Dear Editor,
The ramblings of Lincoln Lewis, published on Sunday, October 8, 2017, under the headline “Responding to Bharrat Jagdeo’s baseless accusations”, demand a response – because Lewis, on one hand, states that comments made by the former President were baseless, yet, on the other hand, makes baseless accusations of his own.
Lewis’s ranting includes that: “Jagdeo has been involved in numerous violations and transgressions while serving as President of this country and he must be held accountable for the abuse of the privilege granted to him by the people.” He would do well to substantiate his claims.
Lewis goes on to object to the criticism that he, and others, is making a ‘profession’ of representing the interest of Afro-Guyanese people. But then he follows this with a reference to what he stands to gain from testimony he gave to the ongoing Commission of Inquiry into lands – that being his inheritance of land at Kingelly Village, West Coast Berbice – land he claims was bought by his great-great-great-great grandfather Cudjoe McPherson – land currently occupied by over 150 families. Whose interest is he representing here?
Lewis’s efforts at ‘representation’, according to him, are not about ‘colour and race’. But the GTUC head should answer the existing questions about where and how his ‘representation’ was advanced and what he benefited from, including on the matter of inveigling himself into a position to access duty-free concessions. While he attempts to divert focus by saying that Jagdeo can “only see issues through the lens of race” and says that Jagdeo “flaunts and parades most, if not all, of the characteristics of an ethnic entrepreneur”, the Guyanese people will not be fooled, more so, those who have worked with Mr Lewis.
Probably, the most disturbing of Lewis’s baseless accusations is that: “During his (Jagdeo’s) tenure, he executed policies, programmes and acts to make Africans feel they have to grovel and lose their dignity and respect to gain anything in society.” This is the comment coming from a man who accused a former President of seeing issues “through the lens of race” in Guyana. This is the comment coming from a man who ignores basic facts. The fact is that Afro-Guyanese have experienced greater economic mobility under successive People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administrations. One has to ask whether such a comment, after Jagdeo’s visit to Region 10 – long considered the base of the People’s National Congress – is intended to attempt to diminish the fact that Jagdeo has done what this APNU/AFC Government has not done, which is to engage Guyanese, regardless of race, religion, gender or any other differentiating factor.
The facts surrounding former PPP/C Government interventions in Region 10 and the bauxite industry are a matter of public record, and Guyanese will not accept the distortion of facts, Mr Lewis.
Even Lewis’s attempt at ‘balance’ in his article is based on distortion of facts.
Lewis jumps to the conclusion that there was a competition between him and Jagdeo for the attention of bauxite workers when the former President intervened to support the workers, and goes on to talk about ego. This comment reads more like a case of Lewis being the one with the injured ego, since his ‘imagined’ sense of competition and ego are the first things he talks about in his article.
Lewis’s comments can only be chalked up to be the latest in a string of ‘ridiculous’ and unsubstantiated talk from the usual culprits, from whom the Guyanese people can expect nothing else.
Sincerely,
Baldeo Mathura
