Peter d'Aguiar, industrialist and founder of the United Force political party.

I said the person in GUYS who committed the crimes was related to Mr d'Aguiar, not a relative—Freddie Kissoon
Monday, September 5th 2005
Stabroek News

Dear Editor,
I hope Mr. Nascimento knows that in every democratic society in the world if you refer to a public figure as having a sick mind, you'll be found guilty of libel. The Stabroek News knows it can get away with that because I will not sue them. One day, the Stabroek News will be surprised. For Mr. Nascimento's benefit, I will let him know that to keep the vultures from the gate, my articles are checked daily by one of four lawyers on a rotational basis. My lawyer specifically asked me if I want to use the word, "relative of Mr. d'Aguiar" or "related to Mr. d'Aguiar."
I chose the latter because I told him to be related or connected to someone is vastly different to saying that someone is a relative. If Mr. Nascimento wants to interpret my words his way, that is his business. I never said that a relative of Peter d'Aguiar killed people in the sixties. But this I can tell Mr. Nascimento; dozens of people related to Mr. D' Aguiar committed acts of violence including murder in the sixties. Several of those killers came from the GUYS. Research into that period will bear that out.
I don't know why Mr. Nascimento thinks he can intimidate me. I never wrote any article about him being in the GUYS. I never mentioned Mr. Nascimento in any article I wrote about the GUYS. If I wanted to, I could have done that. Again, one can see what one wants to see in any article. I don't lose any sleepless nights about people saying that University lecturers are under-qualified and incompetent. No one has ever named Frederick Kissoon using those appellations.
My column was based on research. Its starting point was a complaint by Premier Cheddi Jagan to the Governor that at a public meeting a leading member of the GUYS was found with a home made bomb. My research in the newspapers led me on the trail of a leader (I never wrote about the leader but "A" leader) in the GUYS who killed people in the sixties including a brother and sister who were bombed to death in their beds at East and Quamina Streets. That leading member of the GUYS is still alive today and collects a fat cheque from the Government. I am not going to retract what my research has shown me. I know two more GUYS leaders who committed homicides are still living in Guyana
I and (and I am sure Mr. Glen Lall) don't need a lecture from Mr. Nascimento on responsibility in the press. On Tuesday night, Mr. Nascimento offered a commentary on me on a certain channel which in any civilized country would have been taken off the air. This is a channel that has libelled Mr. Lall; Mr. Yesu Persaud; Mr. Hawley Harris, Stabroek News cartoonist, Adam Harris, the President and several members of his cabinet, plus dozens of other public figures using the foulest language and engaging in criminal libels against all of those names I have mentioned.
Where was Nascimernto's pen when all of this was happening and continues to happen? Mr. Nascimento appeals to Mr, Glen Lall "to stop the madness." But this same Nascimento goes on the same television station that libelled Mr. Lall to appeal to Mr. Lall on Tuesday night to stop me from writing in the Kaieteur News. Let me end by informing Mr. Nascimento it is the same Kaieteur News and the same columnist that he Mr. Nascimento and the television station owner read everyday. And by the way this television station owner has made an indirect request to me to refer to him by his name. Poor soul! It is eating him out that I continue to de-recognize him. Shakespeare once wrote that what the great ones do the lesser humans will prattle about.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon

[Stabroek News Editor's note: Mr Nascimento, who had seen this letter published in the Kaieteur News, told us that in his opinion any court would construe `related to' as meaning `a relative of'. The law can be an ass at times but it is not so readily deceived by a turn of words. Mr Nascimento said he noted that Mr Kissoon had effectively repeated the gross libels contained in the first letter.]

I am not the only victim of Kissoon's sick mind—Kit Nacimento
Wednesday, August 31st 2005

