Dear Editor
CHARRANDASS Persaud, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, PPP member Peter Ramsaroop and others have been exuding confidence, if not arrogance, since the unconstitutional no-confidence vote in Parliament on December 21, 2018. They believe that their attempted overthrow of the APNU+AFC coalition government will force a snap election which they presume they can win. But they may be mistaken.

The no-confidence vote appears to embody four significant breaches of the law and is unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Additionally, the alleged bribery of Charrandass Persaud, which is currently under police investigation, and other seemingly treasonous manoeuvrings, have angered and energised coalition government supporters and many other fair-minded, patriotic Guyanese of all races and ethnicities.

Police Commissioner Leslie James disclosed on January 10, 2019, that the investigation of Charrandass Persaud is a matter of national security. Bribery of a public official is not a national security matter. Consequently, the police commissioner’s disclosure may be an indication of an all-encompassing treason investigation. The alleged conspirators appear to be discombobulated. They have been making incredulous, mendacious and contradictory public statements. This is fodder for methodical and meticulous criminal investigators.

PPP member Peter Ramsaroop, who accompanied Charrandass Persaud to the Ogle Airpirt to make good his escape, is now denying prior knowledge of Persaud’s plan to vote with the PPP against the government. He made this claim in an interview published in the Stabroek News on January 10, 2019. However, his denial is a blatant contradiction from what Charrandass Persaud himself admitted in an interview with the Kaieteur News on January 3, 2019. Persaud unmistakably and unequivocally stated that the only person he told prior to the vote and confided in was “Peter Ramsaroop.” Who then is the prevaricating liar?

A Stabroek News report on January 10, 2019, said that “Insisting that he did not know beforehand that Charrandass Persaud would defect and vote for the opposition’s no-confidence motion against the government, PPP member Peter Ramsaroop yesterday said that he agreed to facilitate the former MP’s safe exit from the country because of their close friendship.” “Charrandass is my friend and I didn’t even know if he was going to vote yes or not. He just said to me `if I decide to vote…would you help me with security’ and I said `absolutely yes…”

The Kaieteur News reported on January, 3, 2019, that “According to the former MP, he had confided in the PPP adviser Peter Ramsaroop. “Peter Ramsarroop? He had a political party and I knew the man as a friend and nothing more than that. His affiliation now to the PPP has nothing to do with me. I did tell him because I knew of his military background that I could use some help, that I am worried.

That stage, I had already decided that I will not support this government any longer.” The talks with Ramsaroop began a few days before the December 21 vote. “I said if this thing goes down this way, and I support it, I don’t think I will be able to get out of Parliament alive. I knew the man’s military capabilities. When I told him that, I said…look if I vote in favour of the motion, I think they will kill me. I am asking if you can help me out. The next day, he came to me and said, ‘I can help you out.’ And then we started working on what to do and how to do on how to get out of Parliament that night.” The Guyanese people and Guyana Police investigators are to determine who is the lying miscreant and, what is the truth.

But there’s a second crime that may constitute treason. Charrandass Persaud, an attorney at law, in his signed oath to be a candidate for elections in the 2015 election, denied under penalty of felony that he had pleaded allegiance to a foreign power and was a citizen of a foreign country. This was a lie. He is a Canadian citizen who betrayed Guyana; like his co-conspirators, he is a perfidious coward!

Under Bharrat Jagdeo’s PPP racist regime, journalist Mark Benschop was summarily arrested, charged and imprisoned for five years without a trial for treason. All he did was criticise Jagdeo. For this, he spent five years in solitary confinement in prison. Now, in 2019, there is alleged prima facie evidence of high treason in the Charrandass Persaud matter. Guyanese are watching how the police conduct its investigation of this conspiracy to overthrow the coalition government.

Regards
Rickford Burke