WHAT is Freddie Kissoon up to now? He is refusing to admit and accept the fact that his opinions are worthless. He unsuccessfully tries to belittle President Bharrat Jagdeo and now he turns to the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan (among others). He is very incensed that the veritable and venerated Ian McDonald is giving deserved credit to the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan. I strongly suggest that Freddie Kissoon read and cogitate on the following.
Dr. Jagan was born on  March 22 1918, and passed away on March 6, 1997. This Guyanese politician was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana, serving from 1961 to 1964. Later, after the toppling of the PNC, he served as President of Guyana from 1992 to 1997.
In retrospect, Jagan’s precociousness is seen in the fact that he attended Queen’s College in Georgetown. So it was no surprise that he went on to higher education. He studied at the Howard University Dental School in Washington, D.C., and Northwestern University in Chicago before returning home in the early 1940s. So by age 32, he had peaked academically and professionally. And during these developing years, his political proclivity was well known.
In November 1947, Dr. Jagan was elected to the colonial legislative body, deemed the Legislative Council, as an independent candidate from the Central Demerara constituency. On January 1, 1950, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) was founded, with Jagan as its Leader, Forbes Burnham as its Chairman and Jagan’s wife Janet as its Secretary. People tend to forget that LFS Burnham was a protйgй of Dr. Jagan.
Dr. Jagan’s aura was of such force that he won in a colonially administered election in 1953. He was however removed from power militarily by Britain, which, under strong behind-the-scenes pressure from the United States and the CIA, asserted that he had ties to the Soviet Union. Jagan, therefore, resigned as British Guiana prime minister after just 133 days in office. But he was never daunted.
In 1961, the indomitable Dr. Jagan won a PPP victory and thus became Chief Minister for a second time, serving this time around for three years. In the December 1964 election, the PPP won a plurality of votes, but Burnham, having broken away from the PPP and having formed his own party, the People’s National Congress, combined with the United Force and formed the government. It was here that Guyana took a turn for the very worse.
Dr. Jagan’s resilience again came to the fore. He was active in the government as a labour activist and leader of the opposition. Then After 28 years in opposition, he and the PPP won the October 1992 elections with about 54% of the vote, and Jagan became President. The elections all leading up to 1992 were characterized by great obscurity, and Dr. Jagan never faltered in his commitment to ‘fair play.’ During his presidential tenure, there were revival of the union movement and a re-commitment to education and infrastructural improvement. In fact, it was the only time hope and optimism prevailed in Guyana
As a closing footnote, I must add that Dr. Jagan was also an important political author and speechwriter, and his publications include “Forbidden Freedom: The Story of British Guiana,1954, 1955,1994, 1998(Hansib)” “The West On Trial: My Fight for Guyana’s Freedom,1966, 1967, 1972, 1975,1980, 1997, 2004(Harpy)” “The Caribbean Revolution, 1979(out of print)” “The Caribbean Whose Backyard, 1984(out of print)” “Cheddi Jagan, Selected Speeches 1992-1994, 1995(Hansib)” “The USA in South America,1998(Hansib)” “A New Global Human Order, 1999, 2001(Harpy)” “Cheddi Jagan Selected Correspondences 1953-1965, 2004(Dido Press).
So what is Freddie Kissoon really saying? Even if he is trying his hand at comedy, he is a terrible caricature.  Dr. Jagan’s image and legacy are of universal proportions. Freddie Kissoon is too microscopic an individual to even comment on Dr. Jagan. If in his words, DR. Jagan is ‘flawed’, then Freddie Kissoon is an utter fool. But here is more.
In the words of Tim Hector, Dr Jagan was by far and away one of the most significant of individuals, and equally by far and away, one of the most amazing political figures, not just in the history of the Caribbean, but in the world.
Here are two excerpts, again from Tim Hector.
“Few men, anywhere in this great globe, have suffered more than Cheddi Jagan at the hands of the Great Powers, the United States, the United Kingdom, and I will surprise you, the Soviet Union, more than has Cheddi Jagan. He found the world, in East and West, arraigned against him, and yet he never wavered. Always soldiered on, he was a partisan of socialism Soviet style. He apologized for the Soviet Union even when it was unkind to him, and did not come to his rescue. Yet when the Soviet Union collapsed, Jagan did not collapse, his faith in “socialism” as he saw it and understood remained as firm as ever, even in the face of capitalist triumphalism.”

Now on a personal anecdote. I participated in a session in Guyana in a preliminary meeting for the Sixth Pan-African Congress. One of the young black leaders of the Caribbean, (who shall remain unnamed) taunted Cheddi Jagan to the point of ridicule, because he was going to contest the upcoming rigged elections. He was made out to be a fool, a Sisyphian fool, rolling a big stone up a huge hill knowing that the stone would roll down again. And he would have to start all over. Jagan took it. In the laughter aroused, no one bothered to answer Jagan’s question in rejoinder: What was the alternative?

(Tim Hector CHEDDI JAGAN: Modern Martyr and Exemplar of the New Caribbean
www.candw.ag/~jardinea/ffhtm/ff970311.htm – Cached11 Mar 1997)