Dear Editor,
The Kaieteur News of August 26, 2005 published an article by Freddie Kissoon which makes the most appalling accusations, clearly implicating me, about the former GUYS, the Youth Arm of the United Force of which I was the Chairman in the 1960s.
The statements made by Kissoon are not merely irresponsible, these statements are outright lies concocted for the purpose of deliberate character assassination and may even be an incitement to racial hatred which is a criminal offence according to British common law and should occupy the attention of the DPP, and criminal charges filed against Kissoon.
Kissoon describes a person who was a leader of the GUYS and who was related to Peter d'Aguiar and accuses this person of committing heinous crimes. He calls this person "a ruthless killer", accuses this person of leading "a violent cabal" and of murdering a brother and sister asleep in their beds.
The fact that I am not named in the article does not excuse Kissoon or the newspaper for which he writes from the grossest libel. I was the Chairman of the GUYS at the time of which he writes. I was the only member, never mind leader of the GUYS, related to Peter d'Aguiar and he has so identified the person about whom he writes.
Kissoon accuses the GUYS of conspiring with the PNC "to kill Indian supporters of the PPP" and describes the GUYS as "brutal and merciless". He offers as his evidence, a nameless man who claims to have "witnessed the every move of Peter d'Aguiar" and stories recited to him by his uncles, aunts and parents. Nothing more because there is nothing more to offer.
One cannot simply disregard Kissoon's article as the writings of a madman. One cannot rely on the fact that serious people do not take Kissoon seriously. There will always be people who once they read something published in a newspaper, will believe that it has an element of truth because they cannot believe that a newspaper can get away with publishing the most outrageous lies in a society which is supposed to function within the law.
No matter what the truth is, there are always people willing and ready to believe that even the most outlandish of allegations must carry some grain of truth. It is the old adage that is so often quoted: "where there is smoke there is fire". It is because of this that what Kissoon writes is so frightening and can be so dangerous.
Never mind that the entire article about the GUYS, every word of it is sheer invention. The fact that it is published in a daily newspaper, no matter what little credibility the writer has, gives it an element of credence.
A newspaper simply cannot, in a civilized society, without offering any evidence, call people "ruthless killers", accuse a person of being found with a bomb in his possession, accuse a person of murdering people asleep in their beds, describe an organization as being a violent cabal conspiring to murder Guyanese of Indian descent when not a word of it is true and escape responsibility. But, in Guyana, a newspaper can do just that and face no consequences.
There is absolutely no truth in any of Kissoon's article about the GUYS. It is all a complete fabrication and yet it can be published with impunity. It is published with Kissoon, the editors and the owner of the newspaper knowing full well that virtually nothing can be done to punish them.
The person and persons whose character the Kaieteur News and Kissoon set out to destroy and whose life or lives they may well put in danger, is unprotected from them because the law which is there to protect against the publication of lies, defamation and libel in Guyana, in fact, provides no protection.
In any other country but Guyana, a libel suit against the Kaieteur News would bankrupt the newspaper, end the career of the writer of this kind of horrific calumny and destroy the credibility of the owner of the newspaper and its editors. But not here. Here, the case would not come to court for years. The damage will have been done and punishment so long postponed that it would be of little, if any value. The judicial system upon which we rely for our protection against this ugliness has failed us.
I am not, of course, the only person or organization that has become the target and the victim of Kissoon's sick mind and destructive lies, but he is allowed to continue to publish without editorial supervision, without any respect for the truth, without having to corroborate his fantasies, without being held to any journalistic or moral standard at all.
There is, in truth, only one person who can put an end to Freddie Kissoon's insanity being published. It is the owner of the newspaper in which he publishes. Until Glenn Lall decides to do so, he is as guilty as Kissoon of the damage Kissoon does and the danger he presents.
It is, therefore, to Glenn Lall that I make this appeal. Stop this lunacy. Bring some element of professional responsibility to the newspaper you publish. Understand both the harm you can do as well as the good you can do as the owner of a newspaper.
Understand that freedom of the press is not absolute and it does not entitle you and those who write for you to shout fire in a crowded cinema where there is no fire and then stand by and watch the people die in the mad rush for the exit doors.
It is time too that the Chancellor and the Chief Justice, the Judges and the Magistrates upon whom we rely to administer justice and maintain a civilized society, take responsibility for a rapidly collapsing judicial system that no longer protects us from this madness.
Yours faithfully,
Kit Nascimento

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Other Related UF-Violence Pieces

