I have just been looking at the online version of Guyana Chronicle newspaper (Saturday, September 26, 2009) and seen an article under the by line Sharief Khan which contains the following, among other statements:

“Father Darke, a photographer for the Catholic Standard newspaper, was murdered in broad daylight not far from the Brickdam Police Station during the Burnham era. Journalists like Rickey Singh, Hubert Williams, Ulric Mentis (sic) and others had to leave the country because Burnham saw the media as his nemesis and brooked no dissent. .”

In response to Mr. Khan’s assertions, I wish to share with your readers a note sent by me on Wednesday, May 27, 2009, to a Mr. Carl Lewis in Canada (copied to a few other persons). After Mr. Lewis read my article “Health and the Mystique of Forbes Burnham”, he had responded to me by e-mail expressing regret that Mr. Burnham had chased out/scared away so many of the country’s talented people, including me. My letter to him went thus:

“Hi, Carl: Thanks your response… Re your wonderment as to the reason for my leaving Guyana: It could be said that it was Burnham, though that would warrant explanation. Burnham’s outreach and influence over Montague Smith and Carl Blackman at a British-owned private enterprise facility caused me to delink from the Graphic and go fulltime as a freelance correspondent for Reuters, paid monthly according to work done. A decision to leave Guyana was not taken then.

Burnham’s administration had dealt with Archie Codrington (ceasing his radio broadcasts); dealt with Ulric Mentus (removal from Graphic); dealt with Rickey Singh (as a British import); and scared Radio Demerara into halting my “Analysis” broadcasts. Indeed, the letter sent Rafiq Khan and subsequently copied to me was over the signature of one who is now a legal luminary.

I felt the next step would have been my dismissal at the Graphic; so I moved first, set up at my home equipment for direct transmission/reception to/from London, and thus frustrated any attempt to stifle me through unemployment.

Indeed, a person of exalted status in the society was made so blinkered by ministerial power, and so besmirched his dignity, that he sent a letter all the way to London pleading a case for my dismissal as correspondent; to which they wrote him, copying it to me, that they found my work to be highly satisfactory and therefore had no reason to dispense with my services

However, there were two very serious considerations: Shridath Ramphal, and our children’s education.

We had always told the children that if they disciplined themselves, managed their time well and studied hard, we would see them through the best universities in the world; and Ramphal was to our home a sort of barometer – a principal source of stability within the government… so if Ramphal goes, we go.

Serious deterioration and Ramphal’s departure almost coincided. Church-run schools were taken over, including the Catholic-owned St. Stanislaus College (where Eugenie taught and Junior attended) and St. Rose’s High School (where Oneeka attended).

Standards began to fall, some teachers were hounded and others frustrated; the free text book scheme began to disintegrate; some teachers were leaving classes to moonlight as taxi-drivers or running from shop to shop, trying to beat shortages and make ends meet.

Ramphal left in 1975 to become the London-based Secretary General of the Commonwealth; and I was privileged to be at a Caribbean farewell for him at a place called Iron Shores on the Jamaica North Coast, and to hear the finest tribute I have ever heard delivered by a Caribbean speaker – politician and Shakespearean actor Paul Southwell. I think the great pity was that its presentation lived and died that night, for later inquiries could not ascertain that any radio or TV station, or the Caricom Secretariat, had recorded it.

In my own experience, its presentation matched in quality the amazing oration by then Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies for his friend Sir Winston Churchill. The only other orator in the Region that I had classed with Southwell was Rev. Roy Nehall, the then Secretary General of the Caribbean Conference of Churches, who, as people would say, had a voice out of this world.

So, to answer your question, we left because to stay would have meant failing to deliver on a promise to our children, of quality local preparation for high-quality international education, and also because the even-handedness (you might say moderating influence) of Shridath Ramphal in domestic politics was to be no more.

The Caribbean News Agency (CANA), headquartered in Barbados, succeeded to the Reuter service in the Region, hence I became a freelance employee of CANA in 1976, and was later offered a fulltime job in a very senior position at the Agency. Barbados was a politically stable democracy, relatively crime-free, and with a reputation for high-quality secondary schools. I became the agency’s first Chief Editor, at its headquarters in Barbados.

Thus, I moved by promotion within the same company from being freelance ‘stringer’ in Guyana to head of the Editorial Department in Barbados; and there would be some considerable distance from the truth were anyone to say that I was either chased out of or scared away from Guyana.

Hope that responds to the issues about which you wonder….”

Further, Mr. Editor, in the article to which I have referred, the writer, Mr. Sharief Khan, makes reference to CANA and states “Because he did not like my reporting for the then Caribbean News Agency, now the Caribbean Media Corporation, Burnham leaned heavily on the news agency to get rid of me as their Guyana correspondent and I bore the brunt of his attacks and even threats to my life.”

My recollection is not only different, it is correct. I was instrumental in effecting the termination of Mr. Khan’s services; and as to the substance which seemed to have been causing his mal-performance in what was the major centre of Caribbean news, it is generally referred to by many names, but never have I heard it called “Forbes Burnham”.