Dear Editor,
This is my second reply to the second letter of GHL Lall who has made three accusations against me which I honestly thought I had answered satisfactorily, but Mr Lall persists.
According to this gentlemen, a reliable source told him that in 2006 when I was building my home in Turkeyen, I received financial help from businessmen, therefore I have compromised my independent mind, have become contaminated and my character has deteriorated.
In his second missive, Mr Lall refused to name just one manifestation of my contamination, one instance of my compromised pen, one example of my character deterioration. Mr Lall did not name his source. Then Mr Lall became pompous and arrogant. He arrogates to himself the right not to answer my questions, makes me the subject and says he doesn’t have to answer me. He says I have to answer him because I am the subject.
I will reduce things to simple forms. Before I do so let me quote Mr Lall in his second dig at me. He wrote, “The American in me cries out there is no free lunch.” To that I say, “The Guyanese in me cries that there is nasty propaganda afoot.”
Now for my simplification process. I hereby make GHK Lall the subject just as he made me the subject. And the subject has to answer the following questions. Who are his sources? What infamous conduct are these particular business people known for? Thirdly and fourthly, again I ask in what ways I am compromised; what forms my contamination takes and where are the displays of my deteriorated character?
In fairness to Mr Lall, I will have to answer his question. I will agree to a mutual disclosure either directly to the editors of SN and KN or we can do so publicly. I will await Mr Lall’s reply. But there are further things to be said. I will look at some more pathetic and absurd features of his second letter.
I will quote Mr Lall: “He is not in a position to question, he ought to be furnishing answers.” I will leave it to readers to decide if that is not pomposity and arrogance. Mr Lall goes on: “[My action] smacks of evasion and worse yet, of the ruling party’s machinations.”
Between me and Mr Lall, I would think his methodology appears more like the PPP’s machinations. It is Mr Lall who has decided in the vein of the PPP’s leadership that he doesn’t have to answer questions.
Mr Lall becomes bizarre and borders on the absurd and the comical when he says: “ Mr Kissoon knows well enough that his grantors may not be part of corporate Guyana… [but] they could be part of commercial Guyana or official Guyana.” I plead ignorance. I don’t know what is official Guyana but I take umbrage at GHK Lall telling me he wants to know my friends in the commercial community in Guyana.
I am married into a commercial family. My journalistic and academic colleagues have friends in commercial Guyana. I have long-standing friends in commercial Guyana some of whom I trust with my security. I would think countless engineers, media operatives, lawyers, doctors and other sectors in this country have friends in commercial Guyana. Media operatives in both the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News have friends in commercial Guyana. I saw Mr Lall walking into German’s restaurant with someone from commercial Guyana.
What business it is of GHK Lall as to who my friends in commercial Guyana are? Mr Lall’s only genuine concern is whether questionable business people gave me money to build my home and that this has restricted my criticism of them. I wrote that this is not so. It is up to Mr Lall to prove me a liar. That now becomes an obligation he has to carry through with.
Mr Lall ends his letter with hubris and hauteur. Here is Mr Lall in his own words in his last paragraph, “I don’t have to prove, parse, or submit anything.” Mr Lall’s style resembles the PPP’s. He is in good company. Will he be joining the PPP’s campaign?
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
