FREDDIE’s column on May 13 the, 2009, titled “Things About Guyana the Caribbean Commissioners should know” is an article that sought to not only embarrass the Government of Guyana but the people of Guyana. Freddie, in his obnoxious way, said that President’s Jagdeo’s address to the Police Commissioners was weak without any clarification of what was weak in the President’s address.

He then pounced on a statement made by Jamaica’s Prime Minister Golding during the signing of the EPA, that there is country in the Caribbean that is a panhandler. It goes around the world begging for resources and proclaiming how poor it is to attract aid. Mr. Golding intoned that he finds that unacceptable. Guyana was not mentioned by name. But the facts speak for themselves, Jamaica has received more foreign aid than Guyana. So, maybe the Jamaican Prime Minister was talking about his own country. However, Freddie in a leap of faith without facts, made the assumption that the statement was directed towards Guyana. Quote:” hold to the inflexible opinion and deeply-felt belief that Mr. Golding meant Guyana under President Jagdeo.” He attacked every statement in President Jagdeo’s address to the recent Association of Caribbean Police Commissioners’ Conference held in Georgetown, Guyana. He implied that the government is protecting drug smugglers in Guyana but did so without any trace of evidence.

The main aim of Freddie’s article is to malign his own country in front of total strangers, embarrass the people and government of Guyana, and in the course of doing so, shows his unpatriotic and utter disrespect for the country that gave him birth. But Freddie should be proud that he lives in a country that gives him the freedom to spew venom, distorted facts and propagate unproven theory. This is the same man that time and again used the oxymoron term of elected dictatorship to describe the political situation in Guyana. Under the Burnham regime, Freddie would not have gotten away with the poison pen that he now so loosely used to attack the current government.
IQBAL EMAMUDEEN
New Jersey, USA.