June 17, 2013, Kaieteur News, Freddie Kissoon replies to Minette Bacchus on Walter Rodney's assassination, by Frederick Kissoon,

June 17, 2013, Kaieteur News, Freddie Kissoon replies to Minette Bacchus on Walter Rodney's assassination, by Frederick Kissoon, 

Dear Editor,

I refer to Minette Bacchus’ response to my assessment of President Burnham’s involvement in the assassination of Walter Rodney.

Bacchus also included Tacuma Ogunseye in her swipe (KN, June 13, 13). Those who read Ms. Bacchus in the mainstream press would not be familiar with her political beliefs. She writes profusely on e-mail threads, many of which are sent to me

Ms. Bacchus falls into a category of very crude political and racial primitiveness that has no place in the world not only in Guyana. She is the mirror image of her East Indian counterparts. Their binary is what destroyed Guyana and continues to devastate this lovely country with lovely people.

On the East Indian front, there are those who see the PPP and Dr. Jagan as the best values to have come out of Guyana. Jagan and his PPP were and are the historical, priceless values that have made Guyana survive. For these people, the PNC and Mr. Burnham were and are the enemies. Their belief is that Dr. Jagan and the PPP saved Guyana from African domination

You could bring literally a mountain of evidence to show them that Dr. Jagan was immensely flawed and committed an ocean of offensive mistakes, it wouldn't matter. You read Minette Bacchus's profuse e-mail analyses and her published newspaper letters and they are similarly crude and historical.

Her reading of history is that Forbes Burnham created the PNC to save Guyana. She goes on to wax lyrical on his fantastic achievements. She is a denier of Mr. Burnham's atrocities during his rule from 1968 to 1985. One thing is pellucid in her world outlook – Burnham was a great leader who had nothing to do with Rodney's death.

Bacchus has a permanent problem that will never ever go away once there is civilized existence not only in Guyana but in the world. There are thousands of decent, beautiful, humane and trustworthy African Guyanese who can speak first hand of the abominable nature of Mr. Burnham’s rule. Bacchus cannot resort to ethnic safety by citing Indians who do not like Burnham.

 

Bacchus has come up against and will forever come up against fantastic African Guyanese educators with fantastic training in all types of learning that can document the dictatorial nature of Burnham's reign. Whether she likes it or not, this documentation will go on long after Bacchus is gone because history is always recorded and will never stop.

Speaking for myself, I saw good qualities in Forbes Burnham and my pontifications on those endowments are mountainous and are as recent as last week in one of my columns.

Unlike the East Indian mind-set in the heartland of Port Morant and the category of people like Minette Bacchus, there has never existed in Guyana one guilty party and one innocent party, one guilty race and one innocent race, one guilty leader and one innocent leader.

With due respect to Bacchus, it is my emotional craving to call people who think within that binary as extremely foolish and their unhistorical nonsense must always be confronted.

On the Walter Rodney assassination, Bacchus will go on to exonerate Burnham and will deliberately stay far away from directly answering the myriad of questions that have evidential basis and factual context that point to Burnham's involvement.

Bacchus will not answer any of my points where I showed Burnham's attitude, will never respond to Ogunseye's questions and she ignores the graphic evidence of Errol Harry of London who continues to pursue her with brutal facts

Ms. Bacchus will reply again to this missive and as night follows day, you can expect the following enumeration of her descriptions. 1- WPA was stockpiling arms. 2- WPA was trying to overthrow the Burnham Government. 3 – WPA knew fully well what Rodney was up to. 4 – Gregory Smith exposed the WPA. 5 – Burnham had no reason to kill Rodney. 6 – The PPP never wanted an inquest and the PPP must know why. 7- Other parties had reason for removing Rodney. These banalities she will continue to repeat ad naseum. She is not going to touch the plethora of facts which indicts Burnham. And she is going to retort; which facts, show me them. When you show her them, she will deny their existence

If you go right into the face of Bacchus and give her a copy of the Chronicle with the caption that screamed that the GDF denied Smith was ever a sergeant in the army, she will refuse to recognize what she sees in front of her. But let Bacchus continue to write.

All she is doing by her unhistorical antics is to give latitude to those who see it as an obligation to expose Mr. Burnham's involvement. I close by emphasizing that to suddenly elevate Forbes Burnham as a good leader because the people who have inherited power after the PNC left government are worse than him is not clever recording of history.

Guyanese current history is about the PPP exceeding the excesses of Burnham. What is so complex about this to understand?