THERE is an expatriate Guyanese who writes frequent letters to the Stabroek News by the name of Leyland Rooplall, whose occupation I have been told is a salesman for smoke alarms. I have been told that Mr Rooplall belongs to Vishnu Bisram’s party, G-America, which opted out of contesting the 2025 elections.

These expatriate Guyanese are not familiar with the contours of Guyana’s politics, sociology, and political economy, but they write from their distant cocoons and instead of analyses, Guyanese readers get ignorance. Below is a graphic example of the ignorance of these people long gone from these shores.

Their ignorance has no limit. I will offer one example of ignorance from distant Germany then to go to ignorance from New York in the form of Leyland Rooplall. A man name Andre Brandli who is German, but says he has Guyanese blood published a letter in 2020 in which he said that 98 per cent of the electorate voted.

The official GECOM statistics, not contradicted by any political party, was that the voter turnout was 71 per cent. In 2020, the electoral roll had 660, 998 electors. In the election of March of that year 468, 184 persons voted. If 98 per cent of a list of 660, 998 persons voted, then actual ballots were 647, 778. If voting numbers were 468, 184, then where are the missing 179, 594 ballots?

This ignorant man is saying that almost 180, 000 votes cannot be accounted for, a fiction that not one political party has endorsed. The esoteric part of this story is where those votes are. Brandli was barefaced in not apologising and since November 2022, has been writing frequent letters in the newspapers in which the most bizarre fictions come from his pen, including oil profits.

Now for the example from Rooplall. I quote from his letter in the July 12th edition of Stabroek News, in which he defends the malignancy of Christopher Ram’s comparison of the Guyanese reaction to Azruddin Mohamed with Walter Rodney. Here is a quote from Rooplall that is unadulterated ignorance: “Chris Ram and Kit Nascimento were the top two letter writers who attacked the PNC almost daily for their attempts to steal that election. A third was Alan Fenty in his ‘Frankly speaking’ column.”

Mr Fenty did a weekly column during the five-month elections disaster in 2020. Assuming that all his weekly columns for that period were a denunciation of the election rigging, then, the total would be 20 pieces. During the identical period I produced a daily column in which all commentaries were devoted to the elections disaster. My offering then would have been 153 pieces because March, May and July carry 31 days. I don’t know how many newspaper letters Mr Christopher Ram and Mr Kit Nascimento published in that five-month period, but I produced 153 columns on election-rigging from March to July. Yet Mr Rooplall missed 153 articles.
He didn’t miss them. He deliberately overlooked them because he was the subject of one or two of my columns in the past. So, Freddie Kissoon did not exist for him. It is the same with the newspaper that Rooplall sends his missive to – Stabroek News. I don’t exist for this newspaper. Any letter writer who mentions my name, that part is edited out. Any online comment attached to the newspaper that mentions my name is taken out.

This is the very newspaper that condemns the Government of Guyana daily for not being principled in its exercise of state power. I chose to make Rooplall and SN the subject of this column, so I could bring out the danger of people like Rooplall and those who manage the SN. If these people get into power, what would governance be like?

What credibility does Rooplall have when his petty mind has no counterpart in the Government of Guyana? Should Guyanese read the criticisms of Rooplall against the Government of Guyana when his mind is far smaller than anyone in the Government of Guyana? Should this nation pay any attention to the SN about good governance when SN has destroyed the sacred foundations of professional journalism?

What moral authority does SN have to tell the Guyanese people that ministers of the government do not practise inclusive governance when this same newspaper refuses to print anything that mentions the name, Freddie Kissoon. I selected Rooplall and SN because I think I have a duty to inform Guyanese about the dark, dangerous minds out there that want us to think that the people who administer Guyana are bad people.

I hope this column here shows who have sick minds.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.