THE RIGHT TO QUESTION

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 4th June 2016, 9:00 pm

The right to question took centre stage last week in the National Assembly. The Speaker ruled that Mr. Anil Nandlall abused the right in relation to a number of questions tabled by him. The questions appeared to be quite innocuous, even if the information sought was a bit much. In relation to the persons pardoned by President Granger during last year, the questions asked for their names, addresses, offences committed, criminal records, length of sentences, process and criteria employed, how many persons granted pardons were subsequently charged with offences, the names of those persons and the offences for which they were charged.

The Speaker was not required to and did not give any reasons for his ruling. But over the past fifteen years Speakers have sought to explain their rulings in order to demonstrate that their decisions are based on rational considerations. This effort was intended to limit allegations of bias.

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PHARAOH

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 28th May 2016, 9:00 pm

The word ‘Pharaoh’ and other abuse reverberated around downtown Georgetown a week and a half ago, directed to an embarrassed Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo. He was doing a ‘walkabout’ in support of vendors who had been displaced from around the Stabroek Market area. He may not have expected the vendors’ hostility because the last time he would have walked around Georgetown while President, with head in the air, chest puffed up and a phalanx of bodyguards, vendors would have given him a polite response, partly out of curiosity, partly out of respect and partly out of fear of the gun-toting bodyguards. Having fallen from grace, and not yet realizing it, the master practitioner of the politics of abuse expected applause but was instead on the receiving end of what he regularly dishes out to others.

The vending industry in downtown Georgetown has grown to massive proportions. For 23 years PPP/C governments did little to slow the growth of vending. No additional accommodation, save in Water Street, was provided.  No rules to protect vendors, customers and the general public, were promulgated. Vending had become chaotic and posed serious environmental, health, traffic and other hazards. The inconvenience to the public and other business people was massive and growing.

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CHEDDI JAGAN’S CONTRIBUTION TO GUYANA’S INDEPENDENCE

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 21st May 2016, 9:00 pm

Inspired by events that were occurring in the wider world and influenced by progressive views while he was a student in the United States, Dr. Cheddi Jagan returned to Guyana in 1943, then British Guiana, intent on becoming politically involved on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged. He chose the trade union movement as an entrance point. Ashton Chase and Jocelyn Hubbard, both trade unionists, were sought out to join with him and Janet Jagan to form the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) on November 6, 1946, as a study and discussion group. Branches emerged in various places including Kitty, Buxton and Enmore. My father, Boysie Ramkarran, joined the Kitty Group in 1947. Ashton Chase, at the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the PAC said that my father was the Secretary of that group. Eusi Kwayana was active in the Buxton group.

Amidst unrest and great and increasing poverty in the Caribbean in the 1930s and 1940s due to the Great Depression and drop in the price for sugar, the bauxite workers went on a long strike in 1947. In 1948 the successful Teare strike of transport workers took place followed by the Enmore strike of sugar workers. Having already won a seat in the Legislative Council in 1947, these events, and in particular the Enmore strike, motivated Cheddi Jagan to speed up the establishment of a political movement to struggle for universal adult suffrage, social justice and independence.

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UNPRECEDENTED!

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 14th May 2016, 9:00 pm

Last Monday General Secretary of the PPP, Mr. Clement Rohee, reacting at his press conference to questions about that morning’s SN’s headline “PPP executives jockeying for top position – Jagdeo, others seeking to consolidate support before crucial congress,” deemed the media as “stray dogs, going by the smell of things and rummaging the PPP neighbourhood for new and old juicy inaccuracies and speculations.” The article in SN and the questions from the media obviously touched a raw nerve.

It would be unprecedented for a PPP Congress to be postponed except if an issue of national importance gets in the way. For example, Congress was not held in 2011 because of elections year, nor in 2012 because the PPP’s minority government was under siege. There might have been other cases in the past but there have been no postponements of Congress for purely internal reasons.

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INDENTURESHIP AND INDEPENDENCE

Written by Ralph Ramkarran
Saturday, 7th May 2016, 9:00 pm

John Gladstone, the owner of Plantation Vreed-en-Hoop, was regarded as a prime mover for indentureship. In his now famous (or infamous) letter of 4 January, 1836, to recruiters in India, he painted a glowing picture of the possibilities: “They are furnished with comfortable dwellings and abundance of food….They have likewise an annual allowance of clothing sufficient and suitable for the climate; ….it may be fairly said they pass their time agreeably and happily…They have regular medical attendance whenever they are indisposed, at the expense of their employers. “

John Gladstone was guilty of monumental deception. After the Whitby and Hesperus deposited their 396 passengers on May 5, 1838, the first of 208,909, and the system was exposed, the British Anti-Slavery Society, in a statement said: “The whole system has been characterized by the grossest fraud and cruelty, and has been sustained by the most infamous tyranny and oppression.” It quotes Mr. Special Justice Anderson’s letter to the governor, that “many of them have actually been kidnapped” in “circumstances second only in atrocity to those connected with the African slave-trade.”

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The Conversation Tree is both physical and philosophical. The physical is the tree itself, which has given its name to the road from which it originates at the intersection of the Rupert Craig Highway. It was reputedly first planted by Napleton William King in 1876 to celebrate the birth of his son Napleton Walter. As...
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