Guyana: Fraudulent Revolution [2015 Library Ebook ed.] 0906156203, 9780906156209

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First published in Great Britain in 1984 by

Latin America Bureau (Research and Action) Ltd Digitized in [2015]. This edition is a eo-publication between Latin America Bureau and Practical Action Publishing. www. practicalactionpublishing.org I Amwell Street London EC I R I UL Published with the assistance of

The World Council of Churches The views expressed, however, are those of the authors Copyright @ Latin America Bureau (Research and Action) Ltd 1984 ISBN 0 906156 20 3

ISBN 13:9780906156209 ISBN Library Ebook: 9781909013735 Book DOl: http:l/dx.doi.org/10.3362/9781909013735

Design by Jan Brown Designs Map by Michael Green Photos by Jenny Matthews Typeset, printed and bound by Russell Press Ltd., Nottingham

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Contents

Foreword Map

4 6

1: Guyana in Brief

7

2: Sugar Dictatorship: Colonial Origins of Guyana

3: The Rise and Disintegration of the National Movement: Preparing the Fraud

4: Independence to Paramountcy: Consolidating the Fraud

13

29 46

5: The PNC and the IMF: The Cost of the Fraud

62

6: Paramountcy to Executive Presidency: The Fraud Disintegrates

73

Appendices 1 2 3

The Essequibo Border Dispute Cultivating Violence: Jonestown and the House of Israel The Role of the Christian Churches in Guyana

Bibliography and Suggested Reading

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91

96 100 106

Foreword

The causes of the present tragic situation in Guyana are complex in themselves. They have been rendered even more complex by the manner in which they have been recorded. This is especially true of the period after 1950 when the 'cold war' language of communism versus the defence of the free world began to dominate accounts of political developments. If for no other reason than to present events in a more balanced light, an independent text has been necessary for some time. The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) is consequently very happy to endorse the initiative of the Latin America Bureau in producing such a text. This publication fulfills several useful purposes. Guyanese familiar with the events have for the most part not been able to evaluate them calmly. Additionally, the people of the Caribbean region have a greater need to counter the distorted versions with which they have been fed. Finally, and no less importantly, an independent version of events is necessary for the general public beyond the region, which has little or no idea of the process of disintegration to which the country has been subjected. Within the space of three decades Guyanese society has been transformed from one noted in the region for its economic potential, cultural achievements and progressive politics into the most tension-ridden, desperate and repressive in terms of social decay and economic decline. This essay attempts to explain the process of disintegration and why the methods used by the imperial powers in the 1950s and the 1960s to destroy the national movement for economic and political independence poisoned the life of the society for the next generation. The text correctly emphasizes that it would be erroneous to consider that the destruction of that process and the subsequent consolidation 4 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:40 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of the People's National Congress in office is only, or even predominantly, a tale of terror. It has been fundamentally a tale of fraud regularly punctuated by violence. This publication comes at a most opportune time since the fraudulence can no longer disguise the extent of the economic and social crisis, and the resort to terror to sustain it is increasing. We would recommend any person who wishes to understand the Guyanese situation, especially the deterioration in observance of human rights, to begin the task by reading this study.

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Guyana Human Rights Association

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ATLANTIC OCEAN

SURINAM

BRAZIL

I

0

Milts

I

25

I

50

I

15

I

BRAZIL

100

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1 Guyana in Brief

Statistics Area

84,000 sq miles (214,000 sq km) (UK miles)

Population

803,000 (1982) growth rate I OJo (1970-80 average) population density 9.4 per sq mile

People

East Indians African Mixed (Creole) Amerindian Chinese & Portuguese Other

51 OJo 31 OJo II OJo 50Jo I OJo I OJo

Religion

Christian Hindu Muslim Not Stated

460Jo 370Jo 80Jo 90Jo

Health

Life Expectancy (1975-80) Infant Mortality No of doctors Pop. per hospital bed

69.1 years 50.5 per 1000 1:7,660 (1981) 1:207

=

94,200 sq

7

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Economy

Principal towns

GNP (1982) Income per capita Currency Percentage of total exports (1981): bauxite sugar rice alumina Total exports Total imports

US$430m US$693 G$3.03 = US$1

Georgetown (capital)

183,000 1979/Estimate 30,000 1979/Estimate 11,000 1979/Estimate

New Amsterdam Corriverton

Government

32.307o 27.4% 10.6% 8.8% US$241m US$290m

Executive Presidency since 1980

Chronology 1580

Dutch make contact with Carib Indians.

