IN his letter in SN of 8-23-23 titled “Children of manumitted Africans must utilize evry opportunity to secure economic power, recapture zeal for learning” former PNC strongman Mr Hamilton Green signed his letter, he claims, “With tears in my eyes, I sign this letter using the name of my erstwhile persecutors and enslavers”!Mr Green is being disingenuous. He supposedly converted to Islam and his other name was Mohamed Bilal. Why does he not use this Islamic name is anybody’s guess. Is he ashamed about this name? The popular reason is that Mr Green ostensibly ” converted” to Islam was to get the votes of Muslim Indo Guyanese. He failed.
Mr Green and PNC leaders are in no position to talk about oppression, inhumane cruel treatmen and slaves clearing the forest. He claims victimhood and will continue on this song and dance to get sympathy. The visit of the descendants of the Gladstone family to apologize is most welcome. But the Gladstones should also apologize for the misery of identuredship. Mr Green believes otherwise . He wrote: “We should be careful, all of us,not to accept this ruse of a similarity between enslavement of Africans and identuredship”.
This is one angry African. He takes a pot shot against the indentured Portuguese for getting licenses to trade. Then he claims some Amerindians were not in Guyana before the African and then he denies any similarity between indenturedship and slavery! The Chinese escape his wrath.
The truth of the matter is Indians had to live in mud logies with open pit latrines built across a trench. The Indian was the last to arrive after everyone else failed or absconded. The Indian had to work under the same slave masters from which the African was emancipated. Indenturedhip was indeed a new form of slavery.
Mr Green must be aware that Indians developed a strong agricultural economy by planting rice and keeping the sugar industry alive and profitable. It was Mr Green’s PNC that ended up destroying both and forcing Indians to migrate by using violence and by starving Indians of their native foods.
What is needed by Mr Green is for him to apologize for the PNC for rigging elections and for bankrupting Guyana (1964-1992). An injunctions by Indians lawyers should brought against any reparations for Africans to compensate for Indian pain and suffering and to take a persentage of that money to build their own cultural center. Until then Mr Green has lost all credibility.
Sincerely
Vassan Ramracha