Former Chairman of the National Congress of Local Democratic Organs, Member of Parliament, Councillor of the Region 2 Regional Democratic Council and PPP member Isahak Basir, CCH, has died.
According to family members, Basir suffered a massive heart attack on Saturday about 22:00h at his Anna Regina, Essequibo Coast residence after attending a meeting with Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo at State House.
Political party affiliation
He paid a lot of attention to studying and propagating the goals of the People’s Progressive Party. He was articulate with a deep understanding of politics, culture
Isahak Basir, CCH
and religion. He could have held his own in any company.
Knowledge, for him, was to serve a purpose. That purpose was the welfare of the Guyanese people. He was an activist, an organiser and an educator of the PPP.
His work saw him serving in the National Assembly of Guyana. It was a difficult period in the country’s history.
Parliament was reduced to being a mere rubber stamp of the PNC regime. Comrade Basir took his activism to the National Assembly and had several epic confrontations with the PNC and the then Speaker. He felt the wrath of the PNC regime.
He was shot several times in broad daylight at Adventure on the Essequibo Coast allegedly at the instigation of a PNC activist. It was his strength, both physical and political, and his love of life that saw him pulling through a near-death attack.
Basir served his party and people with great distinction. He was one of few comrades who educated his family in the ideology of the PPP and encouraged them to be activists and fighters for peace and social progress.
Biography
Born in 1931 at Jacklow Pomeroon, he was a boat operator in his teenage years, and then he studied dentistry at the overseas Bennet College. By profession, he was a farmer, where he once farmed his father’s coconut estate in the Siriki Sands of the Upper Pomeroon River.
After marrying Sabra Karim, they moved to Boerasirie, East Bank Essequibo where he worked at the Uitgvlut Distillery in the early 1960s as an assistant distiller.
After he moved back to Jacklow, he got involved in the People’s Progressive Party where he travelled to Russia and Europe for training and chaperone young political students.
He also represented his party in various meetings around the world; he was then PPP Organiser for the County of Essequibo.
In 1975, his family moved to Hampton Court where he resided up to the time of his demise. In the late 1970s, he joined Parliament as the Shadow Agriculture Minister, in 1991.
He was then moved to the Chairman of Local Congress and Democratic Organs in 1992. He was given the Cacique Crown of Honour (CCH) by Dr Jagan in 1994.
He retired in 2001 and acted as an advisor to the Local Administration and Board of Governors in the Essequibo Technical Institute.
