Freddie Kissoon wrote a very disturbing piece for Kaieteur news (July, 09, 2007) that is riddled with inaccuracies and hypothetical nonsense. Freddie Kissoon rightly wrote, “People's psychology is a complex thing to understand” and then he went on to rationalize that the president might draw his confidence from the fact that many of the journalists are young and employed by the government. Now Mr. Kissoon as a political scientist lets examine your rational, have you ever seen the President not confident? Is he any less confident when in the mix of older journalists? Is the President any less secure when he is among a majority of private journalists? Is there any correlation between the rhetoric of the President and your theory? If you were to do a little research you would see that your premise is wrong because the President’s rhetoric does not change from a local press conference to one held overseas. Yes I did the comparison you neglected in an attempt to project your misguided theory.
People’s psychology is a complex thing to understand. My guess is Mr. Kissoon had to sell our local journalists as inexperience and too scared to do their job so we can all hail the glory of the experienced and brave Freddie Kissoon, who is not afraid to take on the GOG yet, play the victim anytime he gains official attention.
I truly believe Mr. Kissoon when he wrote, “My task in life in this country is to seek to open the eyes of the people of Guyana that I hope to spend the rest of my life in.” Self praise? You decide.
Mr. Kissoon claimed that President Jagdeo never accepted any invitation to a debate among the presidential candidates. I don’t know how true that statement is, but I can tell you President Jagdeo had no need to accept invitations to debates because he was the one issuing debate challenges to Mr. Corbin and the PNC before the last election. Also Mr. Kissoon, the President did not stipulate the debates only deal with economics, he wanted social and economical issues to be addressed. Robert Persaud issued a statement saying, “The Office of the President has made it clear that the President of Guyana has no preconditions for the debate and is willing to publicly debate the Leader of the Opposition at any time, place and on any topic”. (Guyana Chronicle).
Mr. Kissoon also criticized the President for not engaging third parties in debates. It is quite mind-boggling why a political scientist would criticize the leading presidential candidate for not engaging third parties. Generally the two main parties engage in debates because they represent a vast majority of the people. If they don’t represent the vast majority they would not be the main parties.
I agree with Mr. Kissoon that GPL is responsible for a great part of technological progress in Guyana; however I must point out that it is hardly as simple as Mr. Kissoon stated also his references to technologies is outdated. There are many alternatives to GPL but there is no alternative to GTT when it comes to landline. Many private individuals and companies have alternatives to GPL power. The Guyanese government has issued commitment to the One Laptop project.
Mr. Kissoon wrote, “I close by asking President Jagdeo if it is bad reporting that has caused 80 percent of university trained Guyanese, as reported by the World Bank, to leave Guyana?” I can in no way answer for the President, but in my humble opinion it is unfair to make statements like that without any analysis of what is said, therefore no it is not bad reporting, but the way you did it is bad. Brain drain is not a problem unique to Guyana, all our Caribbean and South American sisters faces the same problem and the factors never depend upon any individual country. There is the country that suffers from brain drain and there is the country that succeeds off brain gain. There are also language barriers, ethnic security, historic alliances and experience to factor into the equation and this is only the beginning of the discussion. I am not running from the issue of brain drain in my next article I will address this topic.
It is time Freddie Kissoon to apologize to the Guyanese people for his blunders or else he would not be able to serve the people due to a lack in credibility.
Asif Mohamed
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