero of Guyana.
Kissoon patterns himself after his Bollywood hero, Amitabh Bachchan. Most persons believe that Uncle Freddie sports a hippie hairstyle because he has a romantic obsession with the seventies of his radical youth. In fact, his long hairstyle is an imitation of his film-star hero, Bachchan, the man who in movies railed against all injustices.
Freddie used to go to the Empire cinema to see Bachchan, and this is why he has never cut his hair. Deep within his psyche he desires to become a real-life hero, fighting the same sort of injustices as Bachchan did in the movies.
By not understanding the psychology of Kissoon, Dev continues to engage in fruitless intellectual exchanges with a man who will consistently place spin on what you say so as turn it to his advantage; or, like he did recently in accusing Dev of inventing the African ethnic security dilemma, display selective amnesia.
Kissoon ought to have known that, long before anyone else, and way before the PPP came to power, and with remarkable and matchless insight, Ravi Dev was the one who outlined these twin ethnic security dilemmas, a postulation that was formerly spurned but which is now, to Kissoon’s great dismay, gaining widespread acceptance.
Kissoon’s trademark defence is misrepresentation and spin. These must be corrected, because they are often wicked and devious. For example, he says that in 1992 Cheddi assured the Americans that he was no longer a Communist and thus was allowed to rule Guyana.
This is intended to remake Jagan as someone who would trade his beliefs for political power, a view that supports Kissoon’s own theory that both Burnham and Jagan were only interested in power.
Jagan never assured the Americans that he was no longer a communist. Jagan went to his grave as an unrepentant communist. What Jagan did in 1992 was to issue a statement just prior to the elections that the building of socialism in Guyana was not on his agenda.
It could not have been. The world had changed and the splintering of the mighty Soviet Union meant that it would have been impossible for a small country like Guyana to pursue the leftist path.
On Sunday, Freddie also misrepresented Dev by accusing him of saying that, had it not been for Indians, Guyana would have been a wasteland. What Dev said was quite different from the spin that Kissoon places on it.
Dev said that without Indians the coast would have been returned to mangroves. As a historian, Kissoon himself should realize that it was East Indian immigration that saved the sugar industry, which dominates the landscape of Guyana’s coastal plain.
Dev never said that Guyana would have been a wasteland. That is a wicked and devious interpretation by Freddie, the man with ambitions to be the ultimate East Indian hero of Guyana.
MOSES NAGAMOOTOO - Freddie the Fart dead wrong
Kissoon is dead wrong about Burnham’s rule
Dear Editor,
I was tempted after a more recent event has come to pass, to admit that the Kaieteur News columnist, Freddie Kissoon, was almost right - even strangely prophetic: he had interpreted my reconciliation with the PPP’s government and party leadership as an act of political suicide.
Before I could do so, my attention was drawn to an article (April 6, 2008) in which Kissoon named several PPP leaders whom, he claimed, “enjoyed democracy under Burnham’s presidency”.
Kissoon wrote: “No central committee and executive committee member of the present or part PPP were (sic) ever put in jail by Burnham”. Then he named me among others who were “never charged by the police under Mr. Burnham’s watch with even the minor offence of resisting arrest. They were never touched by Burnham’s police.”
That article presented a complex “Kissoon factor” that made him appear so right at one time and so wrong at the next. In relation to me, Kissoon is wrong, dead wrong in his categorical assertion that I have never been charged under Burnham’s watch or touched by Burnham’s police.
For the most part, Burnham’s rule was an abomination. Under his rule, in my callings as political activist and journalist, I was on several occasions arrested, detained, jailed and put on trial. I was beaten, threatened with execution and survived attempts on my life. In the presence of my wife, I narrowly escaped being kidnapped by Burnham’s police and thugs.
In a nutshell: I was detained and/or jailed at Springlands, No. 51, Whim, Sister’s Village, Blairmont, Fort Wellington, Cove and John, Kitty, La Penitence and Brickdam Police Stations and at Eve Leary CID and Police Headquarters.
I was slapped with politically trumped-up charges ranging from resisting arrests, assaulting police officers, threatening behaviour to unlawful possession of firearm. Not once was I convicted on any of those spurious charges.
Each of those carried its own harrowing details, which I am not going to recount here. A few glimpses of my brush with the Burnham Era would, for now, suffice.
Once, whilst sharing the platform with the revolutionary hero/martyr Dr. Walter Rodney at the Kitty Market Square, a thug threw a bottle of formalin at me. I was knocked into unconsciousness.
I was an active member of the PPP Central/Executive, but in the eyes of the goons and thugs of the regime that status did not attract any enviable privilege.
Walter helped to revive me with cold water, and put me back on stage. When I returned, this time naked to my waist, I told the thugs: “next time you want me off this stage, you have to remove my dead body!”
On another occasion, as I got into the car of Ms. Janet Jagan outside her Bel Air house, a policeman suddenly put a gun to my head. With the gun cocked, he screamed: “don’t move!” I was dragged from Ms. Jagan’s car, pushed into another vehicle, and forced to by knees in the back seat. As the vehicle drove off, one of the men in the vehicle tried to wrest my camera away from me. When I resisted, the policeman with the gun, extinguished his lighted cigarette on my chest.