1621

Dutch West India Company takes control of Essequibo trading posts.

1651

Berbice under Dutch control.

1665

British attempts to drive out Dutch fail.

1678

Shipment of African slaves to British Guiana to work on the sugar plantations.

1708

French fail to drive out Dutch.

1814

Territory ceded to Britain by Treaty of Utrecht 1814.

1831

Three counties. of Essequibo, Berbice and Demerara merged into British Guiana.

1838

Abolition of slavery in British territories.

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1841

Portuguese immigrants arrive.

1851

Indentured Indian labourers brought in to replace slaves.

1853

Chinese immigrants arrive.

1917

End of indentured immigration.

1919

British Guiana Labour Union formed union in the Caribbean.

1939

Moyne Commission established to investigate social unrest in West Indies.

1950

PPP formed under leadership of Dr Cheddi Jagan.

1953

First elections under universal adult suffrage. Constitution suspended after 135 days.

1955

PNC formed from split in PPP led by Forbes Burnham.

1957

PPP wins general election.

1961

PPP wins general election.

1963

80-day general strike led by civil service, financed by the CIA. Right-wing firms lock their workers out, leading to rioting.

1963-64

Racial violence, murder, arson, hundreds killed as PNC and UF supporters denounce PPP government as communist. Britain refuses to grant independence to British Guiana under PPP rule.

1964

Elections under new proportional representation system. Despite increasing its share of the vote, PPP wins only 24 seats. The PNC wins 22 seats and the UF seven. PNC asked by Governor General to form a government in coalition with UF. Geneva Agreement reached on Venezuelan border dispute.

1966

Independence from Britain. Name changed from British Guiana to Guyana.

the first trade

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1968

Elections massively rigged by introduction of 'overseas vote'. PNC wins majority, drops UF from coalition.

1970

Guyana declared a 'Co-operative Republic'. Governor general replaced by non-executive President. Protocol of Port-of-Spain freezes Venezuelan border dispute for twelve years. Nationalization of bauxite industry from the Demerara Bauxite Company (DEMBA).

1970-76

Nationalization of all major foreign economic assets except banks and insurance companies.

1972

Diplomatic relations estabished with Cuba.

1973

Elections massively rigged. Ballot boxes seized at close of polling by the army. Released after 24 hours, when PNC declared to have won a two-thirds majority.

1975

Doctrine of the 'paramountcy of the party' enunciated in the Declaration of Sophia in which all state institutions including government institutions are declared to be arms of the ruling party. All private schools taken over by the state.

1978

Referendum to allow a two-thirds majority to change any provision of the constitution. Aimed at postponing elections, government claims a 71 per cent turn-out and a 97.7 per cent 'yes' vote. Civic groups claim a 14 per cent turn-out and PPP claims 12 per cent. A two-year extension of the life of parliament follows.

1979

Formation of WP A: multi-racial independent Marxist party.

1980

Assassination of Dr Walter Rodney, leader of WP A, by government.

1980

New constitution promulgated. Executive presidency introduced with 'virtual imperial powers'. General elections denounced as fraudulent by International Observer Team.

1981

Government spending cuts cause major redundancies in

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the civil service. Widespread food shortages and breakdown of public and social services occur. 1982

Food shortages broaden, flour production and exports reduced.

imports

stopped,

1983

Bauxite industry in crisis, strikes in sugar and bauxite industries.

Political Parties 1. People's Progressive Party (PPP) The first party formed in Guyana, under the leadership of Dr Cheddi Jagan. The PPP won the first elections held under adult suffrage in 1953. The constitution was suspended later that year because, according to the Colonial Office, 'the intrigues of communists ... some in ministerial posts, threaten the welfare of the colony'. The party split in 1955. Since that time its political base has been the rural Indian population. The PPP won the elections in 1957, when the constitution was restored, and in 1961; but it lost power in the 1964 elections. Since that time the PPP has participated in all subsequent elections, though denouncing the results as fraudulent.

2. People's National Congress {PNC) Originaliy formed as a result of a split in the PPP, the PNC came to power in a coalition government following the 1964 elections. In 1968, 1973 and 1980 the PNC claimed electoral victories, the validity of which have been widely disputed. The traditional political base of the PNC, subsequent to the 1961 elections, has been the urban AfroGuyanese population. Forbes Burnham has been party leader since its inception. Ideologically, the party claims to be establishing cooperative socialism.

