Ogunseye has achieved political infamy

Dear Editor,

I will never let Tacuma Ogunseye make accusations against me without a response. I will reply to anything he insinuates about me because I consider him to be one of the most offensive, dangerous and racist political activists this country has produced. In a recent exchange with Henry Jeffrey (Editor’s note: Mr Kissoon was not named in Mr Ogunseye’s letter), he made two accusations; I do not accept differing opinion and that I claim the WPA is dead. I will come to those in another letter but for now, a few comments on this man’s political culture.

If you go through the list of parties that produced activists over the past fifty years that have achieved some national publicity, from small outfits to major organization, none has birthed someone so driven by race, crass political mentality and opportunism as Ogunseye. Only in Guyana, can a character like Ogunseye achieve a history of political infamy and not be ostracized. I refer specifically to his years of involvement in Buxton during the “violent troubles” there.

His support for the gunmen was the subject of comments from major newspapers and important actors in Guyana from 2002 when the violently racist mayhem began in Buxton. From then to now, none of his present and former colleagues and acolytes in the WPA (whatever is left of that group of misfits) have ever uttered even a word, just one word of condemnation.

The exception is Eusi Kwayana and he chose not to voice his disagreement in a public letter. His stance took the following words in his short book, “The Morning After” (2005). “Tacuma Ogunseye whom I have called Brother Tacuma for some thirty years, has described the story of Buxton as a liberation struggle. At no time in our long association have I disagreed more with him…I have attacked what he now supports or justifies.”

It is unbelievable that not one person who once belonged to the WPA and those still around and were around at the time when Ogunseye was involved in conspiratorial activities in Buxton has ever condemned him. Long after the Buxton mayhem, Ogunseye was banned from speaking on behalf of ACDA when he was chastised by that organization for a hate speech he gave at an ACDA public meeting in BV.

Yours faithfully, Frederick Kissoon