Dear Editor,
I have attended most of the talks given by Hamilton Green in Lodge and made plenty of notes. I shall refer to three matters, which Mr. Green talked about earlier and appeared written by Harry Gill, an Advisor to the Minister of Home Affairs, former President Donald Ramotar and former President Bharat Jadgeo and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party.
First, Mr. Gill is an interesting person. For all of the 1990s, he has been writing letters published in the local media, all referring to the incompetence and corruption of the PPP.
It was Burnham on the recommendation of Green, who in 1979 had Mr. Gill placed in charge of a vessel that took relief supplies to Dominica after they were hit by Hurricane David. It was a similar case that had him appointed Honorary Consul to Dominica. I assume Mr. Harry Gill was then unaware of these nasty things he is now writing of Forbes Burnham and Green.
Ingratitude is worse than witchcraft. I did not understand what it meant then, but I think with this Gentleman’s somersault I now understand.
With reference to Mr. Ramotar’s understanding of events that led towards our Independence, he must remember that it was Dr. Jagan who asked the British Colonial Office to settle their differences between the PNC and UF position and that of the PPP position, with respect towards the 1963 Independence Conference.
He conveniently forgets how the Party was unhappy with Dr. Jagan on his return home because of his embarrassing performance at Lancaster House where the Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys conducted the final negotiations on Independence.
He also omitted mention of Dr. Jagan’s neglect of his support group including Ashton Chase, Fenton Ramsahoye and other party members, in a hotel by themselves, having been induced by the Colonial Secretary to attend alone. On the other hand, there was full attendance by both the Burnham and Peter D’Aguiar delegations.
It was not as if Dr. Jagan was not forewarned in New York while on his way to the Conference by Mrs. Gandhi, then India’s Diplomatic Representative to the US, who said that he should expect some inconsistent behavior at the Conference.
But none could believe how much faith Dr. Jagan had in the Colonial Secretary and left it to him to decide on the issue of Proportional Representation and Elections under PR before Independence and retention of the voting age of 21, which the other Parties sought for the election process towards independence.
The PPP strongly expressed their embarrassment to the extent of not communicating with Dr. Jagan for weeks after he returned,
I am advising you to read Clem Seecharran’s “Sweetening Bitter Sugar: Jock Campbell, the Booker Reformer in British Guiana, 1934 – 1966.”
With respect to Mr. Jagdeo’s CIA declassified document, we wonder when the documents concerning the PPP’s weapons found in rice bags and the discovery of explosives on the Guyana Rice Marketing Wharf and who provided the massive sums for the training camp of PPP cadres at Brandwagt Sari in the Berbice River. The KGB (Soviet Secret Service) files, of course, will never be revealed but those of us who lived through that period knew and understood how much the PPP received from the Soviets.
I remember a PPP City Councillor called Coffee (I don’t recall his real name), boasting how his Party sent him abroad for terrorist training.
Interesting how some folks now rely on so-called documents from the very source that they have for years, in particular the 50s and the 60s described as falsifiers, fictitious and unreliable.
Yours truly,
Eric Moseley MS
