Dear Editor,
On March 07, I posed three questions to former President Donald Ramotar. Most questions of similar nature go unanswered, and I did not expect President Ramotar to respond.
Since leaving office, President Ramotar has become somewhat of a wise and elder statesman. He appears on podcasts that are at both ends of the political spectrum. I usually do not agree with most of the things he says, but I almost never miss his shows.
On March 16 President Ramotar responded. He was generous with his time and expansive with his answers. In a government that is reticent with information, President Ramotar’s answers were both revealing and welcome. In a drought, even a trickle seems like a flood.
However, because his answers were so much in conflict with my convictions, here are my further reservations with President Ramotar’s answers.
He gave short shrift to the people that were responsible for upholding democracy in Guyana – the Republican party of the United States. President Ramotar straddled the political divide and gave more credit to the PPP/C, than the true saviours of democracy. There was a massive dichotomy in the way the two American political parties conducted themselves during the alleged election rigging in 2020. We all know what the Republicans did, but we must never forget what the Democrats did as well. While the alleged rigging was going on, a certain Demo-cratic congressman injected himself and said no one should interfere in Guyana’s domestic affairs. After, the recount showed that the PPP/C won and they assumed power – this same Congressman repeatedly sought to inject himself in Guyana’s domestic affairs. He repeatedly claimed that the “United States would not tolerate racism in Guyana.” Since he never gave any examples, only he knows what he was talking about. Incidentally, records show that Indians vote with the Democratic Party nearly 75% of the time. When he resurfaces again next year for the general election, I would like to ask him why he suggests that the people who vote 75% of the time for his party are racists in Guyana.
Secondly, President Ramotar suggests that Dr. Jagan was wronged by the Americans and years later, they apologized to him. That is little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Indian people that suffered mightily for Dr. Jagan’s political naivete. Surely, in the time of the Cuban missile crisis, he had to know that America would never tolerate another Communist country in the western hemisphere. One of the saddest history tapes I have ever seen is Dr, Jagan at the White House in 1961 lecturing President Kennedy about his political leanings. Dr Cheddi Jagan’s political miscalculation caused thousands of Indians to be exploited, lose scholarships, be abused, lose jobs, earn less, be falsely accused and even killed. Today, most Indians are still conflicted about Dr Jagan’s legacy. My mother likes to tell us a story about an interaction she had with Dr. Jagan, the dentist. One day in the early 1970s, after selling at Bourda market, the single mother of six went to Dr. Jagan’s office for the painful toothache she had. Dr. Jagan diagnosed major problems with several teeth. Upon hearing the diagnosis, my mother, realizing that she did not have enough money to pay, jumped up from the chair ready to leave. Dr. Jagan bellowed, ‘woman, did I ask you for any money?” He then spent the next two hours patiently and expertly fixing several teeth, free of charge.
Dr Jagan was a very good man, in the wrong profession.
But, President Ramotar’s third answer was the real earthquake of his response. President Donald Ramotar said that he did not believe that the PPP/C lost the election in 2015. He added that the evidence to prove that the election was rigged are stored in containers. And if those boxes are examined, they will likely prove that the PPP/C won the election. This is absolutely stunning! The contrast of the behaviour of the APNU and the PPPC could not be more staggering.
In the 2020 election, APNU controlled the police, GECOM, the majority of public servants and every echelon of government that oversaw the election. The recount showed that they lost the election. But, without a scintilla of proof, they regurgitated the same claim that the election was rigged. If they can be so belligerent without any proof, what would they have done if they had the proof stored in containers?
Juxtaposed that to the leader of the PPP/C, President Donald Ramotar….who said the 2015 election was rigged, and he has the ballots to prove it. Many patriotic Guyanese like myself have a vested interest in the sanctity of every election, regardless of the outcome. Towards this end, we demand of the present government to do a forensic and public recount of all of the ballots in storage of the 2015 election.
Our failure to do so, would (subliminally) compromise the integrity of all future elections. And then, we would have foreign Congressmen lecture us all over again, about “racists in Guyana.”
May God help us all!
Respectfully submitted,
Jhagroo Persaud
