I respond to Mr Tacuma Ogunseye’s letter to KN 6-24 and SN 6-25, wherein he purports to respond to my claim that “WPA scuttled 2005 Rodney COI”. Before I address My Ogunseye’s claim on my “mendacity”, I would like to offer my oft-repeated perspective on “looking back”. Following David Scott, I hold that “histories of the past ought to be interventions in the present, strategic interrogations of the present’s norms as a way of helping us to glimpse the possibilities for an alternative future.” From this perspective, I have been writing about the breakup of the Third/Center Force back in 2005/2006 from my own experience with a horizon of expectation that we might break out of the zero-sum politics that evolved since 1955.
On Mr Ogunseye’s claim that WPA didn’t “scuttle” the 2005 COI initiative, I am unsure exactly what is his position, since he is not “contesting the Roopnaraine and Corbin meeting or meetings.” We now have the recorded words in 2019 of Mrs Patricia Rodney that she communicated to the WPA/Roopnaraine during the 25th Anniversary Commemoration of her husband’s assassination that she desired a COI. But when she returned to Atlanta “it was quashed”. Is Tacuma denying Mrs Rodney said this, or that Roopnaraine told the members of the Opposition, like myself, that she did not want the COI because the PPP would “make political mileage” from it in the upcoming 2006 elections?
My Ogunseye also avers: “Why should I trust the truthfulness of Dev’s claim, given his erroneous narrating of the events that led to the collapse of the Third Force/ Centre Force initiative?” My “narration” being that Roopnaraine had told me about his meetings with the PNC – which Mr Ogunseye doesn’t “contest” – even as we were working to cement the Centre Force. I recounted that I had informed Dr Clive Thomas, WPA’s co-leader, along with Roopnaraine, as well as the visiting Mr Moses Bhagwan, to no effect. I would be interested in hearing what these gentlemen have to say.
But this “narration” was not some sudden concoction on my part, as Mr Ogunseye declares. Back on June 24, 2006 after the Third/Centre Force had collapsed in February, I had responded in KN to Dr Joey Jagan’s letter, “ROAR/GAP coalition laughable”: “Dr. Joey…and the other members did convene a meeting in my absence (in Dec 2005) and in fact officially met with the PNC. This fact was conveyed to me at the meeting I convened in February 2006, where, in the presence of the facilitator, Dr. Joey and the representatives, other groups present (apart from GAP) indicated their decision to proceed with a pre-electoral coalition with the PNC. I reiterated that while I was not prepared to proceed in that direction, we should continue to cooperate on issues where we have a common position. We believed, and still believe, that Guyana has to move away from the present political premise of many leaders, “If you are not with me, then you are against me”.
In Dr David Hinds’s book, “Ethno-Politics and Power Sharing in Guyana”, he refers to the “narration” above: “The (Third/Centre Force) coalition began to unravel shortly after the announcement (of its formation). Some of the parties charged others with a secret plot to take the Third Force into an alliance with the PNC. Despite strong denials by those accused, the coalition disintegrated.” However, he continued, “The decline of the Third Force led to a new initiative by some individuals associated with the Reform wing of the PNC. The “One Guyana Platform, comprising of the PNC, WPA and NFA (was launched).” The announcement of elections scheduled for Aug 2006, “led to a flurry of behind-the-scenes negotiation between the PNC and the WPA over a joint slate…The PNC’s insistence on its leader as the (presidential) candidate was not accepted by the WPA…At a meeting in NY, emotions ran high as most members rejected any alliance with the PNC. The WPA did not contest the elections.”
Would Mr Ogunseye have us believe that these alliance talks between the WPA and PNC suddenly appeared out of the blue after the collapse of the Third Force, and were not preceded by secret talks – which he does not “oppose” – as revealed by Roopnaraine to me?
As for Mr Ogunseye’s polemics, its “sterility” destroys new ideas. I prefer dialogue.
