Dear Editor,
I REFER to Peeping Tom’s column on Friday, April 27, 2018, which was published in Kaieteur News under the caption, “Cheddi did not capitulate”. Readers were told that this is the first in a planned series of articles written to mark the centenary of the birth of the late President Cheddi Jagan.

While I believe that the “Peeper” should be congratulated on his initiative to propagate a “glorious” position for Dr. Jagan who is one of the founding fathers of the nation, I am disappointed that in his attempt to rewrite history and pay homage to the memory of the late President, he has deliberately misrepresented facts on an important political development in Guyana at that time and in the process, sought to denigrate the WPA.
It is not my intention here to offer a detailed criticism of Peeping Tom’s contention that Cheddi Jagan did not capitulate and remained committed to his philosophy of Marxism-Leninism until his death. Unlike Tom, I am conscious that in politics, belief and practice do not always coincide, therefore, it makes more sense not to spend time on whether Jagan died without capitulating on his philosophy. It is a well-known fact that some renowned non-believers, in their final moments before departing the world, have declared their acceptance of God. The ‘peeper’, at the time of Jagan’s passing, wasn’t there and is not now in any position to know the philosophical choice Jagan had made at that critical moment. The more important point for the “peeper” to dwell on is that of Jagan’s political practice, which could be judged with more objectivity.

While correctly alluding to the new situation in the world which was ushered in by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and its effects on Guyana’s political situation, which Jagan and all the political forces in the country at the time were cognizant of, we are reminded that Jagan, when pressed by President Hoyte in the election debate about his ideology, ‘dodged the question’. A more objective political analyst would have examined this issue to determine the reason for this act of political opportunism by Dr. Jagan. The “peeper” seemed to have forgotten, conveniently, that months prior to the debate, Dr. Jagan had a meeting with the US State Department and struck a deal with his historic American foe, which may have required him to renounce Marxism-Leninism, thereby paving the way for their support of him in the 1992 elections. This, I am contending here, was the real reason behind Jagan’s dodging of Hoyte’s question about his ideology.

The details of the State Department meeting and what was agreed was never made public by either Jagan or the Americans. However, I can state, as I had done on many previous occasions in public polemics on the PCD, that Jagan in his briefing at the PCD’s steering committee meeting subsequent to his visit to the US State Department, reported that he was well received and that the Americans informed him that they had no problems with he (Jagan) and his party. Jagan’s mannerism while making the report, with his many uncontrollable smiles – said it all – he had made his peace with the Americans. Peeping Tom wants us to believe that Jagan had arrived at his new accommodation with his traditional foe without the State Department extracting a price from him. As I said earlier in this letter, practice is more important than rhetoric.

I wonder how the ‘peeper’ would interpret Jagan’s behaviour post his US State Department sojourn when it is known that prior to his meeting with the State Department, he had placed great importance on the steering meetings of the PCD and attended most, if not all, in that period. However, after reporting on his successful meeting with the US officials, he “never” attended another meeting of the steering committee. It is in the secret meeting with the State Department that Jagan capitulated politically and probably ideologically. I said before and I maintain that it is Jagan’s capitulation to his traditional enemy which explains his dodging of Hoyte’s pointed question on his ideological position during the debate.

I note with interest that in the eyes of the ‘peeper’, Jagan’s and the PPP’s adjustment of their politics and rhetoric, must, in light of the end of the cold war, be seen as real politic – not capitulation. But the WPA’s position after the US invasion of Grenada, in the view of Tom, represented an act of capitulation and betrayal. I end by asking Peeping Tom for the evidence to support his erroneous contention that the WPA abandoned left politics.

Regards
Tacuma Ogunseye