Peter D'Aguiar New Twist—Compiled by Odeen Ismael

This week’s publication of Guyana History Notebook is an article which was published in Thunder on February 2, 1963 and tells how D’Aguiar tried to distort the events of February 1962 when his party, the United Force, instigated riots in an effort to overthrow the freely elected PPP government.
Peter D’Aguiar in England has one face and Peter D’Aguiar in BG has another face. The two faces got together by mistake in a Sunday Chronicle report last month when his supine hirelings in the Chronicle and his newly acquired promotion agent, cum reporter, Ken Montano, wrote a report of a London meeting.
At this meeting, Mr. D’Aguiar met with the London branch of the United Force and spoke frankly with the members.
Perhaps he did not expect his hirelings to report his every word; perhaps he thought they were intelligent enough to know what to leave out and what to put in. But like all men in Mr. D’Aguiar’s position, many of his hirelings are taught to believe that all the words which flow from his mouth are pearls of wisdom.
Some very interesting words certainly flowed from his mouth on the occasion of his London meeting - whether they were wise for him in the image he is trying to create in British Guiana is another thing.
One also has to keep in mind when studying Mr. D’Aguiar’s London remarks, that he and his paper have been carrying out a peculiar and, perhaps, inverted form of racialism in BG. One aspect has been to attack Dr. Jagan and his Government for being anti-African and this has been highlighted by the writings of “Vigilance” and through the editorial columns.
The other has been to attack Dr. Jagan and his Government for being anti-Indian and this has been highlighted by their intensified propaganda on the Indo-China dispute giving prominence to attacks by Mr. Rai and engineering attacks on Dr. Jagan from the Muslim community.
In the light of this, Mr. D’Aguiar’s vile insinuations about the East Indian community must be carefully noted, and also not forgotten. This is what his newspaper and his reporter recorded him as saying:
“Questioned further on the riots of February last, the UF Leader declared ‘the riots which took place had one effect and only one: to benefit Dr. Jagan’s party’. He added that ‘it seems to me incredible that anyone could believe that a Party like ours - the United Force - associated with industrial development, should encourage conflagration of industry. ‘There is also a significant fact that arose during the week prior to the riots. Certain people took out riot insurance policies: all were Indians, and most were supporters of the PPP. It seems a bit significant. I do not want to suggest and I do not believe that Dr. Jagan organized the riots or the burning; but I would not put it past some ardent, excessively’ ardent members of his organization’.”
Now then, what does Mr. D’Aguiar mean? He says that Indian supporters of the PPP took out riot insurance policies. Is he suggesting that they did so because they knew that the PPP was going to burn them down, or is he suggesting that they intended to burn themselves down by creating a riot against themselves? This is not only an insult to those who suffered so much materially and emotionally at the hands of the rioters, it is a grossly unsympathetic attitude and one reminiscent of the attitude of Mr D’Aguiar which was observed by the Riot Commission.
In paragraph 109, the Commissioners stated: “we may also at this stage draw attention to the strangely unfeeling attitude of the political leaders when passions aroused by them had been let loose in the town.”
And in paragraph 111 it is stated: “As regards Mr. D’Aguiar, all he could think of was to ask the Governor to give protection to his wife and family. He telephoned the Governor and said that he could not see his way to making an appeal for peace to riotous crowds of Georgetown.”
Mr. D’Aguiar attempted to fool his London audience that his party had nothing to do with the riots in British Guiana. One cannot overlook the findings of the Riot Commission concerning the lies spread about the death of a child in the vicinity of the Electricity Corporation on the morning of the riots.
Of this the Report of the Commission of Enquiry said at paragraph 77: “A number of witnesses appearing before us stated that what Mr. D’Aguiar told the crowd was that the child had in fact died. We are inclined to take the view that Mr D’Aguiar did not exercise any restraint upon himself and that he, in fact, announced the death of the child to the crowd and not its mere illness. We are constrained to observe that his being wedded to truth did not impose so stern a cloisteral isolation upon him as not to permit an occasional illicit sortie, in order to taste the seductive and politically rewarding adventure of flirting with half-truths.”
Of course, it is completely unnecessary to go into the subject of who caused the riots as most of Georgetown saw and heard with their own eyes and ears the activities of the UF in the events leading up to the wholesale destruction of property and injury to life.
It is also for interest to note Mr. D’Aguiar’s remarks about the affinity of his party to the PNC:
“The UF Leader answering a question from a Guianese in the audience about unity between the PNC and UF said: “In this Conference there was unanimity of the Opposition. And there has always been a degree of negotiation between the Opposition parties. At this Conference Burnham suggested a referendum; I had suggested it a year ago when the vote for immediate independence came out. It seems to me that Burnham is gradually coming to my way of thinking and I hope it will develop that way.”
It appears that Mr. Burnham can face the same charge that we place on Mr. D’Aguiar - that he has one face for London and one for BG. For when Mr. Burnham was accused of close collaboration with the United Force in preventing independence, he hotly denied it.
When Mr. Benn reminded him of the movements of Lionel Luckhoo as courier boy between the UF and the PNC at the London talks, it was again hotly denied. However, Mr. D’Aguiar’s remarks seem to bear out the affinity of the two parties at the London talks. (See Mirror, August 2005)

55. LETTER FROM THE PREMIER, DR. CHEDDI JAGAN, TO THE GOVERNOR, SIR RALPH GREY
(12 June 1963)

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Documents on Guyana
Political developments 1958-64
Friday, August 19th 2005
(From The US State Department website, posted by Stabroek News in its "Documents on Guyana" series)

