Posted January 12th. 2010

I refer to Dr Randy Persaud's most recent letter (Randy Persaud replies to Hinds, KN January 10, 2009). It was a reply to my correction of what I thought was a mistake on his part that published in a letter in the Kaieteur News on January 7, 2010. This latest letter from Dr Persaud has confirmed what I suspected-Dr Persaud has no interest in fairness; he is bent on creating fictions to prove his bigger fictional point that the WPA preferred the PNC to the PPP in 1992. But worse he is composing fiction and attributing them to me. In fact I went back to his initial comment on the article in question (July 2006) and found that he wrote the same thing. As he said in his recent letter he is interpreting the article. No wonder in both instances he did not quote a single passage or line from the article to support his interpretation.

In his letter of January 7 he said the following:

The good gentleman from the WPA published an article in Social and Economic Studies, a refereed journal, in which he clearly stated that the preferred position of the WPA in 1992 was for the just-defeated Hoyte to become the President and that there should be no role for Dr. Jagan in the government. According to Hinds, the WPA thought that Jagan should be left out because he had been too divisive in Guyana's history. If you do not believe me you can contact Hinds and ask him to send you the article in question.

Dr Persaud's says in that passage that I reported that the WPA thought Dr Jagan was too divisive to be the PCD candidate. By January 11 he changed his story to Hinds discrediting Jagan: "Moreover, Hinds' notion of a discredited Jagan is so diabolical that it hardly warrants comment." Last week Hinds reported that the WPA discredited Jagan; this week Hinds discredited Jagan. The fact is neither formulation is accurate. What I actually wrote was the following

When the issue of a consensus PCD presidential candidate arose, the PPP proposed its leader, Cheddi Jagan, but the WPA preferred a neutral candidate outside of the political parties. The WPA felt that given Jagan's central role in the racial acrimony of the past, his candidacy would alienate African Guyanese voters.

Where is there any reference to Dr Jagan as being divisive? It is Randy's spin that makes Dr Jagan divisive. It simply says the WPA was stating an obvious truth. As leader of the PPP and Indians was Dr Jagan, like Eusi Kwayana and Forbes Burnham, not a central part of the politics of conflict? Further, although the article clearly states that the WPA preferred a neutral candidate outside of the political parties, Randy still repeats his fiction that the WPA wanted Hoyte as a neutral candidate in 1992: "Specifically, by what stretch of the imagination could Hoyte be considered neutral? Randy creates another fiction and asks me to answer it. How can Hoyte, the leader of the PNC, be a candidate"outside of the political parties?

It is clear from that passage quoted above from Randy's letter that he placed the WPA's proposal for a caretaker government after the 1992 election and then makes me the author. This is nasty stuff-he presents a piece of fiction and then makes me the author of his fiction. Note his words: "he clearly stated." So if I clearly stated something, there is no need for interpretation. Produce the quotation Randy.

Now that I have produced the passage from the article showing that I referred to a 1990 WPA proposal and not a 1992 one, Randy behaves as if it does not matter. One would at least expect him to say he made a mistake with the dates. Not Randy-he slides over it and talks about including Hoyte and leaving out Jagan. But here again Randy is playing games. The article clearly states that the PPP did not feel the PNC would respond positively to the idea and therefore disassociated itself from it. Although the PNC indicated an interest the PPP still wanted nothing to do with it. How could the WPA exclude Dr Jagan from something he did not want to be part of? Here is the relevant section from the article:

The PPP surprisingly did not support the proposal. According to Rupert Roopnarine, who presented the proposal to the PCD on behalf of the WPA:

We were asking the PCD to consider a power-sharing cabinet shared equally between the PNC and the PCD and chaired by President Hoyte. The discussion did not get as far as the details of an arrangement. The overwhelming opinion of our colleagues in the PCD was that Hoyte and the PNC would never agree to any such thing and that the WPA was dreaming if they thought they would (p. 2).