3. Working Peoples' Alliance (WPA) Originally a group of small left-wing interests, the WP A formally declared itself a party in 1979. Its collective leadership is multi-racial and its ideological orientation independent Marxist. The WP A has apparently made significant inroads on the traditional support of the two older parties. The WP A boycotted the 1980 elections. II This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

4. Vanguard for Liberation and Democracy (VLD) Formed in 1979 by a coalition of three small parties, the Vanguard, the Liberator and the People's Democratic Movement. Of the three, the Liberator, led by Dr Ganraj Kumar, is the largest. Of a centreright orientation, the VLD boycotted the 1980 elections.

5. United Force (UF) Since its coalition with the PNC in government in 1964-68, the UF has dwindled into a very small right-wing party. Despite its apparent distance in ideological terms from the ruling party, it has consistently colluded with the PNC, a fact which largely explains its continued survival in parliament. The UF participated in the 1980 elections.

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2 Sugar Dictatorship: Colonial Origins of Guyana

Creating a Country and a Population In the late eighteenth century, sugar was the most lucrative commodity of international trade, and the West Indies its most important source. In the area now known as Guyana, the fortunes and tribulations of the sugar industry mirrored and moulded the political, economic, social, commercial, cultural and even geographic life of the country. This was not always the case, however, since the area had been the largest producer of cotton in the world in the seventeenth century, and coffee had also preceded the emergence of sugar as the dominant crop. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Dutch business acumen and hydrographic talents, together with the labour of tens of thousands of slaves, created the complex of drainage and irrigation systems necessary for the production of sugar on the uniformly flat and low-lying coastlands of Guyana (see box). Since capital investment in slaves and drainage equipment was so high as to make human considerations a luxury, even the conformation of the towns and villages which developed, and in which 90 per cent of the Guyanese people came to live, were determined in strict accordance with the requirements of 'King Sugar'. Even after emancipation in 1833 the plantation economy, supported by a colonial administration, continued to dominate the life of the society at considerable cost to the independent social and economic development of the country. Fearing that labour costs on the sugar estates would increase if alternative employment became available, estate owners sought to frustrate the independent economic development of their ex-slaves. This they did by restricting the development of ex-slave village 13 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

A 'Narrow Strip of Land' ' ...... every acre at present in cultivation has been the scene of a struggle with the sea in front and the flood behind. As a result of this arduous labour during two centuries, a narrow strip of land along the coast has been rescued from the mangrove swamp and kept under cultivation by an elaborate system of dams and dykes.' The 'narrow strip of land' lies within a coastal plain that covers an area of 1,750 square miles out of Guyana's surface area of 83,000 square miles. The maximum width of the coastal plain is about 40 miles on the Corentyne to the east, but it practically ends on the Essequibo coast. Most of the coastal plain comprises clays at sea level or as low as six feet below sea level. Waterlogged conditions are the understandable consequence of constant flooding from the sea and from the heavy rainfall, which averages about 90 inches per annum on the coast and the near interior. Apart from a few natural sand ridges at seven to ten feet above sea level, all areas of the coast that came under permanent cultivation had first to be drained and protected from further inundation. The Venn Sugar Commission of 1948 estimated that each square mile of cane cultivation involved the provision of forty-nine miles of drainage canals and ditches and sixteen miles of the higher level of waterways used for transportation and nngation. The Commissioners noted that the original construction of these waterways must have entailed the moving of at least 100 million tons of soil. This meant that slaves moved 100 million tons of heavy, waterlogged clay with shovel in hand, while enduring conditions of perpetual mud and water. As soon as slavery ended, planters in British Guiana established work schedules to be fulfilled before the labourer was paid for his nine-hour working day. At the top of these schedules were listed two tasks: (I) digging canals 12 feet by 5 feet, and throwing the ground on both sides - 600 cubic feet in nine hours; and (2) throwing back 6-foot parapets from the above - 72 feet in nine hours. Flooding was as likely to come from the sea pouring through breaches in the sea dams as from direct inundation and the overflow of fresh water from behind the back dams. Drainage had to be conceptualized in conjunction with irrigation, and both were meaningless without sea defence. Many planters in the nineteenth century seemingly lived in fear that for each one of them the day might dawn when their puny efforts to keep out the sea might come to nought. When an estate was said to have 'gone under', this was more than a merely figurative expression, because it was usually the invading sea that completed the demise of a failing estate. Maps of the Demerara estuary in the eighteenth century indicate the existence

