The decision by the Guyana Head of State to render state funeral status to the late Shridat Surendranath Ramphal is both ill-conceived and disgraceful to Guyana. He should be laid to rest next to his wife, Lois Winifred King, in England. Even though he was an efficient diplomat and led the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with excellence, at no time he was forthright on the excess of the destruction that was caused by the PNC dictatorship. As Attorney General of British Guiana before Independence Sony Ramphal collaborated with emerging dictator Burnham to crafted a Constitution for Guyana as an independent nation; one sordid highlight being the eventual abolition of the British Privy Council-the country’s highest Appeal Court, which has now been replaced by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
As the head (secretary/general) of the Commonwealth (1975-1990) Mr. Ramphal had countless means at this disposal to halt the atrocities of the PNC regime: perpetually fraudulent elections, human rights violations like kick-down-door bandits where almost always invariably his kind of people were on the receiving end of this state sponsored terrorism. As Chancellor of the University of the West Indies 1989-2003 Mr. Ramphal enjoyed the highly paid life with his British Caucasian wife, his other claim to fame.
Our political pundits have come up with a somewhat comical description of the country’s first post- Independence Attorney General: he fought against apartheid in South Africa. However, Shridat Ramphal ignored Burnham’s apartheid at his very own doorstep; a scenario which saw Indians, always being the victims of kick-down-door bandits, being relegated to tenants in their own country with the good jobs going to those who looked like the dictator.
Praises from high level officials, like Attorney General Anil Nandlall, have bombarded this accomplished diplomat – a white man in an Indian body-but few know that his ‘return’ to fight for Guyana was not fuelled by any form of patriotism, rather it was simply for the millions the country paid him. In the final analysis, Shridat Ramphal represents the missing link between democracy and dictatorship.
Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine