Guyana is now an institutionalized democracy

I notice Mr. Freddie Kissoon frequently reminds us in his diatribes of his activism against the Burnham and Hoyte dictatorships. 
There are many questions about how active he was, when he was.  I used to visit Rodney House regularly on Croal Street during my summer vacation every year.  The  office of the United Republican Party(URP) was right next door and the PPP,People’s Democratic Movement(PDM), and Democratic Labour Movement(DLM) offices were also nearby. I used to interact almost daily with activists from these and other parties.  I don’t think I ever met Freddie.  I also attended protests, marches and rallies and never saw Freddie.
Freddie writes as though he is the only one who fought the dictatorship.  So many others fought the dictatorship at home and overseas – too many to mention here – that I met in Guyana, Toronto, London, and the US.

I used to be on 14th Street (New York) every weekend with Dr. Baytoram Ramharack and Vassan Ramracha leafletting on Guyana.  There I would meet ACG activists, Arjune Karshan, his nephews, and others.  Dr. Prem Misir and Ravi Dev can attest to this claim.

We were very active in New York and teamed up with other groups (like DLM, URP, WPA, etc.) to lobby American politicians to put pressure on the dictatorship to democratize. 

We wrote Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Stephen Solarz, Elliott Engels, etc. to focus on Guyana and use their influence to pressure Hoyte to restore democratic rule. So Freddie should not behave as if he was the only one who fought Burnhamism.

And then Freddie tells us that this democratically elected government is a dictatorship worse than Burnhamism. 

I lived under Burnhamism when I had to line up for basic needs and had to hide and eat roti, alou, dhal, channa, etc  afraid of  being caught by the ‘food police’.  When the police came, people dumped all their bread in the latrines and in the river.

People could not express their opinion about the government even to their neighbours for the government had spies everywhere reporting on people’s activities.  

There can be no comparison with the democracy we enjoy today with the dictatorship of yesteryear.  Freddie has got it wrong.  The country is now an institutionalized democracy.  There are areas that need improvement in governance.  But that does not take away from its democratic credentials as compared with the era of authoritarian rule.

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