•

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of estates that were subsequently swallowed by the sea. An estate fought the sea at a line of defence constituted by the front dam. If it proved economically or technically impossible to continue repairing a front dam in a given location, then the estate 'retired' that dam many roods inland and renewed the struggle after conceding many valuable acres of its frontlands. The enormous influence of flood and drought was brought to bear on several facets of the lives of working people. They were unemployed in periods that were extremely dry because estates had to cut back on their allocations of task work. Any drought in November-December and a drop in the level of water in the canals meant that punts could not operate to carry canes from the fields to the factories; cane cutting and grinding therefore ceased. When the rains were excessive the ultimate result was the same- namely, an increase in seasonal unemployment. In times of drought planters fumed and fretted, while workers had little to drink or even eat. The incidence of gastroenteric disease shot up, and such water as was available was imbibed along with the mud of the trenches. Floods took an even greater toll on health, on livestock, on crops, on the roads and dams and on the capacity of the villagers to pay rates and retain possession of their houses and provision lots. Source: A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905, Walter Rodney.

communities, placing obstacles in the way of agricultural diversification, and finally by the introduction of indentureimmigration. The acquiring of lands by the ex-slaves was hindered by the extortionate prices demanded when it became known that they were interested in purchase. Through their control of expenditures in the Combined Court (the body which exercised legislative and executive authority within the colony), the planters consistently refused to approve funds for improvements to roads, dams, and drainage for village purposes. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds were spent on drainage and irrigation which private planters deemed necessary for their estates, while any request, however modest, for similar expenditure in the free villages met with considerable hostility. The villagers had to contend, therefore, not only with the natural hazards arising from floods and erosion, but also with a ruling class which saw the villagers' every attempt to control these hazards as prejudicial to its interests. In addition, the villagers had to subsidize the estate infrastructure through taxation. In order to ensure that crops other than sugar did not offer a 15

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substantial income to peasant farmers and free labourers, no attempt was made to assist the development of non-sugar agriculture. Plans for exporting plantains, cassava, yams and sweet potatoes to the Caribbean region were actively discouraged. Antipathy to alternative forms of agriculture was translated into unscrupulous flooding of village agricultural lands which sabotaged their progress. In addition, many free labourers who desired to get away entirely from the sugardominated coastlands and who attempted to develop market-garden agriculture in the riverain areas of the Essequibo and Demerara were deterred by the rules governing land purchases. The third major strand in the planters' efforts to protect their sugar monopoly was the use of indentured labourers in the colony. An indentured labourer was a bonded immigrant who in return for his passage to Guyana (and return passage home) was committed to work on a given plantation for a stipulated number of years at a fixed rate of pay. The usual length of time for indentureship was five years. This was the single most controversial and far-reaching of the measures used to protect the sugar producers from increasing wage costs. From the 1840s onwards, the plantocracy lobbied the Colonial Office through the influential West India Committee in London and the West India Associations in Liverpool and Glasgow for both permission and a subsidy to introduce indentured labour into the sugar industry. The basic argument was that since the abolition of slavery, the cost of labour was making sugar from the British West Indies uncompetitive in relation to Cuban and later Brazilian sugar, which continued to be produced with slave labour. The first experiments with indentured labourers involved groups of Madeiran Portuguese and Chinese from Canton. Neither group successfully adapted to the rigours of estate life and they were released from their indentured contracts. Large-scale importation of indentured labourers from India began in 1851. Between that year and 1917, when immigration was finally suspended, 228,743 Indians were brought to the colony. Although the phenomenon of indentured migration is largely identified with Indians because they were numerically the largest group which arrived in British Guiana by this route, groups of Chinese continued to arrive until the 1860s and groups of Portuguese until 1882. A significant number of indentured Africans also arrived between 1840 and 1865. By 1870 the labour force was divided into three main groups: indentured immigrants, ex-indentured immigrants and their descendants, and the village population, which was predominantly black ex-slaves and their descendants. The three categories of labour were set in antagonistic relations towards each other within the plantation context. Indentured labourers, no matter how efficient or 16

