I will not be drawn into Freddie`s fumigation on Burnham

Dear Editor,

Freddie has been at it again. He apparently did not understand that in my last letter, I said that it was ‘probably my last response’ so he took the opportunity to ramble once again with the hope that there would be no response. Sorry Freddie, no free pass, too much of what you have written certifies your intellectual dishonesty, and sub-optimal research, academic and journalistic practice. Freddie has once again been a stranger to the truth in an attempt to question my irrefutable truth/facts.

First, it has to be an exaggeration of the hyperbole for Freddie to say, “If any Guyanese, other than Alexander had written certain words, I would have shrugged it off.” I hope that he recognizes that he committed to not responding to anyone else who says what I have said.

Here is Freddie being a continued stranger to the truth, an author of fiction:
1. There is no way that my appointment, by the then President of Guyana, to GECOM, having been “nominated” by the then Leader of the Opposition in 2007, can be equated to ‘belonging to a party that contested the elections’. In this regard, Freddie failed the test of being able to deduce. That is grade ‘F’ in Logics for Freddie, the academic. His faulty deduction is further highlighted by the fact that I ceased being a member of the PNCR in 2007, the said year that I was appointed to GECOM. I also refused a call by the then Leader of the Opposition to resign from GECOM, on the grounds that I was holding a constitutional office; not his representative; and insulated by the Constitution from his control over me. Freddie knows that but has concocted his case on fibs. That is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty.

2. Freddie`s credibility as an academic and journalist is once again discredited when he referred to me as Minister Roopnarine`s advisor. I never held that position. I was the Technical Facilitator to the Minister and bereft of any policy formulation authority. He also maliciously or out of ignorance claimed that I followed Minister Roopnarine to the Ministry of the Public Service. That was never the case. When Minister Roopnarine was reassigned, I terminated my contract with the Ministry of Education and resumed my private life, which was interrupted when I was contracted for three months to assist in Guyana`s administrative preparation for a meeting of the Ministers of Public Service of the Commonwealth and an attendant conference of Professional Public servants. Is all of this misinformation an error on Freddie part or purposeful concoction, both of which are undesirable of an academic or journalist?

3. Freddie`s fiction continues. He states: “In the seventies when elections and the national referendum were rigged …, Alexander was the chairman of the youth arm of the ruling PNC”. In the 70s, elections were held in 1973. At that time, I was a student yet to ascend to any level of national leadership in the YSM, much less in 1968, yet Freddie holds me accountable for events from 1968 to 2020”.

4. Freddie`s circus continues. He identifies me as the Founder of the Burnham Foundation. He himself some years ago referred to an interview with the late Elvin McDavid and in his column, resulting from that interview, he named McDavid as the Founder of the Foundation. Am I to assume that dementia is stepping in or that Freddie is simply a pathological liar? I was not a founder member of the Foundation, but I am delighted to be the current chairman of the Foundation, since it denies Freddie and his ilk from being a dominant source of information on Burnham. It also allows us to keep alive Burnham’s good work that still impacts the lives of Guyanese, today. There is much that they say he banned, including flour, which is not true, the restricted importation of which affected many Guyanese of all ethnicities and enriched many from the eastern extremity of the country. Anyone can access Youtube, to hear what the late Sase Narine had to say about the unavailability of flour. The restricted importation of salt fish has felt us a Burnham legacy, a striving local salt fish industry. That Burnham made National Service compulsory is another of Freddie`s untruths. National Service was unapologetically compulsory for those who were benefiting from free university education.

That, however, accounted for a small percentage of those who attended National Service. The majority, who attended, where pioneers and cadets. They did so of their own free will and even today attest to its human resource development role, at the personal and national levels. Ask Retired Major General Joseph Singh if I am narrating the truth. Ask Gouveia and Ramsaroop if they were forced to enlist in National Service and how being corpsmen impacted their lives.

Given the poor score sheet on Freddie`s credibility as an academic and journalist, he has lost all moral right to call on others to account for their truths. With reference to me, he accuses me of untruths by omission and more so by gross misinformation and misrepresentation as the irrefutable narrative above reveals. Incidentally, my truths are empirical facts.

As for Freddie`s fumigation on Burnham, I will not be drawn into that vertex. I only respond to those matters in sincere conversations and in an atmosphere of Truth and Reconciliation. For the time being, I retort: ‘There is no Guilty Race’ (Eusi Kwayana, 1999) and Ravi Dev’s ‘Hope for our leaders to recognize validity of substantive positions from all ‘sides’ in our Guyanese tragedy’ (2020).

Yours truly,
Vincent Alexander