Freddie should end his revisionism of history which must be built on facts and truths

Dear Editor,
I write in response to Freddie Kissoon’s claim that the Burnham and Hoyte dictatorships had no PNC MPs sitting on UG Board (July 2).
Freddie’s point is irrational since PNC controlled the Board and all its appointments. Freddie makes egregious errors in his writings, and since he became letter editor last December, he has not published corrections to several false claims.
Freddie does not like to be corrected and is not a champion of the free press like those of us who struggled against the PNC dictatorship for the restoration of democracy. History must not be rewritten. But this is what Freddie is attempting as he seeks to discredit the great work of Jagan and those of us who fought Burnhamism. The UG Board has been heavily politicised ever since Guyana became independent.
Dr Jagan founded UG as a non-political institution and he never interfered with its functioning. It was the PNC that introduced politics on UG functioning, denying employment to those who were critical of its authoritarian rule.
Since the PNC was a dictatorship and decisions regarding UG were politicised, it is insignificant whether the Board was comprised of MPs or not.
Burnham did not need to appoint MPs on the Board in order to guarantee political control; there were several PNC loyalists (including executives) on the board.
No PNC appointee could oppose Burnham’s or Hoyte’s machinations on UG decision-making. Whatever the PNC wanted, it got. Even Freddie himself complained that UG (on instruction from PNC) denied him a scholarship as the top graduate and instead gave it to Norman McLean, a PNCite, who went on to become head of the army that itself was politicised.
Records are not readily available to challenge Freddie’s claim on PNC not appointing MPs to UG Board. But Viola Burnham was on the Board and she served as government Vice President. Donald Ainsworth was a parliamentary secretary. Rudy Bishop was a Board member and I believed he served as MP. Hamilton Green either served on the Board or influenced those who sat on the Board. Green had tremendous influence on how it was managed.
Tacuma Ogunseye accused Hammie and Viola of cancelling Dr Rodney’s appointment as History Professor at UG. There was also Harold Davis and Rex McKay, sitting on the Board.
Clearly, the PNC controlled the Board which was decked with PNC loyalists. There were few Indians on the board and Amerindians, Chinese and Portuguese hardly had representation.
My conversations with UG academics reveal that Vice Chancellors Dr Dennis Irvine and later Dr Cummings and Dr Walcott had to play a delicate dancing game between academic freedom and political interference. The bulk of UG funding came from the government controlled by PNC that exercised maximum control.
As an example of political control, if an academic staff was invited to an international conference, he or she had to have foreign exchange approved personally by the Minister of Education. Funding was denied if the person was not friendly to the PNC or a “PNCite”.
It was not unusual for only PNCites to be chosen to travel abroad to attend conferences. Dr Clive Thomas, who was closely associated with WPA, was often denied funding. Freddie can ask him or others who were declined requests to attend conferences.
It is public knowledge the PNC had all the organs of state subservient to it under its grandiose concept of Party Paramountcy in which the PNC was over and above the state.
Some UG professional staff resisted that move and Vice Chancellor Irvine, a man of great intellectual strength and integrity, stood with the UGSA on many matters. But he had to give in to other matters in order to get funding and save some jobs. Who controls the purse, controlled to some extent the policies. Burnham did not care who ate as long as his rule and control was not threatened.
Any staff member who criticised the PNC was fired. The record would show that Paul Tennassee, Feroze Mohammed and Navin Chanderpal, among other opposition figures, were all fired or victimised by the PNC-controlled Board. Dr Jagan did not have anyone fired from UG even though several attacked him.
When Dr Irvine resigned, as he could no longer tolerate the abuse, he was replaced by Dr Cummings who was selected by the PNC. He was later replaced by Dr Walcott who was also selected by PNC.
The point is that UG had no complete academic freedom under the PNC. Academic freedom was always at risk. And Freddie knows this fact as he himself wrote about it.
It is inexplicable, therefore, to understand why he makes an irrational claim. The PPP allowed academic freedom; no one was fired on account of their politics.
UG Board’s composition is fixed by statute from the inception. I believe the statute indicates there should be an appointee from the Opposition. Rupert Roopnaraine served as Opposition representative during PPP’s tenure. Rupert was an MP.
Freddie wrote that there was bias in the hiring and firing at UG during PPP tenure post-PNC. He offered no evidence. Several Indians, including the dynamic scholar Dr Churaumanie Bissundyal, were denied employment by the UG Board that was appointed by PPP.
Two Indians who were on the Board told me that the Board historically had a majority of non-Indians and that the Board often rejected qualified Indians for employment. The two Indian members on UG Board claimed PPP exerted little influence on the Board and that Indians had a most difficult time in getting promotion or being hired by the Board.
This is the same Board that fired Prof Parasram Thakur and later Prof Samad and others perceived as PPPites. Dr Bissundyal was a staunch PPPite who fought against the PNC dictatorship and the Board denied him employment at UG; today students in Fiji shower accolades on his contribution to their national university for his professorial skills.
The two Indian Board members blamed others for the rejection of Dr Bissundyal and ill treatment of Samad and Thakur. PPP appointed a Board that had a minority of PPP supporters and suffered the consequences of its ill-conceived policy.
In contrast, the PNC and now APNU have controlled the board with their supporters and hiring their own.

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram