Dear Editor,
I NOTE with some surprise a lengthy letter by one, Mr. Christopher ‘Kit’ Nascimento last week, which assailed one of our few elders and respected smtatesman, Mr. Hamilton Green.

I am a regular reader of the Opinion and Letter Columns of the media and I checked that there were two direct references made to Mr. Nascimento by Mr. Green. The first was a letter last year referring to Portuguese Arrival Day in which Mr. Green mentioned Mr. Nascimento as one of the Portuguese who deserved to be honoured and the other referred to statements by Mr. Nascimento.

In that statement at an emergency press conference, Mr. Nascimento said and I quote “ “In all my considerable life and career, in and out of politics in this country, I have never seen such a bare-faced, ugly and deliberate attempt to rig an election.”
But yet in his response, he said ‘I have not said that.” The calypsonian Lord Nelson said “You hear lie, That is lie.” Later, Mr. Green’s letter noted “My friend Kit, has been in the political hustings for nearly as long as I have and should know that you don’t make statements of that kind without credible evidence.” Mr. Nascimento ought not be so ‘thin-skinned.’ The old people say’ nobody hears the first bell.’

Mr. Nascimento, as an observer on Election Day was quite out of order, without credible evidence, referring to the 2020 Elections has being rigged – this is strong language.
In his letter, Nascimento extols the many great things he did, including an unfortunate and inaccurate reference to Mr. Green’s first wife, the Late Shirley Field-Ridley.
As a youngster, I came to know both Messrs. Nascimento and Green. In Nascimento’s letter, he referred to the several assignments and tasks he carried out under the PNC Administration.

He wrote “ I was a good Guyanese Portuguese.”
Human history is filled with examples, where persons shift their loyalties, sometimes by the attraction of money. The best known, of course, Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, but shifted gear for whatever reason. Mr. Kit should put that Bible story in his pipe and smoke it.”

In other letters, I read by several citizens, one cannot help gaining the perception that we are facing, a form of racism by what one Leader referred to that group (the Putagee Mafia).
Gerry Gouveia making the Public Sector Commission, the mouthpiece of the PPP, then you have Tony Vieira, saying that the PPP supporters control the rice and sugar industries, dominate the commercial sector and is calling upon them to ‘down’ tools.
Bravo Tony Vieira.

During the war and during the crisis of the 60s, these same sentiments were expressed and attempts to ‘down’ tools were made. Those who Tony Vieira and his kith and kin seek to punish must remember the resilience of that group who survived the brutality of slavery, the discrimination by the plantocracy and certain Immigrants. That group, Dear Mr. Vieira, will not disappear that easily. Close your businesses (Private Sector Commission), stop growing rice and sugar.

Be assured we will survive on the produce of our backlands, fruits, vegetables, ground provisions, fishing and rearing of poultry and animals. The slave masters and their lineal descendants discovered, the group that the Gouveias, the Vieiras, the Nascimentos, and Brian Mc Kintosh, now seek to punish are strong and resilient.

I was delighted when an ordinary man who appeared to be Indo or mixed, gave back the box of food to Mc Kintosh, who clearly wanted to see this food handout as a PPP operation.
The expletive we heard from Mc Kintosh on Face Book is of course another sad moment to Guyana. As a youngster, I know of instances, where Mr. Green would take UHT Milk and other foodstuff to communities by helicopter. I’ve seen this man distribute sports equipment to groups of young men and women, members of the security forces, not once walking with camera crews, and seeking publicity unlike Mc Kintosh and his acolytes. In an earlier letter I read Mr. Green’s appeal to ‘mend and not rend’ and to avoid provocative language.
End of story.
Regards
Eric Moseley