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8. I wish to recite a further series of events which have helped to undermine confidence in the Government and which have psychologically emboldened the Opposition:
(i) Firstly the case of Police Constable Naraine. Naraine, a body-guard assigned to the Minister of Finance, was recently re-moved by the Commissioner of Police from his post. This was, in effect, for him a demotion. It occurred after a magistrate closely associated with the PNC made some uncalled-for observations that PC Naraine was not the kind of person to be entrusted with a pistol.
It is to be noted that PC Naraine attended a meeting at which I, the Minister of Finance and others were present at Pouderoyen. Rotten eggs were thrown inside the building in which the meeting was held. As a result the meeting became disorderly. PC Naraine then went downstairs to investigate. He was set upon and badly beaten and severely injured.
It was only then that he fired his pistol. Incidentally among the articles recently seized at the Police raid on PNC headquarters was a plan of the very building at which the meeting was held. Who knows whether PC Naraine did not forestall an attempt at assassination of members of the Government. Yet in spite of all this Naraine was removed from his post as body-guard which was, in effect, demotion.
(ii) Secondly the searching of Jack Kelshall's home. You will recall my conversation with you on this question. I asked what was the purpose of this search.
Kelshall has been the butt of attack from the Opposition from the time he came to serve in this country.
Even if he were in possession of an illegal weapon as the Police claimed it was informed, did he intend to use this weapon to break and enter or to murder? Clearly there was no such intention on his part.
The most that can be said is that his life was threatened, he needed protection and had been refused permission by the Police for the use of a revolver. Such a search would not have taken place in another country, knowing the high position he held as Private Secretary to the Premier. More alarming than this search was the statement made immediately by the Commissioner of Police that he saw it as his duty to search Ministers' homes if it became necessary.
This was subsequently followed by an actual search on the home of the Minister of Agriculture.
(iii) More than this, recent searches which have been carried out have been, in the vast majority of cases, in the homes of Government supporters.
Why have PNC and UF supporters not been harassed as much as Government supporters especially when such vital evidence and damaging material were found at PNC headquarters, when a "GUYS" youth at a UF meeting was caught in his person with a home-made bomb?
(iv) Thirdly, the events of last Wednesday which occurred at the cemetery during the course of the burial of the late Minister of Home Affairs, Claude Christian. I am advised by the President of the Senate who was put in charge of the funeral arrangements that after consultation with the Police, it was agreed that proper security precautions for the safety of Ministers of the Government, bereaved relatives and friends of the late Minister, would have been taken.
Instead, in spite of adequate warning at the funeral parlour and at the Brickdam Cathedral where disorderly behaviour was much in evidence, no proper arrangements were made. As a result, I and other Ministers were attacked. I was hit on the head with a stone. Other persons with me were also hit. The car in which I travelled was bombarded and stoned.
The Minister of Agriculture told the Commissioner of Police at a meeting in my office how an attacker approached him with a knife and how the car in which he travelled was bombarded by stones at very close range with the Police and horse-guards hardly intervening. Several Government supporters were also injured at the cemetery after my departure.
Please see attached statements by the Minister of Agriculture and the President of the Senate. Failure to take proper security precautions and effective and firm action to disperse the unruly crowd merely emboldened it. This, in turn, resulted in the racial outbursts, grievous injury to persons and serious loss of property on the evening of the same day.
(v) Fourthly Ministers of the Government are being held up to ridicule.
On the 28th May 1963, when the Speaker ruled against me and three of my colleagues in the Legislative Assembly the crowd outside the Public Buildings, became very emboldened and excited. They booed several members as they left the Public Buildings. Later, even after a heavy downpour of rain, they came out again and flowed over into the street.
They prevented Mohammed Saffee, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, and legislator Hamid from leaving the Public Buildings. These two legislators were forced to stand on the driveway approaching the entrance of the Public Buildings for nearly three-quarters of an hour.
I called the Commissioner of Police by telephone and suggested that the crowds be dispersed. Subsequently when the Minister of Com-munications and I joined the two other legislators and were about to leave we were told by the Officer in Charge, Supt. Subryan, that it would not be safe to leave and we should await the arrival of reinforcements that he had summoned. The mob outside the Public Buildings was howling, jeering and laughing.
It was at this point I returned to the Public Buildings and put in another telephone call to the Commissioner. I had to wait for several minutes before Police reinforcements arrived.
This situation obviously was one most humiliating to me personally as Leader of the Government. When Ministers and other leading Members of the Government are put in this embarrassing position, almost as caged prisoners, then there can be no respect for the Government. Incidentally this same situation developed at the cemetery when we were surrounded by a howling and jeering mob pelting stones from about a distance of 15 to 20 yards.