…by AFC on sugar workers
It’s either that the AFC’s suffering from a Jekyll-and-Hyde Syndrome, or Nagamootoo and Ramjattan just did another back flip. Most likely it’s the latter, ‘cause when people are being pulled by strings like puppets, they can so easily be made to even stand on their heads!! Nagamootoo’s initial back flip over the weekend, as mentioned by your Eyewitness, was to admit that after FIFTY YEARS of opposing privatization of the sugar industry, he has suddenly seen the light. That this epiphany was realized just when he received that $1.5million/monthly cheque, that SUV, unlimited air miles etc, was purely coincidental!!
Anyhow, after he and Ramjattan sat on the right hand of President Granger in a meeting with the sugar unions — GAWU and NAACIE – Nagamootoo boasted it ended on a high note on restructuring the sugar industry. In his column in the Sunday Chronic, Nagamootoo crooned: “The possibility that a 100% payout could be made to some of the affected workers was raised by President Granger and MYSELF during a meeting Friday morning with representatives of GAWU and NAACIE. Heading the delegation was Mr. Komal Chand, one of the most outstanding Guyanese labour leaders…”
Over in the Muckraker KN, however, the AFC, in its column of the same, launched into one of the most vicious attacks on GAWU and its leader since the late 1960s – no one other than KOMAL CHAND!!! Last we heard was Ramjattan was the Chairman of the AFC and Nagamootoo was its “political Advisor”. So what’s going on?? Like we said, it looks like their puppeteer just doesn’t care about how ridiculous his jerking them around (literally and figuratively) makes them look!
‘Cause it wasn’t just the viciousness of the attack…but it’s blatant rewriting of a history in which both Nagamootoo and Ramjattan were key figures. The AFC column claimed sugar production plummeted from a high in the 1970s — when PNC nationalized the industry — to half of that in the 1980s — reaching a historic low in 1990 solely because of GAWU strikes!! No mention of siphoning off the profits of the industry via a levy, and spending NOTHING on rehabilitating the broken down factories. Or hiring political hacks to run the industry.
But if GAWU killed the sugar industry, who killed the bauxite industry, which witnessed the same HALVING of production in the 1980s compared to the 1970s? Why also was the value-added Alumina plant CLOSED!!
And more pertinently, how come sugar production doubled by 1992 from the 1990 production?
Could it be because Booker Tate replaced the PNC managers — and sugar workers’ salaries were increased to a living wage??
What say the backflippers??
…by the feral squeaker
Finally, someone must’ve taken the PM’s feral squeaker behind the wood shed and given him a goooood paddling for his intemperate outburst against the Government of India, for inviting MPs rather than Ministers to their meeting of “MPs of Indian Origin”. That, the fella claimed, was done by India just to spite PM Nagamootoo: by inviting Jagdeo, who’s an MP, and not the PM, who’s a Minister!! It’s clear the PM — and by default all his flunkeys — have Jagdeo on their brain!!
Anyhow, the squeaker back-flipped and apologized profusely for his allegations. He claimed he didn’t realise folks could think his Facebook ranting about a friendly government and its ambassador – his ranting clearly identified him as the “Director of Public Information” (DPI), and tags the ambassador! — could be seen as an official government position!!
If he, as the Director of Public Information, couldn’t see this; then, for this alone, he should be stripped of his position; stripped of his clothes; and given another hiding!!
But we all know this is just mamaguying, don’t we??
…by Thomas, the Marxist
For all the fifty-plus years he was in academia, Clive Thomas was the archetypical Marxist who denounced “capitalist corporations” that “raped” the Third World.
Suddenly, now he’s in Government, he advises to not look at the Exxon contract critically!!
