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At that time I was young, black, at 25 years and physically and mentally involved in politics and my country.
I was a member of the United Force Youth Arm and the Guyana United Youth Society and can boast of not being another Guyanese at the National Park but can boast of being physically involved in our fight for independence.
It was not easy. We had the British soldiers here. They were the Argyles, they were the Worchester Regiment and the British Fugitives and the Scottish Regiment whose members are required to wear the skirts and blow the bag pipes.
It was not only Cheddi and ODO that embraced, but those of us in the youth arm of the political parties, the PPP’s PYO, the PNCYO and the United Forces’s GUYS. Also there were Clement Rohee, Joey Gibbs, Harold Snagg, Shirley Edwards, Salima representing PYO; Robert Corbin, Qukie Hinds from the PNCYO and Morris Hendy, Billy Haynes, Fayzaul Khan and Abraham Hamilton, Compton Young, Errol Alphonso and myself Slugger FR. We can now say that we all felt proud in our involvement in the fight for statehood.
How many of us know that although Cheddi was robbed at our pre-independence election on the night Wednesday May 26, 1966 he had achieved the biggest and most valuable and proud achievement which was ‘dissing the Colonialist’.
He will always be the Father of the Nation of Guyana. He was there and still is. I do not see race, I see issues and do not tell me your hogwash of going against your own ‘my own is my conscience.’ To Cheddi the achievement of independence was more than being the Premier or Prime Minister at that time. He was not just an unusual politician; he was the greatest statesman Guyana has ever had.
It was that persons without self-esteem always seek power towards themselves. Its desire was so in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and the 90s. And I am still here – Cheddi Jagan was an exceptional man.
I was there in 1963 when the British soldiers shot Mr. Hyder Khan on Regent Street, opposite the gas station at Kawall Drugs Store and Janet Jagan left Freedom House and came to that scene and said very loudly you bastards are killing my people.
The white soldiers seemed to have wanted to arrest her though they had their long guns ‘cocked’, we the political activists from all parties turned in our lines and took her back to Freedom House.
Independence was not given to us, I must know, I was there, I was involved. After all the sacrificing and suffering that we made, today, the politicians are fighting for ‘turf’. The opposition is cutting up all and sundry. Do we the people gain? No. The only people that gain from ‘cuts’ are the 33 opposition clique.
After all I have been through during my 56 years of political activism; I have nothing to be afraid of. To you Mr. Clifford Reis, I was the bodyguard of Mr. Peter D’ Aguiar, founder of your company, Banks DIH and saved his life on two occasions, once in Perth, Mahaicony and Ruimveldt. You can ask Kit Nascimento. I have never asked for anything from my party or founder leader of the United Force (we will rise again). Believe me, my sight is going and as a roadman “a gon die with me boots on.”
Let us hug and embrace each other and forget about our differences, Guyana comes first!