I was a journalist. My crime? I photographed some suspicious-looking men sitting on a culvert in the vicinity of the home of Dr. Cheddi Jagan, then Leader of the Opposition. I was first held at La Penitence and later taken before Crime Chief, Skip Roberts. He relieved me of the roll of film in my camera, and let me go.
Before that, I was beaten mercilessly by known PNC thugs, dragged between two police horses to the Kitty Station, and then hauled away in handcuffs. Under cover of darkness I was bundled into a car, blindfolded, and driven off to what I believe was the Le Repentir Cemetery. I was placed between two policemen one of whom was repeatedly enquiring loudly, “is de hole finished yet?” After a while, a voice cackled on the intercom: “bring the prisoner in”. The vehicle turned around and I was taken to the Brickdam lock-ups. I was charged with illegal possession of firearm and some other offences.
Being hooded and blindfolded, reminded me of the time when, years before, I was arrested in West Berbice. I was detained at Fort Wellington, then handcuffed and blindfolded, and placed into a land rover with armed policemen. I was transferred to Georgetown, and held ex-communicado with other comrades for 10 days. At that time I was held under the dreaded National Security Act, and threatened repeatedly with being put away at Sibley Hall.
I recall on another occasion when I was assaulted by a former Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force and threatened with death for writing a Mirror article under the caption, “Army Takeover of Parliament”. A day later, I was attacked by men in soldier’s boots, slashed twice at the base of my head and stabbed with what appeared to be a rusty bayonet. Even as I am writing, I caress the scars, and I remember my life in struggle and what could have been.
This narrative is not going to be complete without reference to the anguish of my wife, my infant kids and my late parents as policemen occasionally raided my home, searching for elusive “arms and ammunition”. When I was traveling abroad, I would routinely be detained and strip-searched by plainclothes policemen at the Timehri airport and relieved of booklets and pamphlets.
I would never be able to know the full effect on my family of what was a prolonged period of state-sponsored terrorism, though I would be forever grateful to them for their courage in withstanding the fear and uncertainty of that period.
Lastly, I recall what was the height of madness during the Burnham era when I was arrested outside Parliament Building on a protest demonstration against the banning of Wheaten flour. I had taken my 4-year-old daughter, Adela (now my legal partner) to the protest. The police arrested her as well, and threw us both in the putrid Brickdam lock-ups, which was already crowded with over a dozen protesters. I remember holding my child in the air, close to the grilled window, so she could get fresh air! Ms. Janet Jagan, accompanied by Attorney and party colleague Ralph Ramkarran, persuaded the police to let my child go.
It wasn’t easy under Burnham, Mr. Kissoon, though I am ready to admit that there was a positive side to what could be termed the “Burnham Era”, the full assessment of which is yet to be made or appreciated.
Freddie Kissoon has attempted to use a subjective test to say that the level of fear, insecurity and reprisal is higher now than it was under Burnham. He is entitled to his views.
But the truth about Burnham’s rule, however unpalatable, must not be scrubbed or erased. Nor must we, in looking at what is today, present a revisionist view of that painful and complex period of Guyana’s history.
For me, I endured those years with dignity with the knowledge that the hurt inflicted on me as well as others with whom I have struggled, was necessary for the eventual freedom of our people. My experiences throughout the Burnham years gave me political character based on respect for fairness, dissent and freedom. Those had formed the major planks of the democratic culture for which we fought, and which we must defend at all times.
I do not consider any of it “personal” to the extent that I would remain forever bitter.
Hopefully, we can put this “era” behind us as an unfortunate political blemish and move our nation forward together, without recrimination for what had been.
Moses V. Nagamootoo
Dear Editor,
I was tempted after a more recent event has come to pass, to admit that the Kaieteur News columnist, Freddie Kissoon, was almost right - even strangely prophetic: he had interpreted my reconciliation with the PPP’s government and party leadership as an act of political suicide.
Before I could do so, my attention was drawn to an article (April 6, 2008) in which Kissoon named several PPP leaders whom, he claimed, “enjoyed democracy under Burnham’s presidency”.
Kissoon wrote: “No central committee and executive committee member of the present or part PPP were (sic) ever put in jail by Burnham”. Then he named me among others who were “never charged by the police under Mr. Burnham’s watch with even the minor offence of resisting arrest. They were never touched by Burnham’s police.”
That article presented a complex “Kissoon factor” that made him appear so right at one time and so wrong at the next. In relation to me, Kissoon is wrong, dead wrong in his categorical assertion that I have never been charged under Burnham’s watch or touched by Burnham’s police.
For the most part, Burnham’s rule was an abomination. Under his rule, in my callings as political activist and journalist, I was on several occasions arrested, detained, jailed and put on trial. I was beaten, threatened with execution and survived attempts on my life. In the presence of my wife, I narrowly escaped being kidnapped by Burnham’s police and thugs.
