Dear Editor,
I never expect the Chronicle to say anything favourable about me—after all it is the de facto property of a party which I oppose. And our political culture is one in which the opposition is the enemy. Never mind the political space it now occupies and abuse is due in part to my sacrifices and struggles and those of many others who are now shut out of its pages except when they choose to abuse us. The paper’s editorial in yesterday’s edition (`Cool it Dr. Hinds’) and Dr. Randy Persaud’s offering the day before (`Buxton is on the move’) are illustrations of a particular zero-sum political mindset.  Let me say in the new Buxtonion vocabulary that I am “humbled”  to be the editorial subject of a leading newspaper. But the least the Chronicle could do is be accurate about my “angry” comments. The editorial repeatedly said that I condemned Buxtonions who welcomed and attended the meeting with the President.  That is absolutely untrue. I condemned the organizers of the meeting, not the attendees.  I hope the Chronicle has the decency to correct that mistake. Or is it a mistake? I may be asking too much of a newspaper which editorializes on a statement that it does not publish. What a lofty commentary on the cause of a democratic press.

Only yesterday I had cause to write the editor of another paper—Guyana Times—which also refused to publish my statement but erroneously reported that I said the president was not given a warm welcome. It is not only the Hinds-bashing season, but the `Lying –on- Hinds’ season.  Why so if Hinds is a “bitter, confrontational, stuck-in-the past, no-following, lone voice in the wilderness”? Luckily the statement was reported extensively in the Stabroek News and carried in full by the Kaieteur News, Guyana Observer News and Demerara Waves and is posted on both my website guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com and my Facebook page.  Just a bit of history for those with short memories. The Chronicle did not ask me to cool it when I was one of a few angry, lone voices which condemned the presence of gunmen in Buxton—I was celebrated as the model Buxtonian.  Ministers of Government were quoting me right, left and centre. I never mind being a lone voice for ultimately I participate in politics not for office but to help make this world a better place than when I entered it. For the record I am breaking tradition and sending this letter also to the Chronicle.

Yours faithfully,
David Hinds