Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr. Sherod Duncan’s letter of 2019-03-11 in the Stabroek News in which he said he “used to read” my columns and further said: “For Ramkarran is an honourable man.” In substituting my name for that of Brutus, Mr. Duncan implies that I once was, but am not now, an honourable man. Mr. Duncan must also know, as a student of Shakespeare, that Mark Anthony also said of Brutus in the same speech: “You all did love him once, not without cause.”
I don’t know what Mr. Duncan means by “used to read.” He clearly continues to do so avidly because this is the second letter he has written in as many weeks about my columns. I am honoured to have the esteemed former Deputy Mayor and the Manager of the Chronicle pay attention to my humble offerings. He obviously has time on his hands, being on leave from the Chronicle for, among other claims of overspending, seeking to invoke the blessings of the Almighty at a Prayer Breakfast that allegedly cost too much. Hopefully, Mr. Duncan will soon return to the Chronicle to share his talent, if he has not yet done so, by first undertaking to modify the cost of genuflecting to the Deity.
Mr. Duncan is apparently accusing me of withholding facts (“a deficit of facts”) in the era of “fake news” when I referred to the “lawful Janet Jagan Government in 1999.” He suggests that “in January 2001 Chief Justice (sic) Claudette Singh voided the 1997 general and regional elections hence the Janet Jagan Government became illegal and thus unconstitutional.” The use of the word “lawful” appears to have troubled Mr. Duncan because the Janet Jagan Government was subsequently declared to have been elected in 1997 under an unconstitutional voter ID law, which was supported by the PNC, and then subsequently challenged.
Mr. Duncan quoted what I actually said at the end of the second paragraph of his letter, but apparently didn’t understand it. I said: “Caricom may be forced to take a stand against an unlawful Government having failed to do so between the 1970s and 1980s against the PNC and then eagerly doing so against a ‘then’ lawful Janet Jagan Government in 1999.” It’s simple, Mr. Duncan; when the Herdmanston Accord was signed in 1999 at the instance of Caricom, the Janet Jagan Government was “then” lawfully in place. That is what I said and what I meant. Whether it became unlawful from 1997 by virtue of Justice Singh’s decision in 2001 is a moot point.
Mr. Duncan seeks to somehow justify the defiance by the APNU+AFC Government of Guyana’s Constitution by conjuring up an irrelevant 20-year-old case. But no matter how he and his party try, he can mislead no one. In 2001 Justice Claudette Singh ruled that the Janet Jagan was elected under an unconstitutional law. In 2001, a few months after, new elections were held. The Government did not seek to unlawfully and unconstitutionally extend its life in office, as the APNU+AFC Government is now doing.
Yours faithfully,
Ralph Ramkarran
