Dear Editor,
I find Mr Michael Parris letter captioned “PPP’s fight for freedom of expression” (07.12.08) very thought provoking and it helped to stimulate my own views on the two issues he identified while responding to two articles written by Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran on “press freedom” and Ambassador Odeen Ishmael on “PYO struggle for the reduction of voting age to 18” respectively.
First, Mr Parris questioned the PPP’s negative vote on the motion to reduce the voting age to 18 when it was brought to Parliament in the early 70’s. This seems contradictory, however one has to understand the issue in totality before arriving at such a simplistic conclusion. During Professor Frank Birbalsingh’s launch of his new book earlier this year entitled “PPP of Guyana, An Oral History” it was pointed out that when Dr Cheddi Jagan accepted the controversial Proportional Representation (PR) System in the 1964 election it was on the promise that the voting age be reduced to 18, but this was never honoured by the British Government much to the disadvantage of the PPP.
When the bill on the reduction of the voting age to 18 was brought to Parliament the PNC government had already put the machinery in place for rigged elections by moving the national registration process from the election commission to the Ministry of Home Affairs that allowed for the padding of the voters list. This move Dr Fenton Ramsahoye argued in the JOF Haynes Memorial Lecture (1993) could have been successfully challenged and rejected for constitutional invalidity had the Privy Council existed. The voting at 18 Bill was seen by the wider opposition as a move to further pad the voters list and the PPP quite correctly voted against this farce. Padding of the voters list was well documented by local and overseas media.
Secondly, Mr Parris questioned the commitment of Dr Jagan to press freedom because he asked for the removal of Percy Armstrong then editor of the Daily Argosy from the newsroom in the early 60’s after he enquired from Dr Jagan if he was a communist. I was born around that period so I have to rely on the literature since “communism was the bogeyman” used by the US and British to overthrow a democratically elected Jagan government. Here, I refer to the book “A Thousand Days in the White House” by Arthur Schlesinger (jr) on the Western powers obsession with Dr Jagan and communism and plans to destabilize him. Arthur Schlesinger (jr) a personal aide to US President John F Kennedy in the 60’s was to later apologize to Dr Jagan in 1992 on the injustice done to him and the role he played in the process.
The media harassment of the Jagan government in the 60’s is well documented. Fr Andrew Morrison’s book “Justice” and the “declassified CIA files” just to name a few have all exposed how the three newspapers at the time namely the Argosy, Chronicle and the Guyana Graphic, all foreign-owned had strongly opposed the Jagan government and used communism as the scapegoat to incite violence.
Further, I have seen no other politician in the Western Hemisphere that has written more extensively on press freedom and the struggle for freedom of expression especially for the voiceless and underprivileged than Dr Jagan. I refer once again to Fr Morrison’s book “Justice” pg. 75 that displays a photograph of Dr Jagan leading a demonstration in front of the Georgetown court during the Dayclean trial (1976) and protesting the criminalization of the WPA leaders by the PNC.
Phillip Agee a former high ranking CIA official documented how the PPP was made a victim of the anti Communism Crusade of the 60’s. I cite these sources because the Daily Argosy was very much a part of the media crusade to oust a legally elected government and Dr Jagan has every right to be annoyed with its perpetrators.
Finally, no other politician in the Caribbean has been more subjected to harassment, lies and distortion by the media than Dr Cheddi and Janet Jagan. The fact that neither of them has ever brought a libel action against the media should give much food for thought. I am sure readers will agree that one has to analyse political decisions within the historical and political context and all facts must be considered when passing a judgment.
Yours faithfully,
Rajendra Rampersaud
