Kwayana was unwavering in his championship of Africans

Dear Editor,

While I may be considered an unapologetic critic of Mr. Eusi Kwayana, I must acknowledge that of all African leaders, he alone has lived his convictions to the point of personal poverty.
He has been unwavering and uncompromising in his struggle for black people’s rights and as a champion for their causes. But he has been regarded as a racist and a divisive figure. Correspondingly, there is no Indian leader in Guyana to match his record and that may explain why Indian causes are not that high on the national agenda.
Mr. Kwayana’s examples have inspired and emboldened many more current African leaders but none can be considered his equal.

Mr. Kwayana, as a champion of African causes, has not altogether been known for his successes. He also suffers from the black Midas touch, in effect, everything he touches turns into sh-t as Dr. Walter Rodney so famously said of President Forbes Burnham.
ASCRIA, which was founded by Mr. Kwayana, became a failed organization and was later dissolved without explanation. But this was not the first failure. County High School located in Buxton, which was founded by Mr. Kwayana was also a failure.
Not to mention the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) which he headed and which went into decline until he was fired by Mr. Burnham. The biggest failure has been the WPA with which Mr. Kwayana is still affiliated.

Upon reading his letter, vis-a-vis Dr. Vishnu Bisram phantom (undated) letter, Mr. Kwayana comes across as if he is a latter day Don Quixote atop a donkey charging at flailing (read windmills) fruit trees to cut them down.
What was the purpose of the rambling letter?
Nothing that Mr. Kwayana writes can, however, be complete unless he makes his usual swipe at Mrs. Janet Jagan. He blames her for unsubstantiated allegations that she said that she wanted a clear view all the way to Buxton from Georgetown with no building standing, i.e., she wanted all buildings burned down.
Mr. Kwayana is one of those who can only be satisfied unless he sullies Mrs. Jagan’s legacy even while she is dead.

While Mr. Kwayana can regale us how shocked he was that Dr. Bisram wrote that a thug had allegedly “kicked Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who was at the time lying on the ground,” while Mr. Kwayana idly stood by, he resuscitates the memory of the brutal murder of the elderly Sealeys’ aback Buxton.
But Mr. Kwayana does not express any remorse or shock, even as he reminds us, about the burning down of eight Indian houses in Buxton, the same night of the Sealeys’ funeral on the 25th May 1964.
Mr. Kwayana is yet to explain his historical silence on his pre-knowledge of the massacre of some 3,000 Indians the next day, i.e., 26th May, 1964 at Wismar after he had presided at the highly charged Sealeys’ funeral in Buxton the day before. The 26th May is the date the PNCR chose to “celebrate” Guyana’s independence from the British.

The 1964 PPP government failed to compensate those who lost lives and property at the massacre.
For Indians to “celebrate” the 26th May would be a tragedy after the Wismar massacre.
Perhaps all his radical behaviour was conditional to him being Sidney King since he only changed his name in 1968? Did he become better or worse afterwards?

Vassan Ramracha