Dear Editor,
I met the late Balram Persaud after his return to the Guyana Police Force where I was serving as that organisation’s first Public Relations and Press Officer. At the outset our relationship was characterized by mutual professional respect which later evolved into a deep, long-lasting personal friendship. He took apparent pleasure in telling anyone who would listen that I was perhaps the officer he most remembered as making him feel welcome, since in our association he did not feel the stigma which he felt had followed him after his involuntary absence from the police force that he unquestionably loved.
Editor, many were the times when we would have some very deep conversations about his vision, and his concerns about an organization that he had served almost all of his adult life. He was a man whose pragmatism and humility touched almost everyone, and I felt particularly honoured when he confided in me that one of his hopes was that the GPF would host a forum which would have been the platform for listening to and appreciating the views of the various stakeholders in our society regarding the appearance, role and performance of a reformed GPF, with the potential structured input of civil society. He asked me to draft a concept proposal for a stakeholder forum which unfortunately he did not live to see realized. He was a team player through and through, so much so that he preferred to put his own vision on hold in the interest of harmony.
In my view Balram had he lived, would have made an indelible impression after his retirement in much the same way that he did in his short life. I offer my sincere condolences to his family and to the Guyana Police Force on their loss.
Yours faithfully,
Patrick E Mentore
