Dear editor,
READING Henry Jeffrey’s latest incursion into the bizarre, I came to the conclusion that even the best thinkers can make mistakes, and no, I’m not referring to Jeffrey as one of those.
I’m referring to Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s mistake of thinking that Jeffrey could have been a person who could be relied on to make an objective assessment of a political situation.
It took former President Jagdeo to psyche him out and found out that he was more talk and less action, in fact an armchair “intellectual,” which became clearly evident with the discredited positions he took during the discussions surrounding the European withdrawal of the sugar subsidies.

The article I refer to is titled “Mocha madness” in his Future Notes and printed in Village Voice.
Jeffrey’s contentions were obviously following in the closest way possible the footsteps of his handlers in the PNC.
His positions are so much more shocking when it is remembered that he was once the Minister of Housing and should have understood the illegality of squatting, and the undesirable effects it can have on the health and welfare of the squatters.

In the case of the Mocha squatters, their occupation was also, indisputably, in the way of one the major, massive infrastructural projects of the PPP government. It was also proven that way back, under a PNC government, this was brought to the squatters’ attention.
Jeffrey, like those of his ‘kith and kin,” attempted to inject the race factor, which is once again, becoming the clarion call of the PNC, when there is clearly, overwhelmingly and manifestly no evidence of such.

I strongly believe he did not exert any mental consideration to the painstaking efforts, over a considerably long time, to convince the squatters of the need for them to be relocated to places where they would become the legal owners of living and farming spaces.
Jeffrey should say what “available democratic means” were not “exhausted’ before the few politically influenced squatters had to be removed, as a last resort, in the true meaning of those words.
Jeffrey posits that “some” say that what happened at Mocha is the PNC “beating the ethnic drum,” but isn’t he doing exactly the same? He should give irrefutable evidence of the PPP “over the last 60 years playing the ethnic card,” not just spout words for the sake of “passing air.”

After agreeing with another racist characterization of Guyana by Vincent Alexander (and who really believes Alexander after the period March to July, 2020?) Jeffrey went on to further the racial nonsense concerning the delayed appointments of the two top judicial positions in the country. He claims that the “Opponents of the PPP have outwitted it in a fashion that allows the entire population to see it for the ethnic political arrangement it is.”
Whew! Now who gives Jeffrey the authority to speak for the “entire population?” I would ask Jeffrey if the “entire population,” not only of Guyana, but the entire Caribbean and even in other parts worldwide, did not learn a new lesson regarding “de new, modern mathematics” regarding the majority of 65 and I daresay other rulings, by some of the esteemed holders of judicial positions in Guyana?

I am sure that some spokesperson from the PPP can and would adequately respond to his unfounded and wicked conclusions that ethnic considerations are involved in these appointments “that can possibly remove it from office.”
Again, does he remember the litigation involving the No Confidence Motion passed in 2018 and which rulings helped the Coalition remain in office far beyond the constitutional requirements.
He then goes on to quote another apologist for the PNC, GHIJK somebody, the Wall Street know-it-all, and SN in another attempt to inject racism in the Guyana scene, using the recent budget and the awarding of contracts as his well-worn, rusty and useless tools.

My questions to Jeffrey are for him to say if the situation he quoted existed also during the 2015 to 2020 period, and has he checked if those same figures haven’t changed in favour of Afro Guyanese contractors and entrepreneurs, especially after August 2020?
I challenge him, if only as a political scientist, to be honest in this regard. Or would such honesty serve to alter your deliberate narrative?
In his closing salvo, in an obvious attempt, he “swung” at Bharrat Jagdeo, Donald Ramotar and now President Irfaan Ali, with his flawed assertion that the “PPP rule has been focused on political/ethnic domination……and has continued to stultify progress in Guyana”.

First of all, Jeffrey must be a one man show, not recognising progress in Guyana, during the PPP’s terms in office.
Secondly, I seem to remember Jeffrey being a minister from 1992 for more than a decade (I think up to at least around 2008, when I resigned as a minister).
He held a few portfolios, and my memory fails to recall him making these accusations, either in private or in public when he “bused” out the opposition to the PPP government and showered praises on the PPP.
Was he singing for his supper during those years?
One Guyana, Henry, One Guyana!
Encourage it, embrace it, enhance it. Eradicate racism….

Yours Sincerely,
Harry Nawbatt