Oswald Brown Writes

Jit Culmer, a very good friend of mine, took me to task in the “No Spin Zone” for my criticism of Hubert Ingraham. I didn’t intend for my response to be so long, but I thought that the points I made deserve to be shared with a wider audience than the FNM’s Hate Brigade in the “No Spin Zone.”

Here’s my response: “Jit, I’m very sorry that you’ve decided to join the FNM’s Hate Brigade in this forum whose only response to things that I post has been to verbally attack me with vicious, libelous propaganda, including repeated claims that I killed one wife and tried to kill another.

When I say I’m sorry that you have chosen to join these evil people in their slanderous assault on me, I sincerely mean that because I know of the many struggles you and I and people like Wikie Brown, Chess Wood and Howard Miller, among others, were involved in the 1960s when we were all PLPs and later as founding members of the FNM.

I know that you’ll recall that I was the founding editor of The Torch in 1972. Consequently, I’m very disappointed that you have reached the conclusion that I’m “putting good journalistic skills in a toilet bowl.” What’s more, let me disavow you of your belief that Hubert Ingraham is my leader, as you suggest when you make this statement: “My question Ossie, is, you say you hate not Mr Ingraham, why have you chosen to slander your leader?”

I do not hate Hubert Ingraham, but have absolutely not respect for him, and he knows why. For your benefit, here’s a brief synopsis of why I have no respect for him.

I have reliable evidence that when I was forced to retire from The Freeport News in January of 2010, without a day’s notice, the principal persons behind this decision made by the management of The Nassau Guardian were Hubert Ingraham and Zhivargo Laing after I had written a column critical of Ingraham and an editorial critical of Laing. That’s because the general manager of The Guardian at the time was Sandra Knowles, one of Ingraham’s “special friends,” whom we know would jump out of an airplane travelling at 50,000 feet to please him.

She has since been fired by The Guardian, I’m told, for ordering the editorial department not to print something sent in by a PLP member of the House. She thought she was protected because she is a close friend of Tony Ferguson, the publisher of The Guardian, but she did not take under consideration that Tony’s boss is Manny Alexiou, head of AF Holdings, which owns The Freeport News, The Guardian, CFAL, and a number of other companies.

Jit, tell me what you would have done, given the circumstances I’ve explained above. The major problem, Jit, is that you and the other original FNMs allowed Ingraham, in 1990, to hijack the party founded by Cecil Wallace Whitfield and the other members of the Dissident Eight and turn it into his failed Third Force Party, which he tried to get off the ground after he was expelled from the PLP in 1984.

I hope that this convinces you that the claim you make with this statement is absolutely untrue: “I believe you to be a loyal FNM as I am.” Of course, I was once a loyal FNM, but I’m now back home with PLP, the party that I made tremendous contributions to during the struggle for majority rule, and I’m committed to doing all that I can to rid this country of this vindictive, uncaring and worthless FNM government and its dictatorial leader.