DR. NIGEL Westmass, leading member of the group, Overseas Friends of the WPA, has cited my activism in his debate with presidential advisor, Dr. Randolph Persaud. He wanted Dr. Persaud to know in my long years of activism, I was critical of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C).

When one’s work is used for reasons of opportunism and racism, then, one has to be both angry and emphatic. Just the mere mention of my name by Westmaas is anathema to me.
I once knew Westmaas when we struggled against the Burnham dictatorship. Since then, as a quintessential member of the Mulatto/Creole class, Westmaas has changed the complexion of his politics in ways I will always reject in humans.
The work of mine that Westmaas found convenient to cite was part of who I always was. I am deeply committed to two dimensions of struggle – elevation of the poor and multiracial unity. Westmaas is the opposite to who I am, the essence of me, so I resent the mere mention of my name by him.

I grew up in dirt poverty in the south Georgetown ward of Wortmanville. I know what the pangs of poverty look like. I dedicated myself that once I come out of poverty, all my dreams and energies will be dedicated to the protection and elevation of poor people. I have not even for an ephemeral moment shirked from that passion.
Four of my siblings married African Guyanese. My education was provided for by a Portuguese Jehovah Witness. I never even had a moment of reflection about the ethnic make-up of human beings. This is an achievement Westmass will never match in a lifetime. Therefore, I am angry at the use of my name by people like Westmaas.

In the March 2020 election, I voted for an Amerindian man, Lenox Shuman, who headed an Amerindian Party. After March 2, when the election process was assaulted by barefaced riggers, I stood up to defend the right of people to vote and I confronted attempts to reintroduce the ugliness of permanent power in Guyana from March to July in 2020.
I didn’t care who won the March 2020 election once freedom to vote for a government was respected and the right to have that vote legally counted was accepted. This did not happen after March 2020. Race was not the impulse that drove me from March to July in 2020. It was about safeguarding rights, liberties, justice, and democracy.

I lived in a country where I saw an election was lost by the incumbent in 2011 and 2015. I refused to be immobilised by the hands of the incumbent in 2020 to achieve permanent power.
For people like Westmaas, race motivates their very being. I saw an interview with Westmaas last week and I can only think of how sad, tragic and flawed is Homo sapiens. A so-called pastor sharing a platform with Westmaas told his interviewer that he cannot be happy on Independence 2023 because he saw how for five months, March to July in 2020, neocolonialists invaded Guyana.
The so-called pastor was justifying the horror show that went on during that period. When it was time for Westmaas to speak, he told his viewers that he shares the sentiments of the so-called preacher. And why did Westmaas do that?

Because people like Westmaas wanted a winner of the 2020 national election based on the factor of race. When Westmaas, ethnic party lost, the resort was to rigging. Westmaas calls five months of election rigging, five months of neocolonial invasion of Guyana.
I was very close to Westmaas in the 1970s and 1980s. I do not want ever again to see or talk to people like Westmaas and those of his ilk, like Moses Bhagwan. I was very close to Bhagwan as a young man. Then in March 2020, Bhagwan embodied the very sentiments of Westmaas about permanent power.

I so disliked Bhagwan for what he has become. I gave the book he sent me about his family to my friend, Michael Khan, former CEO of the Georgetown Hospital. I don’t ever want to remember, the name – Moses Bhagwan. I will ask Mike Khan to return the book so I can burn it. No apologies!
This is the passion and emotion of dislike, bordering on hate that I have for people like Westmaas and Bhagwan. To think for over two decades these two men and others like Eusi Kwayana and I share a bond of multi-racial friendship steeped in the river of dreams where the liberation and fulfillment of the lives of the poor and powerless would be a reality. I end with Shakespeare;
“Oh, judgement
Thou art fled to brutish beasts
And men have lost their reason”