In a nutshell: I was detained and/or jailed at Springlands, No. 51, Whim, Sister’s Village, Blairmont, Fort Wellington, Cove and John, Kitty, La Penitence and Brickdam Police Stations and at Eve Leary CID and Police Headquarters.
I was slapped with politically trumped-up charges ranging from resisting arrests, assaulting police officers, threatening behaviour to unlawful possession of firearm. Not once was I convicted on any of those spurious charges.
Each of those carried its own harrowing details, which I am not going to recount here. A few glimpses of my brush with the Burnham Era would, for now, suffice.
Once, whilst sharing the platform with the revolutionary hero/martyr Dr. Walter Rodney at the Kitty Market Square, a thug threw a bottle of formalin at me. I was knocked into unconsciousness.
I was an active member of the PPP Central/Executive, but in the eyes of the goons and thugs of the regime that status did not attract any enviable privilege.
Walter helped to revive me with cold water, and put me back on stage. When I returned, this time naked to my waist, I told the thugs: “next time you want me off this stage, you have to remove my dead body!”
On another occasion, as I got into the car of Ms. Janet Jagan outside her Bel Air house, a policeman suddenly put a gun to my head. With the gun cocked, he screamed: “don’t move!” I was dragged from Ms. Jagan’s car, pushed into another vehicle, and forced to by knees in the back seat. As the vehicle drove off, one of the men in the vehicle tried to wrest my camera away from me. When I resisted, the policeman with the gun, extinguished his lighted cigarette on my chest.
I was a journalist. My crime? I photographed some suspicious-looking men sitting on a culvert in the vicinity of the home of Dr. Cheddi Jagan, then Leader of the Opposition. I was first held at La Penitence and later taken before Crime Chief, Skip Roberts. He relieved me of the roll of film in my camera, and let me go.
Before that, I was beaten mercilessly by known PNC thugs, dragged between two police horses to the Kitty Station, and then hauled away in handcuffs. Under cover of darkness I was bundled into a car, blindfolded, and driven off to what I believe was the Le Repentir Cemetery. I was placed between two policemen one of whom was repeatedly enquiring loudly, “is de hole finished yet?” After a while, a voice cackled on the intercom: “bring the prisoner in”. The vehicle turned around and I was taken to the Brickdam lock-ups. I was charged with illegal possession of firearm and some other offences.
Being hooded and blindfolded, reminded me of the time when, years before, I was arrested in West Berbice. I was detained at Fort Wellington, then handcuffed and blindfolded, and placed into a land rover with armed policemen. I was transferred to Georgetown, and held ex-communicado with other comrades for 10 days. At that time I was held under the dreaded National Security Act, and threatened repeatedly with being put away at Sibley Hall.
I recall on another occasion when I was assaulted by a former Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force and threatened with death for writing a Mirror article under the caption, “Army Takeover of Parliament”. A day later, I was attacked by men in soldier’s boots, slashed twice at the base of my head and stabbed with what appeared to be a rusty bayonet. Even as I am writing, I caress the scars, and I remember my life in struggle and what could have been.
This narrative is not going to be complete without reference to the anguish of my wife, my infant kids and my late parents as policemen occasionally raided my home, searching for elusive “arms and ammunition”. When I was traveling abroad, I would routinely be detained and strip-searched by plainclothes policemen at the Timehri airport and relieved of booklets and pamphlets.
I would never be able to know the full effect on my family of what was a prolonged period of state-sponsored terrorism, though I would be forever grateful to them for their courage in withstanding the fear and uncertainty of that period.
Lastly, I recall what was the height of madness during the Burnham era when I was arrested outside Parliament Building on a protest demonstration against the banning of Wheaten flour. I had taken my 4-year-old daughter, Adela (now my legal partner) to the protest. The police arrested her as well, and threw us both in the putrid Brickdam lock-ups, which was already crowded with over a dozen protesters. I remember holding my child in the air, close to the grilled window, so she could get fresh air! Ms. Janet Jagan, accompanied by Attorney and party colleague Ralph Ramkarran, persuaded the police to let my child go.
It wasn’t easy under Burnham, Mr. Kissoon, though I am ready to admit that there was a positive side to what could be termed the “Burnham Era”, the full assessment of which is yet to be made or appreciated.
Freddie Kissoon has attempted to use a subjective test to say that the level of fear, insecurity and reprisal is higher now than it was under Burnham. He is entitled to his views.
But the truth about Burnham’s rule, however unpalatable, must not be scrubbed or erased. Nor must we, in looking at what is today, present a revisionist view of that painful and complex period of Guyana’s history.
For me, I endured those years with dignity with the knowledge that the hurt inflicted on me as well as others with whom I have struggled, was necessary for the eventual freedom of our people. My experiences throughout the Burnham years gave me political character based on respect for fairness, dissent and freedom. Those had formed the major planks of the democratic culture for which we fought, and which we must defend at all times.
I do not consider any of it “personal” to the extent that I would remain forever bitter.
Hopefully, we can put this “era” behind us as an unfortunate political blemish and move our nation forward together, without recrimination for what had been.
Moses V. Nagamootoo
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