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skilled, could earn no more than the 24 cents per day legal rate, while village free labourers could band together into work gangs to negotiate 'task' rather than time rates. They were also adept at knowing when to press for higher rates and when to avoid plantation work altogether in favour of other temporary pursuits. They knew the various industrial gambits which enhanced their bargaining position vis-a-vis the planter and estate managers. This expertise was undermined by the planters who utilised the different segments of the labour force to undercut each other, sometimes knowingly, sometimes out of ignorance. It was this structural weakness of the labour force, rather than its ethnic composition, which was responsible for its lack of internal unity. From the labourers' point of view, tension was caused by the low wages and appalling conditions imposed by the owners of the sugar industry and their managers. The fact that the divisions between categories of labour also reflected racial differences led to an oversimplified conclusion that the lack of unity was primarily racial, whereas there is little evidence of racial conflict reported in the nineteenth century. Nor was the planters' divide and rule strategy directed against any one group. Indentured or ex-indentured immigrants might be used to undercut a strike or a pay claim by free creole labourers on one occasion and the situation reversed on another. The benefits of stimulating racial antagonism were clear to the plantocracy and colonial government. As one contemporary wrote: 'The coolie despises the negro because he considers him ... not so highly civilised as himself; while the negro ... despises the coolie because he is so immensely inferior to himself in physical strength. There will never be much danger of seditious disturbances among the East Indian immigrants ... so long as large numbers of negroes continue to be employed with them.'

Thus, not only did indentured labour reduce wage costs, it also afforded the planters a certain degree of protection against social unrest. Self protection against revolt was explicitly linked with the immigrant question in one submission to the West Indian Commission of 1897 which stated: 'They do not intermix and that, of course, is one of our great safeties in the colony when there has been any rioting. If our negroes were troublesome every coolie on the estate would stand by one. If the coolie attacked me I could with confidence trust my negro friends for keeping me from injury.'

Despite these structural divisions within the labour force the evidence is that repressive measures were still needed to contain labour unrest. From the slave period, when a handful of white planters and 17

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administrators faced an overwhelmingly black labour force, Guyana had developed what was, by West Indian standards, a high degree of militarization. With the introduction of immigration, the indentured labourers found themselves hedged around with a plethora of legal restrictions embodied in labour ordinances. The maxim enunciated by one planter but practised by all was that the coolie should either be 'at work, in hospital or in prison'. The rigour with which labour laws were applied and the level of resentment and resistance which this provoked are indicated by the fact that between 1866 and 1870, 65,084 cases were recorded involving a breach of the ordinances. This averages out to 18.5 convictions every day for the five-year period. What is remarkable, however, is not the resistance offered by these three groups in the labour force to their work situation, but rather that there is no record of violence of a purely political nature throughout the nineteenth century. While there were several incidents of violence arising out of industrial disputes, it was the reaction of the colonial power structure that turned these industrial disputes into political riots. This was a pattern which was to continue for the rest of the life of the colonial state. By comparison with the treatment of the Indian and negro populations, treatment of the Portuguese and Chinese was benign if not enlightened. Discriminatory rules governing the sale of land usually worked in their favour and they were able to acquire sufficient lands around Georgetown to dominate the production and distribution of agricultural products for the local market. Thus was laid the financial basis for later generations to transfer almost entirely out of agricultural production and into commerce. In addition to the agricultural exploitation of land, the Portuguese were better placed to exploit the prospects for charcoal than other groups. Once again they were favoured by a land policy which required land to be sold in large blocks, which they were able to buy using their accumulated savings from market gardening. Thus the charcoal industry, which had formerly been a cottage-scale pursuit of creole blacks, was raised to a level at which they could not compete. Formerly independent charcoal makers became wage earners on Portuguese-owned timber grants, once again frustrated in their attempts to function as independent producers. The story of gold production follows a similar pattern of Portuguese immigrants establishing themselves in an industry due to their capacity to finance its operations from savings accumulated on the land. In the case of gold and timber, working capital in the form of provisions and credit for labourers was provided by both Chinese and Portuguese who had further differentiated themselves from the ranks of manual labourers by dominating distribution in the rural 18

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areas, most notably on the East Coast of Demerara. Thus, although not challenging the English commercial houses such as George Little, Cottam Morton and Thomas Daniel, which dominated both Guyanese and West Indian commercial trade, the Portuguese were laying the foundations to replace them. Unlike the Chinese and Indians after them, the differentiation which was taking place between the Portuguese settlers and creole labourers was mirrored by a similar class differentiation within the Portuguese community itself. There appears to have been no strong sense of class or racial solidarity among the Portuguese, and social stratification is still a notable fact today, to which the significant numbers of Portuguese labourers and fishermen attest. By contrast the Indian immigrant community achieved and retained a remarkable degree of internal racial cohesion, especially in view of the potential for strife provided by the MuslimHindu religious division and the caste system.

