BROOKLYN-BASED Rickford Burke, in a letter published in the Kaieteur News on February 25, made comments about former President Mrs. Janet Jagan and Prime Minister Sam Hinds that are totally inaccurate and made up events that never happened, to tar the PPP as a racist party.He claimed: “The PPP eviscerated [removed] President Sam Hinds” following the untimely death of Dr. Jagan in March 1997. That is incorrect, as President Hinds served out Dr. Jagan’s term from February through December of that year. Burke must be suffering from amnesia and no doubt has racialism as an undercurrent in his thought process. Why else would he focus on race when it was not a factor in Hinds’s succession as President and when the PPP never removed Hinds as President?

Burke wrote, “The PPP forced President Sam Hinds to resign and make Prime Minister Janet Jagan succeed him”. Such an act never occurred and raises a question about the motif of inventing information and injecting “race” as the reason for the PPP engaging in [an] act that never occurred. As a historian, I cannot let that statement go uncorrected. The facts would reveal that after Dr. Jagan suffered a massive heart attack in February 1997, he was airlifted to Washington for medical treatment with Mrs. Janet Jagan by his side. Then Prime Minister Hinds acted as President. I believe Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud was appointed Acting P.M. (stand to be corrected). Following the death of Dr. Jagan, Hinds was sworn in as President. Following the funeral of Dr. Jagan, Janet was appointed Prime Minister by Hinds. Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud (who was Agriculture Minister) was appointed Deputy Prime Minister; he may also have acted as PM during the period that Dr. Jagan was hospitalised (stand to be corrected). Hinds was never asked to resign from the presidency and Mrs. Janet Jagan did not replace him. President Hinds visited the US as President and spoke at the UN in September, as well as addressed gatherings in Brooklyn and Queens; my recollection was Burke was present at the Brooklyn meet. I wrote on that visit as a reporter for publications in Guyana and North America. Mrs. Jagan became the PPP’s presidential candidate with Hinds as the prime ministerial candidate in elections in December. Janet was sworn in as President after the party won with Hinds as P.M.
A medium has an obligation to state facts and to review and edit (delete) letter comments, especially from writers who have an axe to grind, that are not factual. Clearly, Burke’s comments were not in the remit of facts. As a lawyer, he ought to know better and not manufacture information, a la the Freddie Kissoonian method. The paper’s editor and the writer ought to verify claims before putting them out in the public domain. Burke wrote of “PPP’s concealed racism” in describing a non-act he used to tar the PPP. Since the event never happened, there could not be any racism there, and by extension the PPP could not be a racist party.
The same cannot be said of Burke’s party (he proudly said he was advisor to Hoyte) that discriminated against Indians, and that refused to put an Indian as a prime ministerial candidate under Burnham and Hoyte. At least, the PPP put an African as its prime ministerial candidate in every election since 1992.
In manufacturing information and peddling them as facts, is Burke not guilty of racism? And why would a person denigrate the appointment of a brilliant African-Guyanese female like Elisabeth Harper as a prime ministerial candidate by the PPP, albeit a largely Indian party, as the country strives to overcome race-based politics?

Every effort at multi-racial politics should be welcomed rather than be viewed through the prism of race. Burke owes the nation an apology for penning a falsehood and spreading a racist agenda.

VISHNU BISRAM