Dear Editor,
Witnessing the recent transformation of Kaieteur News’ columnist Ralph Seeram (From the Diaspora) who has shed his objectivity and has now become a full-blown apologist and cheerleader of the PPP, causes me to ask myself, what is it that is responsible for so many of our Indian brethren not to be able to stay the course?
One year ago Ralph Seeram could have written: “The man (Bharrat Jagdeo) is a disgrace to Cheddi Jagan and what the PPP stood for.” Unambiguous language, I would say. Of the PPP’s rising star Irfaan Ali, he had this to say: “This is another PPP buffoon spewing buffoonery when it comes to tourism.” (KN, April 6, 2014). Something, clearly has caused Seeram to change his view and tune.
Perhaps it was Indian-rights activist and ROAR’s 2001 Presidential Candidate, Mr. Ravi Dev who set the stage and led the way. In 2001, Dev wrote: “Eight years after (PPP being in gov’t), the economy is still drowning in excessive corruption and incompetence.” Today, the very Dev who held himself to be a person of high integrity and personal incorruptibility and who was the direct recipient of numerous humiliations by the PPP, including from Donald Ramotar, is now considered to be the propaganda czar of the PPP. Of course, when Dev wrote the foregoing words, corruption had not yet metastasized into the malignant cancer it now is. Which side however, is Ravindra on today?
Included among the others who have followed suit and/or cut from the same bolt of cloth are: N.K.Gopaul, Leslie Ramsammy, Asgar Ally, Peter Ramsaroop, and the less prominent but no less insidious newspaper writers Leon Suseran and Shaun Samaroo. Other actors in this play would include Rickey Singh and Vishnu Bisram, whose agendas are as naked as a newborn.
I am forced to ask the question, how is it that someone could have written that “… today we see our government acting with petty and shallow motivations, seeking only personal enrichment in corrupt deals and cronyism of the worst order” (Shaun Samaroo, SN, April 25, 2013) but two years later when the very behaviour threatens to destroy the legitimacy of the state, could be one of its most vocal defenders and mouthpieces?
Are these persons merely mercenaries as many suggest, or are they driven by something far more sinister?
Having named some formidable intellects and prolific writers, I now await the ensuing debate.
Yours faithfully,
Ronald Bulkan
