Dear Editor,
Scanning the letter columns, I came across a response by Dr. Randy Persaud to Dr. Henry Jeffrey (published in SN on 27/11/2023) which piqued my interest.
My immediate thought was, what was Henry up to this time? Interestingly, Henry’s attempt to falsify history, was appropriately started as “Kaieteur Sports”.
Is Henry doubting that it was indeed shameful for his leader Forbes Burnham to be an agent of the CIA? I endorse these opinions of many, nationally and internationally, and I’m guessing that he has also done so in his past. Very many instances have been proffered, to support that he was, and burying one’s head in the proverbial sand, wouldn’t change this fact.
Henry goes on to display his warped “spin” of the PPP’s ideology “rooted in ethnic demonization of Burnham, the PNC and the African people”, without a single shred of evidence to support this, HIS mischievous view.

Henry, playing to his clique and sponsors, has shamelessly exposed himself by suggesting that the “PPP should bear the heavier portion for the dysfunctional historical condition of Guyana” including of all things “chronic elections manipulation”.
This caused me to wonder if Henry was writing his distortions while sucking a beer at GT Club, or one of his other “water holes”, imbibing his “cool aid” since such an assertion can only come from someone who is not fully sober.

In fact, Henry is becoming so increasingly erratic and irrelevant in his aimless wanderings , that one is left with the conclusion that he wanted “de minista wuk” so bad that he was willing (to suck up as we say in Guyana) to sacrifice his conscience on the altar of silence about his positions on the PPP’s newly discovered “theories on elections manipulation, the Guyana/Venezuela border problem” (thrown into the cocktail mix) and “the entrenchment of racial/ethnic politics” the once again resurrected “bogeyman”, while he was a member of the Government.
According to Henry, Dr. Jagan’s communism and anti -African racism is responsible for everything negative that has happened to Guyana. It was all Jagan’s fault, and everything the so-called dictator Burnham did was justified.

Yet, he joined the PPP/C government, in which he spent more than a decade and closed his eyes, shut his mouth and clamped his ears to the twin evils of “communism and anti-African racism” and to his latest concoction of “electoral manipulation”.
One wonders why Henry continued to serve in THREE important ministries, until I think NOT re-appointed, with the abhorrent views he held (and obviously still has) of the PPP and its leadership!!

Opportunism? Dream on, Henry. Your nightmares may eventually have a “sobering effect”.
He’s urged to spend some of his spare time to re-read the West on Trial and Jane L. Sillery’s book, “Salvaging Democracy?” which was done as her doctoral thesis on the roles played by the Unites States & Britain in British Guiana during the period 1961-1964. I’m sure he would then be able to expound in a more realistic and honest manner to the occurrences and events leading to the split in the PPP, and Burnham’s ambitions which were responsible for the genesis of the split in the ranks of the working people of Guyana, which is painstakingly and continuously being addressed by the PPP.

It amazes me to comprehend how Henry can, in all seriousness, allege that elections rigging from the 60’s to 1985, and ignominiously attempted in a burst of desperation in 2020, for the ENTIRE world to pronounce upon, MUST not be placed entirely in the domain of his Party, the PNC; dishonesty in this regard is resounding.
Were Henry to be honest, and I know his memory serves him well (selectively?) he should admit that Dr. Jagan and the PPP, on many occasions, invited Burnham to share in the governments of the the PPP, in the interest of national unity.

As early as both before and after the 1957 elections, Jagan proposed shared government and even offered a 50/50 sharing of ministries. Similar offers of varying types were put to Burnham, before the Independence talks, during the instigated riots and mayhem of the 60’s, and in 1977, a proposal to have the Party with the greater votes holding the Presidency and the One with the second highest votes having the Prime Ministership.
Burnham rejected all, claiming at one time that the PPP didn’t have “qualified” persons as the reason for these proposals. On the other hand, Burnham, NEVER proposed any form of power sharing, and I challenge Henry, to prove otherwise.

Interestingly, Dr. Sillery’s book, through rigorous and intensive research, pointed out that Duncan Sandys, the British Foreign Secretary, TOLD (instructed?) Burnham, before Independence was granted, NOT to accept any of Jagan’s offers.
His references to a secret letter sent to the Czechoslovak Communist Party, is so ridiculous that it’s not even worth a comment, especially after his assertion that the letter “has been responsible for all of the above ills”.
In my opinion, his last sentence attempts to justify his involvement with a Jagan’s led government, which continued after the passing of the Jagans, but he should be reminded that one’s past lives after him.
Regards,
Harry N Nawbatt