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Kaieteur News
Friday September 18, 2015
== THE FREDDIE KISSOON COLUMN ==
Why was Jagdeo at Oasis Café and not at the Marriott? On Wednesday midday, I went into the Oasis Café to collect a document from an expatriate Guyanese. Huddled together at a table were former President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, Odinga Lumumba and Manniram Prashad. I had to pass that infamous space to get to my friend. As I strolled past, Manniram Prashad did say hello. I cannot remember if I replied. If I didn’t then if Prashad is reading this, he has an apology. My friend offered lunch. I declined, and indicated I was leaving. He accompanied me to the door and as we were about to push the exit, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine’s best friend, Deo Persaud, joined us outside. Three top level former leaders in the past PPP
Government that created the Marriott Hotel were having lunch and drinks at a pretty expensive outfit in Georgetown. Why not the Marriott? The Marriott was Jagdeo’s baby. It has to receive patronage if it is going to pay its utility bills, pay staff and make a profit. Deep moral obligation dictates that Jagdeo should take his patronage to Marriott. Now really, if Jagdeo cannot support Marriott why should other Guyanese? Jagdeo was speaking in a very low tone. Maybe he needed the privacy but if he did why was he at the Oasis Café. Because of its incommodious nature, the Oasis is the last place one would go to discuss sensitive things. Anyone who has been to the Oasis would know it is
too small a diner to even whisper without the echo carrying to other tables. I was once in the Oasis and I heard a prominent female Guyanese whisper to another female that she wants to marry her and everybody in the café turned around and looked at them. Even though they were at the same table, she should have taken out her smart phone and text the proposal because even a whisper will reverberate in the Oasis. Which reminds me that I cannot understand why Jagdeo is never seen at any public place with a multigender grouping. When I was talking to my friend, I kept looking at the Jagdeo table. Jagdeo has lost weight and lacks that buoyant, aggressive visage he always wore when he was
the leader of the Guyanese Indian hegemony. Jagdeo doesn’t look like the person we saw in Guyana from 1999 to May 2015 when he was King Jagdeo. Somehow he looked a man with lots of burden on his shoulder. Strangely, his stance was a bent one. While Prashad and Odinga sat upright, Jagdeo’s face was close to the table as if he didn’t want to be noticed. But that is understandable. If Burnham had lost power, I doubt he would have wanted to be seen in public. People would have stared in his direction saying look how the powerful Burnham had become ordinary. That thought flew into my mind when I saw Jagdeo in the Oasis Café. Reminds me of Sam Hinds. I have never seen that man in public without seven personal attendants when he was the Prime Minister. It was a weird, crazy situation. I walked out of Kaieteur News offices onto
the pavement on Saffon Street and passing in his joggers were PM Hinds and seven attendants walking behind him. I am driving south on High Street in Kingston and there was PM Hinds in his joggers on the pavement and seven attendants behind him. At 8 pm I am with my wife outside Dr. Fawcett Jeffrey’s clinic at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, waiting for her name to be called. Suddenly in comes PM Hinds with his seven- man entourage. I once asked the question in a previous column if the PPP lost power would PM Hinds become a character in a Tennessee Williams play. Where is Robert Persaud? He has fallen too. But his crazy antics will always find a line in any book on the reign of Jagdeo. There was a time when both Jagdeo and PM Hinds were out of the country. Rohee acted as President and Persaud as Prime Minister. Persaud, according to this
Frederick Kissoon very newspaper, used the siren in his security patrol while driving down a pasture road in a deserted country enclave. I wonder if Persaud takes the subway in the US. It must be a hard fall to take – no one will look in his direction. I glanced at Jagdeo as I was leaving and I remember when he was President he told striking air traffic controllers that if they had picketed him when he deplaned at the Timehri airport, he would have fired them. I guess he still can – but in his mind only.
Dem boys seh...
Jagdeo gun lose he visa Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, had the title Mahatma bestowed on him. Mahatma means Great Soul. He made a lot of people follow his teachings. One of dem was Martin Luther King of America. De same way how Gandhi free India, King free black America. Well this is de Gandhi that seh, “Corruption is like a disease. It eats away at the foundation of people’s faith in government.” He seh it also undermines de stability of countries. Dem boys now understand why Guyana so unstable. It was corruption from top to bottom when Jagdeo tun president. And it continue wad Donald Dumb. Dem got a new govt and people getting tired of waiting to see wha action dem gun tek. People seh dem too slow, that dem moving like turtle. When dem boys talk bout corruption Jagdeo use to seh that people only ah imagine that there is corruption. Dem boys want him to know that is not an imaginary mansion he got. He swimming pool and de US$500,000 chandelier is not imaginary too. Dem real and he must come out and tell de nation wheh he source of funding come
from. De United Nations seh dem had many problems when dem meet Jagdeo to talk about corruption. Dem boys seh de people in de United Nation shoulda know better than to go and sit wid a scamp who deal wid scampishness. Corruption start wid Jagdeo and it ends wid DD. That is why de people want dem to declare everything wha dem own and all dem wealth because de people know wha dem got and people know how much dem got. Some know wheh dem got de wealth. Dem seh when mouth open story jump out, especially when people drinking dem 10-year or dem12-year brown rum. Is everybody talking bout corruption in Guyana. Uncle Sam talk, de Canadians open dem mouth and de British shout it out. Jagdeo cuss all three and when he nah cuss he put other people fuh cuss. Dem boys hear he visa gun get tek way soon and when that happen he can’t go to de apartment wha he own in Queens. He gun have to send Babbie to clean it. Talk half and tell Soulja Bai to wake up wid de audit.