Why was Jagdeo at Oasis Café and not at the Marriott?

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

On Wednesday midday, I went into the Oasis Café to collect a document from an expatriate Guyanese. Huddled together at a table were former President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, Odinga Lumumba and Manniram Prashad. I had to pass that infamous space to get to my friend. As I strolled past, Manniram Prashad did say hello. I cannot remember if I replied. If I didn’t then if Prashad is reading this, he has an apology. My friend offered lunch. I declined, and indicated I was leaving. He accompanied me to the door and as we were about to push the exit, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine’s best friend, Deo Persaud, joined us outside. Three top level former leaders in the past PPP Government that created the Marriott Hotel were having lunch and drinks at a pretty expensive outfit in Georgetown. Why not the Marriott? The Marriott was Jagdeo’s baby. It has to receive patronage if it is going to pay its utility bills, pay staff and make a profit. Deep moral obligation dictates that Jagdeo should take his patronage to Marriott. Now really, if Jagdeo cannot support Marriott why should other Guyanese? Jagdeo was speaking in a very low tone. Maybe he needed the privacy but if he did why was he at the Oasis Café. Because of its incommodious nature, the Oasis is the last place one would go to discuss sensitive things. Anyone who has been to the Oasis would know it is too small a diner to even whisper without the echo carrying to other tables. I was once in the Oasis and I heard a prominent female Guyanese whisper to another female that she wants to marry her and everybody in the café turned around and looked at them. Even though they were at the same table, she should have taken out her smart phone and text the proposal because even a whisper will reverberate in the Oasis. Which reminds me that I cannot understand why Jagdeo is never seen at any public place with a multi-gender grouping. When I was talking to my friend, I kept looking at the Jagdeo table. Jagdeo has lost weight and lacks that buoyant, aggressive visage he always wore when he was the leader of the Guyanese Indian hegemony. Jagdeo doesn’t look like the person we saw in Guyana from 1999 to May 2015 when he was King Jagdeo. Somehow he looked a man with lots of burden on his shoulder. Strangely, his stance was a bent one. While Prashad and Odinga sat upright, Jagdeo’s face was close to the table as if he didn’t want to be noticed. But that is understandable. If Burnham had lost power, I doubt he would have wanted to be seen in public. People would have stared in his direction saying look how the powerful Burnham had become ordinary. That thought flew into my mind when I saw Jagdeo in the Oasis Café. Reminds me of Sam Hinds. I have never seen that man in public without seven personal attendants when he was the Prime Minister. It was a weird, crazy situation. I walked out of Kaieteur News offices onto the pavement on Saffon Street and passing in his joggers were PM Hinds and seven attendants walking behind him. I am driving south on High Street in Kingston and there was PM Hinds in his joggers on the pavement and seven attendants behind him. At 8 pm I am with my wife outside Dr. Fawcett Jeffrey’s clinic at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, waiting for her name to be called. Suddenly in comes PM Hinds with his seven- man entourage. I once asked the question in a previous column if the PPP lost power would PM Hinds become a character in a Tennessee Williams play. Where is Robert Persaud? He has fallen too. But his crazy antics will always find a line in any book on the reign of Jagdeo. There was a time when both Jagdeo and PM Hinds were out of the country. Rohee acted as President and Persaud as Prime Minister. Persaud, according to this very newspaper, used the siren in his security patrol while driving down a pasture road in a deserted country enclave. I wonder if Persaud takes the subway in the US. It must be a hard fall to take – no one will look in his direction. I glanced at Jagdeo as I was leaving and I remember when he was President he told striking air traffic controllers that if they had picketed him when he deplaned at the Timehri airport, he would have fired them. I guess he still can – but in his mind only.