What about my mistakes in 2006?
Freddie Kissoon Column
Kaieteur News
January 3, 2007
Obviously, I will have to look back at 2006. My column for the New Year had to be centered on the hopes of all of us for the new year; readers look forward to that in the first issue of their newspaper for a new year.Beginning from today, I will to revisit 2006. Surely that cannot be done in one or two columns.
It was a contradictory year. Guyana went backwards with the undisputed assassination of a political activist that was quite popular in certain sections of the Guyanese society. This was a morbid setback for the future.
The murder of a senior minister (“Sash” Sawh) followed. I have not written on my assessment of the nature of the attack on Sawh but I will attempt a judgement of sort later this year. With Sawh's death, Guyana was sliding frighteningly down the slope of nihilism. It has not happened. I hope it never will.
The year ended with a calm national poll, and a comfortable Christmas for the majority of people. I will begin the revisit with an assessment of my own columns starting with an article by Adam Harris in KN, July 30, 2006.
It is obvious to any student in the social sciences that there are four fundamental pillars on which power rests in a society. Legal power comes from the state with the attached institutions of army, police and government being the essential sources of authority. There is the force of the working population. The business class has tremendous importance that can either make or break a country. Finally, the media is extremely influential in the shape of the thoughts of a nation.
Media functions must be done with extreme caution and high responsibility. For this reason, I think the culture of the US that allows the media to offer its judgements of cases before the courts are downright stupid and lawless. No argument can convince me that a media house which has a huge circulation should tell its readers, viewers and listeners that it thinks John Jones will have a hard time proving his case because the evidence of the opposing side is unbeatable. Who introduced that system in the US in the first place?
Media functionaries then have a faithful, sacred, dedicated and civilized duty not to publish news and views that they know are fictional and designed to destroy people and organizations. Have I done that with the daily Freddie Kissoon Column?
I shouldn't say an unconditional no to that question. I am not aware that I have brought malice into any of my pieces for 2006 but if that can be pointed out to me then I will have to apologize and I will willingly do so.
I will list the controversies I have been involved in and will honestly attempt in a self-critical way to see if I went wrong and where I went wrong. I will begin with the Government of Guyana.
Most, if not all political analysts, put the government of the day under the microscope. This writer is no exception. I say most willingly that I stand by what I have written against the PPP and the Government of Guyana in 2006. I cannot think of any item of mine on this page in 2006 that was invented. I have offered my interpretation of the stories that came out of the corridors of power. Many of the assessments of this page may not have been to the liking of those that make high policies, but I called it the way I saw it, without malice.
Back to Adam Harris. Here is what Adam wrote; “There is a certain Parliamentarian who once told me that he no longer reads the Kaieteur News because a certain columnist, who will remain nameless at this time, attacked him mercilessly and even defamed him. He said that he shunned moving to the courts because he recognized that among other things, the columnist might have garnered support from people who have a dislike for the better off in society.” Is it difficult to ascertain the identity of the writer without Adam naming the person?
It cannot be Adam himself because Adam is relating what the person confided in him. It can't be Peeping Tom because how could he have sued a fictional writer, and also, the parliamentarian knows the columnist has some kind of support from the lower classes. Stella Ramsaroop lives abroad. Roy Paul does not write on political happenings. Ravi Dev has never attacked any parliamentarian in his weekly page. That takes care of all the columnists at Kaieteur News. One does not have to be a genius to know that Adam is referring to me.
I cited this article by Adam because it demonstrates the hazard of writing political analysis in Guyana . You don't know when you can step out of line and hurt someone. In the case of the unnamed parliamentarian, I know who it is. He is from the side of the ruling party. I have no apologies to make because what I wrote about, I honestly believed in and the facts were there for all Guyanese to see. My point is that given the power of the media we must avoid hurting innocent people by what we write.
I know I have made mistakes over the years but 2006 saw me doing a clean job. I cannot recall any unfair attack on Mr. Jagdeo or any other leading junior or senior policy-maker. I had one brush with the PNC and Messrs. Sherwood Lowe and James Mc Allister got annoyed. It concerned a meeting at Congress House in which the leadership of the PNC took the position that the President's assault on the independence of the University was wrong by ignoring the judgement of its own Council, sacking Dr. Mark Kirton and re-imposing Dr. James Rose as Vice-Chancellor.
The PNC insisted no such meeting took place. On hearing that denial often by certain PNC leaders, I rechecked my source. Confirmation was again given to me.
My source was and is well-placed in the flesh and bones of the PNC. Could I have been misled and therefore erroneously attacked the PNC last year? I will stick with my source.
You don't know people that you think you know; that source may have had an axe to grind but up to now I believe what I was told. To conclude then, I believe in 2006 I carried out my media responsibilities with neutrality, integrity and sensitivity.
My one regret last year is that in none of my columns on Forbes Burnham was any substantial section of devoted to some of his positive achievements, even though in an argument with the Indian Arrival Committee I listed three purposeful things Burnham gave Guyana .
If anyone out there knows that I committed a lapse in my function as a media operative, please let me know. See you tomorrow.