Jagdeo rebukes Greenidge’s ‘dogwhistle’ accusation against Kaieteur News

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has come to Kaieteur News’s defense after Foreign Secretary Carl Greenidge accused the newspaper of profiling African countries.

In a letter published by Stabroek News, Greenidge made comments about several advertisements that were published in the Kaieteur News on matters of corruption in a list of African nations.

The ex-Foreign Minister proposed that Kaieteur News rescind the advertisements as he believes that they inform harmful stereotypes about African leaders as corrupt and incompetent, further claiming that the current APNU+AFC government may be victim of those stereotypes as well.
Greenidge called the message corrosive and dysfunctional, and accused the writer of the advertisement of bias.

In a scathing response, Jagdeo said that Greenidge’s accusation is “blowing the dogwhistle on racism”. He further explained that though there are issues on which he does not toe the line with this newspaper, it was “a stretch” to target the newspaper simply because it published advertisements which listed African countries as examples of corruption.

Jagdeo said that the issues written about may not be unique to Africa, but that Africa’s stories tend to go untold.

To Greenidge, the Opposition Leader’s instructions are clear – tackle the arguments on their merit.

Publisher’s note: Kaieteur News rejects the baseless insinuations, made by the Foreign Secretary, Carl Greenidge, that this newspaper reflects a mindset which can provide the logic for the opposition of African-based parties or governments.

We urge Carl Greenidge to have the courage to face the media so as to provide answers about the oil negotiations with ExxonMobil and not to be sniping at this newspaper from behind the letter columns of other newspapers.

We wish to make it known to Carl Greenidge that the entire editorial staff of the Kaieteur News, save and except one senior reporter, is of African descent, and this has been so for some time now.
We also wish to inform him that of the thousands of articles written on the oil and gas industry since May 2015, none was authored by that one reporter, Leonard Gildarie.

It should also be mentioned that of our columnists, only one, Mr. Frederick Kissoon, is non-African. We urge Carl Greenidge to do the decent thing and withdraw his obnoxious and malicious insinuations against Kaieteur News.