Although Roopnarine does not name the PPP, other attendees of the meeting confirmed that the PPP led the charge against the proposal. The other functioning member of the PCD, the Democratic Labor Movement, did not object to it. So certain was the PPP that the proposal would fail, it did not object to the WPA approaching the PNC on its own. The PNC unexpectedly treated the proposal with much seriousness. This long quotation from Roopnarine confirms the high degree of seriousness:

Within days we received a reply inviting us to a meeting at the Office of the President to discuss the idea. It was the first time that the WPA and the PNC were to be face to face since the days of the civil rebellion of the late seventies. I led the delegation to the meeting and was surprised to find that several senior ministers were present, including Mr. Keith Massiah, the Attorney General, armed with his constitution, and Foreign Minister Rashleigh Jackson, among others. The presentation of the proposal led to a number of discussions on points of detail, such as, how would portfolios be allocated, what were the constitutional provisions, and so on. We had some few suggestions of our own, but felt that those details could be worked out once the proposal was agreed on by all sides. The meeting ended with President Hoyte responding that if the WPA could persuade our colleagues on the PCD, he would be prepared to discuss the matter further (p.2).

Faced with this positive response from the PNC and perhaps caught off balance, the PCD confronted a serious challenge, to which it did not respond positively. According to Roopnarine:

At a specially convened meeting of the PCD at Freedom House, I reported on the meeting with the President and his colleagues and relayed Mr. Hoyte's response, urging that the invitation to further discussions be taken up. After some debate, the response was rejected by our colleagues of the PCD and the WPA was accused of entering into a conspiracy when we were on the verge of victory in the fight for genuine elections (p.2).

It is clear from the above quotation that the PPP paid little attention to the potential problems of the post-election period. The party seemed to be content with "victory" rather than the larger democratic project. Since the PPP had eschewed winner-take-all governance and had expressed a desire to join with its PCD partners in an electoral alliance and coalition government, should they win the election, it could not be charged with being anti-alliance. Its objection, therefore, was alliance with the PNC. The party may have been concerned that the presence of the PNC would prevent it from being the dominant partner, a position it would occupy in a PCD government or it may have underestimated the PNC's strength. In that sense the PPP placed party interest above national interest. Kwayana (2003: 1) sums up the PPP's political attitude this way: "The present ruling party has a dominant craving for unimpeded one party rule...The PPP privately defines democracy to allow for their subconscious dream of one party rule, which is what they mean by democratic centralism in the state." It should be noted here that unlike the PNC, which was split between "hardliners" and "softliners," the PPP's leadership seemed united on the positions taken, even though Janet Jagan was cited by PPP insiders as being the most rigid. (Private interview with PPP member: December 1988).

The irony is that it was the PPP that had consistently argued for governmental alliances with the PNC while the WPA had for a long time rejected any such idea. However, the WPA's call for the interim government was consistent with the position the party had taken since 1984 that it would cooperate with the PNC once it agreed to free and fair elections (Kwayana 1984). According to the WPA, its proposal was guided by the need to "provide a neutral line for the elections" (Kwayana 1999: 10) and its anticipation of the consequences of a post-transition government that excluded the PNC. Roopnarine puts it this way: "We proposed the Caretaker Government, sensing the likely social tension between a long entrenched regime and a new one, however legitimate in all the circumstances of Guyana" (p. 3).

Did Randy Persaud actually read the article in question? Or is he being mischievous? Since Randy included his official designation as an officer in the office of the President, is he speaking for the president? What Dr Persaud is doing is dangerous to political discourse in Guyana. Its one thing to disagree with what someone actually writes or says; it's another thing to create things and put another person's name to it. Any good lawyer will tell him that what he is doing borders on libel.

For readers who are interested in viewing the full article, it is posted on my website at www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com

David Hinds lectures in Caribbean and African Diaspora Studies at Arizona State University in the USA. His writings on Politics in Guyana and the Caribbean can be found on his GuyanaCaribbeanPolitics.com website.