Did not disparage the character of Dr Cheddi Jagan

Dear Editor,

I refer to a letter by Joey Jagan in SN of March 5 captioned ‘Letter tried to damage the good name of late Dr Jagan.’

Where in my letter did I try to assassinate the character of Dr Jagan?  What I wrote about were attitudes that I observed with my own eyes; this is no hearsay or third party gossip, this is a primary source of facts.

For Joey’s exclusive benefit, I said Dr Jagan had a “checkered legacy but no one including his worst enemy can deny the fact that he was a good man with good human values. No one can deny that he loved his Guyanese people. No one can deny that he was financially incorruptible.  No one can deny that he had a personal passion to develop Guyana for all Guyanese.”

How difficult is that to understand?  I could understand Joey’s emotions; Dr Jagan was his blood, but I challenge him to show me where I disparaged the personal character of Dr Jagan.  I have extremely high respect for Dr Jagan’s personal integrity.  So much respect that the PNC people always accuse me of being a Cheddi Jagan apologist.  Well when both of the camps (the PPP and the PNC) decide to ‘cuss you out,’ I must be doing something right.

For the record and for emphasis, what I did was I called out the ideology that Dr Jagan followed – communism.  This ideology and the system of democratic centralism are both very flawed tools that were used to oppress the working people by exploiting their ethnic security dilemma.  It will never work in Guyana where the majority of the people are fundamentally interested in growth in their personal wealth – thus the mass migration away from both the PPP and the PNC.

Those who know the inner politics of the PPP will tell you that Joey could have been the President of Guyana who would have been departing office in 2011, because all the right strings were being pulled. When Joey got the PPP MP seat, he was supposed to observe protocol, act maturely, toe the line and his presidency was a certainty, as moves were being made to exclude the true sons of Cheddi Jagan like Roger Luncheon and Moses Nagamootoo. There was tremendous opposition to a Joey Jagan candidacy very early in the game, but rather than the opponents of Joey having to destroy his chance, his behaviour got the better of him and the rest is now history.  Not that I or any progressive thinker supports any of this monarchical imposition.

Funnily, I always harboured the thought that a President ‘Joey’ Jagan would have been better for Guyana than a President Bharrat Jagdeo but now I wonder.

Yours faithfully,
Sasenarine Singh