Ex-first lady barred from Guyana president's house
Report
Jan-20-09 4:51pm
From: ap.org
Guyana's former first lady told reporters Tuesday that security agents have barred her from the presidential house where she has lived in separate quarters from President Bharrat Jagdeo since their divorce in 2007.
Varshnie Singh, in a rambling press conference in the capital, said she has been prohibited from entering the presidential house since the weekend and has been wearing the same clothes for two days because all her belongings are locked away in the high-security compound.
"I left my family and the country of my birth to make a new life with someone I loved only to find that I meant nothing," said the visibly fatigued Singh, a British-born economist whose nearly nine-year marriage to President Bharrat Jagdeo ended in April 2007.
Singh, who said she was staying with relatives, then demanded Jagdeo's government grant her a duty-free concession to import a car, restore her diplomatic passport and "first lady privileges" and pay a settlement so she could buy her own home.
"The president has paid nothing toward my existence for the past 10 years. I now have no choice but to move back to the U.K." said the former first lady, who runs a Guyana charity that helps sick children travel overseas for medical care.
In a lengthy written statement, Singh maintained that Jagdeo locked her out of the couple's bedroom a week after the two married in 1998.
"Nothing I could do was ever right. Any attempts to find out what was wrong, why he stopped talking to me ... were met with long silences which lasted days on end and I got no answers," she wrote.
Presidential spokesman Kwame McKoy said Jagdeo will offer no comment regarding Singh because authorities were studying her 20-page statement.
In mid-April 2007, Guyana's first family announced they were splitting due to "amicable" differences. The couple wed in 1998, a year before Jagdeo became president of the small, English-speaking South American nation. They do not have any children.
In late 2007, Singh organized her first bizarre news conference to appeal to her fellow citizens to lend her a car to carry out charitable work, complaining she had to walk or take a bus since state cars were no longer available to her.
Report
Jan-20-09 4:51pm
From: ap.org
Guyana's former first lady told reporters Tuesday that security agents have barred her from the presidential house where she has lived in separate quarters from President Bharrat Jagdeo since their divorce in 2007.
Varshnie Singh, in a rambling press conference in the capital, said she has been prohibited from entering the presidential house since the weekend and has been wearing the same clothes for two days because all her belongings are locked away in the high-security compound.
"I left my family and the country of my birth to make a new life with someone I loved only to find that I meant nothing," said the visibly fatigued Singh, a British-born economist whose nearly nine-year marriage to President Bharrat Jagdeo ended in April 2007.
Singh, who said she was staying with relatives, then demanded Jagdeo's government grant her a duty-free concession to import a car, restore her diplomatic passport and "first lady privileges" and pay a settlement so she could buy her own home.
"The president has paid nothing toward my existence for the past 10 years. I now have no choice but to move back to the U.K." said the former first lady, who runs a Guyana charity that helps sick children travel overseas for medical care.
In a lengthy written statement, Singh maintained that Jagdeo locked her out of the couple's bedroom a week after the two married in 1998.
"Nothing I could do was ever right. Any attempts to find out what was wrong, why he stopped talking to me ... were met with long silences which lasted days on end and I got no answers," she wrote.
Presidential spokesman Kwame McKoy said Jagdeo will offer no comment regarding Singh because authorities were studying her 20-page statement.
In mid-April 2007, Guyana's first family announced they were splitting due to "amicable" differences. The couple wed in 1998, a year before Jagdeo became president of the small, English-speaking South American nation. They do not have any children.
In late 2007, Singh organized her first bizarre news conference to appeal to her fellow citizens to lend her a car to carry out charitable work, complaining she had to walk or take a bus since state cars were no longer available to her.