The Emergence of a Middle Class Following the 'juridical revolution' of emancipation, education proved to be the motor force behind the gradual improvement of urban creoles. A generation of clerks and domestic employees struggled to ensure the acquisition of a rudimentary education for their children. The first generation of educated Guyanese, almost exclusively black, or of black descent, secured for themselves positions as teachers and public servants, thereby laying the groundwork for the formation of a social class distinct from the estate labourer, draycartmen and unskilled labourers. However, for black Guyanese the post of headteacher or rural postmaster was as high on the social ladder as they could normally hope to aspire, although the churches also provided their own avenue of social acceptability. Occasionally, members of this group could break new ground, but only with considerable difficulty. This was the case with Dr Rohlehr, who in 1890 was the subject of controversy owing to the refusal by the Governor to appoint him as a medical officer on the grounds that he was black. Although popular pressure eventually forced the appointment to be made, such a breakthrough remained uncommon because it was viewed as threatening to the white power structure. When advancement became constitutionally possible at the end of the century, the ruling clique responded by erecting social barriers to such progress. Among the ex-indentured Indian population social progress was to be the result of economic rather than educational opportunities. For this reason, advancement was an individual achievement rather than 19

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the result of group pressure such as that which created the educational opportunities in the black and coloured urban areas. Indians rose as the result of opportunities provided by the estate economic structure. Foremen among cane-cutters, known as 'drivers', used the influence their positions gave them to acquire land and cattle. Towards the end of the century, as a result of land grants replacing return passages on completion of indenture, rice-farming brought a significant rise in income and status to the Indian community although this was not normally accompanied by social recognition by the creole establishment. Thus with the exception of a few families, who benefited from their relations with the colonial authorities, the growing middle class Indian community mainly established itself on the basis of agricultural activities and was content to consolidate itself by expanding principally in the areas of rice, cattle farming, copra production and market gardening. Economic advancement encouraged this class to remain in the rural areas. Walter Rodney, the eminent Guyanese historian and political leader, has suggested that Guyanese working people in the nineteenth century can be divided into three groups, determined by their income levels. The first group was of those who earned G$600 per annum and were therefore entitled to vote. This group saw the current colonial administration, in which they participated, as the focus for political development. In this first category of income earners were, not surprisingly, the skilled workers of the sugar industry, foreman engineers and head pan-boilers (those in charge of the sugar refining process). However, the potentially most vocal element in the working class in the decade prior to 1891 was the second group, made up of workers who anticipated obtaining the vote if any reform measures were introduced. This group included pan-boilers, headmasters, foremen, carpenters, shipbuilders, tailors, postmasters and sanitary inspectors, all of whom were earning upwards of G$300 per annum. With the exception of the pan-boilers, these occupations had a heavy urban bias and were filled by black and coloured people who by virtue of education had established themselves as tradespeople, junior civil servants and teachers. The third category in the working class, those who would not benefit at all from any extension of the franchise, included canecutters, blacksmiths, wharf-hands, domestics and draycartmen. Also to be found in this group were the so-called 'centipedes', casual drifters who sought employment on a daily or casual basis. The majority in both black and Indian groups were unskilled, and competition for jobs in a situation of economic insecurity inevitably fostered racial suspicion. The planter class was very much aware of 20

