Dear Editor,
For five years, we sat and allowed the nonsense that PNC/APNU has been doing in this country as a Government. I must accept that I was part of sitting down and allowing it to happen, because, as Charandass Persaud mentioned on the night of the successful passage of the NCM, we all had to be “YES MEN”.
We had to be “YES MEN” because we were in a political party that made us think or assume that the leaders wanted to see Guyana become better, and would stand up for our rights; but it was soon known to us that they were not what we had thought or assumed they were.
The PNC/APNU, before the Cummingsburg Accord was signed, had a planned agenda to destroy the AFC, and that planned agenda kicked in the very moment the Cummingsburg Accord was signed between the PNC/APNU and AFC. Many fought against it, but two people in that room at Georgetown Club are the ones who pushed it to happen. Please note that Nagamootoo was playing his deadly role behind the scene. I will deal with that later.
So, the PNC started to ensure that their plans to destroy the AFC started working. While the AFC leaders and membership were working to win a Government, the PNC was busily working to win over the AFC membership; and yes, they did well in doing that since. Even during the 2020 elections, while AFC was fighting to regain power with PNC, the PNC was fighting to take more membership from the AFC.
The PNC leaders had the AFC leadership in their hands from the inception, because those in the PNC started to object to the proposed speakers that the AFC gave to them to speak at rallies and public meetings. Linden rally in 2015 is evidence of such, when one of the most vocal leaders in the AFC was put to sit in the crowd, and was denied opportunity to speak at that rally.
Why? Because the PNC knows that that very man was making positive inroads for the AFC in Linden, and the PNC would have lost a lot of support in that region, which at that time they considered their very strong support base. I won’t mention the name of that man, but that is the very man the PNC are running to now to defend them as they are being charged for electoral fraud.
The PNC then started to display more and more of their racial ways, and kept executing their planned agenda to destroy the AFC. I can recall that I was invited to speak at a public meeting at Stabroek Square, and when I tell the people that Burnham was a dictator and the days for dictatorship are over, I was cussed out by Michael Carrington and Neilson McKenzie for saying such in that place. In fact, I was never invited again to speak in Region 4. The issue was taken to one of the founders of the AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan, and I told him to his face that I did say that and it’s the truth that Burnham was a dictator, and let them prove me wrong.
Some in the PNC who were there at the meeting were really upset, and took it back to their leadership, but I stand my ground and will keep saying that Burnham was a dictator; let them prove me wrong.
The PNC started to have their way into the AFC because the AFC leadership had no plans but just join the PNC/APNU because one man was crying for political power like a baby. That is the very man that became the snake which destroyed the AFC, and today that very man sits quietly in his corner as the AFC is about to be covered in the grave.
The PNC is not what the AFC think they are. I can recall being at a very important meeting at the APNU/AFC campaign headquarters in 2015, a few days before elections were held. Volda Lawrence, Hamilton Green and some powerful ones in PNC/APNU were there, while the AFC’s Dominic Gaskin, yours truly and a few others were sitting and putting things together.
I was representing the AFC as the co-campaign manager for Region 5, (will talk about that later also), while the PNC petroleum adviser from Region 5 (no need to mention name) was the campaign manager. As we were putting plans together, I objected to a few things that were not right, and the PNC Region 5 campaign manager was really upset, grabbed me, and we had a cuff-out. That meeting was broken up by AFC treasurer Domini Gaskin after that incident started to escalate, and the very woman started to cuss out everyone. Dominic stood his ground for an apology to be made, and it wasn’t coming, so he walked out, along with me.
I was encouraged to lodge a complaint at the Alberttown Police Station that I was physically abused by that woman of the PNC, but I was thinking of the big picture. I was thinking: ‘What if this goes public, what will the Indians in the AFC think?’ I was asking myself, ‘Are they going to still vote for us, or walk away; because I know that most of them know that the PNC is a bullying party.
I declined to go to the station, and tell you what: Mr Gaskin was upset, but I told him what I am looking at, and after the elections we should deal with that matter; but after the elections, the matter became dead because PNC was in power.
In Region 5, we had to put up with the daily abuses of the PNC during the 2015 campaign. The campaign manager would turn up at public meetings and cuss out the AFC personnel because the meeting wasn’t being kept at the spot she wanted. We had to endure because our leaders were not doing anything.
There is more to tell, but I will keep it there and jump into 2020.
Recently we saw the stand taken by the AFC General Secretary David Patterson because PNC/APNU breached the very agreement they signed, which would enable the AFC to have regional vice-chairs and regional councillors.
But Mr. Patterson should have taken that very stand when the PNC did the same with the help of an AFC executive who was also elected to RDC 4 in 2015. That very councillor voted with the very PNC against the AFC choice of Anil Mohanlal to become VC of Region 4 and allow the PNC to have control in both chair and vice chair positions.
The table turned in 2020, and David Patterson and the person that the AFC chose to be the Region 4 VC are both crying foul, but could not have done that in 2015. God doesn’t sleep, and it doesn’t seem as if the PNC are sleeping over the AFC’s destruction.
How can we, as a nation, now allow the PNC to talk to us about morals when they themselves have none at all? They could not even honour a simple agreement between two parties that they signed on to. How can they lead when they cannot be trusted with any promise they made, either literally or signed on to?
The PNC cannot lecture anyone on mortals and promises because they have none.
Waiting for the attack.
Regards,
Abel Seetaram,
Fmr Regional
Councillor Region 5
