Dear Editor,
My very good friend or “Mr gharpoochna” as Indians call him, Freddie Kissoon lacks independence of thought and mind and therefore his writings cannot be taken seriously.
Freddie recently wrote that he “campaigned for the AFC and PNC because he feared for his life under the PPP”. He used as an illustration the scene in the James Bond movie “Thunderball” in which Bond slept with a female enemy agent. Later in the movie, Bond told her that he only did it for her Majesty’s government (to save the nation or the world). This was the kind of justification Freddie gave to campaign against the PPP.
It is rather ruthless, and it is a part of his personality. Freddie does not care who governs Guyana or what becomes of the nation or what happens to Indians or other ethnic groups as long as the PPP is kept out of office. He does not care if the election has to be rigged (as feared happened in May 2015) to prevent a PPP victory.
Freddie’s objective is to prevent PPP from winning an election regardless of the consequences and it is done – just keep the PPP out even if democracy is thrown out the window.
This leads to the inescapable conclusion that all of his commentaries on the PPP, Indians, Ramotar, Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, and Jagdeo were tainted with bias and hatred. They lack objectivity. His claims about the PPP government and its policies (during the period 1992 to 2015) were not truthfulness and accuracy. They were based on dishonesty to malign and bring down the PPP.
In a subsequent column, Freddie wrote that he will never write anything negative against the PNC-AFC coalition because he does not want the coalition to lose power, and furthermore, he does not want PPP to return to office. So Freddie sacrifices his integrity and professionalism (not that he ever had any of both).
Read his column grovelling to Raphael Trotman – now people can understand why Indians praise him as “Mr gharpoochna”. In other words, Freddie is willing to accept abuses and wrong doings of the coalition government just to keep out the PPP from government.
Isn’t that what the US and Britain did for 28 years? They turned their eyes away from human rights abuses because the PNC did their bidding to keep out the communist PPP from office.
It is noted that Freddie quite frequently accused Indians (in Guyana and the diaspora) of being political slaves to the PPP. Is his behaviour any different from those Indians? Is Freddie not a political slave to the coalition? Has he been objective and balanced in any of his commentaries? Where is independence of mind, balance and thought in his columns?
Freddie has been hegemon editor of the letter pages of his paper since December. He is now an oligarch at KN abusing his powers no different from those he accused of abusing powers when they ran the nation. Is he any different from those PPP leaders he accused of hegemony? He is worse than them. Freddie always wanted the position at that paper so he can block objective critics from writing on him.
Freddie recently pointed to Indian (from India) and European state officials who resigned after they were found embarrassing their government. When will Freddie resign to end embarrassment at his newspaper? Is it that he cannot resign because he won’t have money to buy food? And so he willingly accepts the tarnishing of any integrity remaining in his character. It is no wonder that the University of Toronto denied him a PhD and sent him back to Guyana.
People like Freddie are responsible for the depraved, suffocating political culture of the nation. He recently wrote that God spoke with him to keep out the PPP from office – he must have gone mad (not that he has been sane). He committed so many egregious, repugnant and culturally debasing things. He does not belong as editor of any publication because he lacks independence of thought and unwilling to accept critique of his poor writings.
Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram
