LINCOLN Lewis, the forever head of the Trade Union Congress and the forever head of Critchlow Labour College (35 years for each), has just published a whole-page letter in Kaieteur News (last Tuesday) titled “The greatest threat to any democracy in dishonesty.”
He accuses former President Donald Ramotar of distorting history, and, in trying to show that Ramotar did that, Lewis descended to abject, sickening levels of distortions that made Joseph Goebbels look like a schoolboy. Throughout this entire letter, Lewis demonstrates political dishonesty and presents a historical account of contemporary Guyanese history that relies on a misleading presentation of alternative facts.
The young Guyanese minds need to see the intellectual demolition of the dangerous propaganda of a certain mind-set. The more you expose these people, the more Guyanese are educated and they come to know the truth and don’t forget that wise saying – “know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Let’s free this nation of the political sarcoma of people like Lewis. I offer quotes from his sesquipedalian letter that is longer than the Essequibo River. Q is for quote. C is for my comment.
Q- “Young people especially must become discerning. Question everything. Examine history for yourselves. Do not allow political personalities to hand you convenient narratives while erasing facts that are inconvenient to their agenda.”
C- Who are these political personalities that Lewis is referring to? Guess which one Lewis is referring to- himself? Lewis uses the Trade Union Congress to push an agenda that is based on the very thing he mentions – the erasure of facts. It is this very man at a May Day rally in 2019 that tried to fool people by telling them that a no-confidence vote in Parliament should need more than 20 votes. The Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that based on the Guyana Constitution, a no-confidence vote requires a majority and out of 65 MPs, a majority is 33.
This is the same Lewis that requested President Granger in 2020 to cancel the legitimate results of the general elections. The president of Guyana has no such legal or constitutional power. This is the same Lewis that called upon the government to drop 20 murder charges against a teenager accused of burning down a dormitory.
Q- “Too many people today attempt to reduce every disagreement in Guyana to race.”
C- Who is one of the leading contenders for the crown of race-based discussion? Lewis himself. Hear are the words of Lewis in that very reply to Mr. Ramotar. “There continues to be a deliberate effort in this society to erase, minimise or diminish the contributions of Black people to the development of Guyana.” From a simple rejection of what Mr. Ramotar says, Lewis jumps on a racial bandwagon. The very man who hates people bringing in the ethnic factor in any discussion has done exactly that in his long-winded letter last Tuesday.
Q- “For Ramotar to suggest that the trade union movement was merely a British or CIA tool deployed against the PPP is false.”
C- For a man who is in his early eighties and has been around a long time in the trade union movement and in politics, Mr. Lewis is unfit to lead any trade union because he does not read. The role of the TUC in toppling the Jagan Government is so well documented that it is incredible incompetence for Lewis to say it is false. I will cite just a sample of the brilliant research made into books that document the violent and reactionary role of the TUC under Richard Ishmael. Here they are.
Colin Palmer, “Cheddi Jagan and the Politics of Power”; Clem Seecharran, “Cheddi Jagan and the Cold War, 1946-1992”; Maurice St. Pierre, “Anatomy of Resistance: Anti-colonialism in Guyana, 1823-1966”; Robert Manley, “Guyana Emergent: Post-Independent Struggle for Non-Dependent Development”; Jane Sillery, “Salvaging Democracy? The United States and Britain in British Guiana”; Clem Seecharran, “Sweetening Bitter Sugar: Jock Campbell, the Booker Reformer in British Guiana, 1934-1966.”
None of the authors listed here were/are pro-Jaganite or pro-PPP. In fact, one of the authors, Clem Seecharran, is definitely not a fan of Cheddi Jagan. What is unforgivable on the part of Lewis is that he is writing about the TUC strikes in the 1960s in 2026 when US Government documents of that period have been made public in which the TUC functionalism in the 1960s were funded by American interests to topple the Jagan Government. Space has run out, but there are many nasty, dishonest distortions of Lewis that need to be addressed. More later.
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.
