EXECUTIVE Director of the Caribbean Press and Guyana’s Ambassador to China, Professor David Dabydeen, has denied claims of an academic boycott of the first volume of the published parliamentary speeches of the late President Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham.

He was at the time responding to media reports that for the second time in two days the handing over of Burnham’s parliamentary speeches was called off because of his  “no-show”.
Speaking to the Government Information Agency (GINA), Professor Dabydeen clarified that the Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs makes his appointments while he is in Guyana, and they made the engagement for him to present Volume One of Mr Burnham’s speeches.
“Although the PNC are subject to international academic boycott over the death of Walter Rodney, my absence from Parliament was entirely due to the fact that I was not informed of a meeting taking place. I was not engaging in academic boycott, it was a miscommunication among Parliament, myself and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Professor Dabydeen explained.
A meeting was scheduled with Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman on Thursday, July 11, for  13:00hrs he said, however upon checking his e-mails at 12:15pm on Thursday, he then was made aware that the handing over was changed to 11:00hrs. Immediately after he phoned Trotman to apologise and offered to do the meeting anytime on Friday, July 12.
However, on Friday, at about 16:15hrs, he received a phone call from Parliament office saying he was expected to be there at 14:00hrs. At that time it was too late and he couldn’t have made it.