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the dynamics of this insecurity and elevated almost to official policy its goal of generating a high level of racial tension between the two major groups by having one group threaten the livelihood of the other through strike-breaking and undercutting wage rates. Despite these efforts, there is no evidence to suggest that such racial incidents as occurred were anything more than spontaneous reactions to specific situations. The colonial authorities were unsuccessful in their attempts to create systematic racial feelings among the working class. Legally indentured labourers were free men, but the conditions of their existence were not much better than slavery, and this prevented them from showing any kind of solidarity with other sections of the working class. They were used as a reserve pool of labour for the purpose of depressing wages. However, the high level of coercion required to maintain the indentured population quiescent undermines the popular conception of them as freely submitting to this role. Nevertheless, the physical separation of the sugar estates from the black urban centres worked to the advantage of the ruling interests in that the relative isolation and ignorance of each other's conditions provided fertile ground for rumours and stereotypes to develop. Between 1850 and 1880 the main form of economic organization among the creole population was the Friendly, Benefit and Burial Societies. Given that trade union organization was impossible due to the presence of a large indentured labour force, these alternative societies were the only means of furthering the interests of the creole population. Despite the economic, political, social and legal obstacles in the way of working class progress, the pressures for reform during the last quarter of the nineteenth century had their origins in this section of the population. Yet it would be an error to deny the role of the newly emerging middle class in the reform process. Although this class was not homogeneous, being differentiated by its rural, urban, educational, financial, commercial or landed origins, the extension of the franchise consolidated the advantages of unity. This created the circumstances in which middle class urban pressure and working class pressure would jointly challenge the planter oligarchy. Nevertheless, the circumstances in which the call for reform was made were not primarily of middle class making. Toward the end of the century relationships between the colonial administration and the sugar planters came under considerable strain.

The Colonial State Until 1881, when certain constitutional reforms were introduced, the political administration of Guyana was carried out under 21 This content downloaded from 77.111.2ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

arrangements which had been largely inherited from the Dutch. Under the governor, who was appointed by the Colonial Office, the local Court of Policy and Combined Courts, which were elected by a very small segment of the population and dominated by the sugar planters, administered the colony. To the extent that the Combined Courts controlled taxation and finances, including the salaries of the colonial officials, Guyana was more independent than other West Indian territories. While ultimately the governor could invoke his emergency powers to assert the authority of the crown, the concerted action of members of the Combined Courts could frustrate his wishes on dayto-day matters. Both the colonists and the governor were aware that the planters' power rested in their having to approve the 'civil list' (budget) every five years. Under the Dutch administration the raison d'etre of colonial politics was the protection of the sugar industry; this continued to be so under the British. This approach to administration grew increasingly anachronistic as the society became economically more diverse and socially more complex. Resistance by the planter class and its commercial allies to any modification of the colonial power structure to accommodate the new interests was vigorous, and, despite occasional tensions over the intransigence of the planters, the colonial administration generally shared their position. Whenever local domination of the Combined Courts by the planters was insufficient to press home planter policy, the powerful sugar lobby at Westminster was brought to bear on a recalcitrant governor to take a more understanding line. In theory, the British colonial administration functioned under the doctrine of 'trusteeship', according to which the inhabitants of a colony who were as yet not sufficiently 'responsible' to govern themselves could look to the governor and his officials, who wielded power on their behalf, for protection against the economically and politically powerful forces in the colony. The trusteeship doctrine, which served as a rationale for plunder and subjugation, was further devalued in British Guiana where the colonial government for long periods was exclusively an agency for the promotion of planter interests. Circumstances in British Guiana were such that sustained planter objections to any measure proposed by the governor usually ended with the governor retreating. Des Voeux, a nineteenth century magistrate of greater intellect and social sensitivity than most of his peers, noted that if the governor did not acquiesce in whatever the planters were seeking, they could make his life a misery, prevent him receiving supplies and practically drive him out of the colony. In an illuminating note on the pervasiveness of planter power, Des Voeux states: 22 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

'Though the legislative body of the Court of Policy had a bare majority of Officials, some even of these were permitted, as I think improperly, to own or to be found pecuniarily interested in sugar estates, while the whole of the unofficial members owed their position and livelihood to the same product.' As we have noted, the growth of the population due to indentured immigration and the economic and political diversification of the colony brought with them a challenge to the prevailing political order. This did not constitute as effective a pressure, however, as internal changes taking place within the sugar industry itself. Far-reaching technological improvements and the varying fortunes of the planters as a result of them were bringing about important changes in the ownership structure of the industry. Concentration of ownership during the last quarter of the nineteenth century led to the disappearance of 63 estates, while the trend towards absentee ownership created a situation in which by 1904 four firms, all of which had their headquarters in the United Kingdom, controlled 80 per cent of the sugar industry. During the period in question political influence in the colony had been shifting away from domination by individual planters to the less direct manipulation by the limited liability companies which were buying up estates. One consequence of this ownership change was that the colonial government no longer needed to tolerate the limitations which planter control of the legislature had exercised upon the administration. Ostensibly responding to middle class pressures being channelled through the Reform Association, founded in 1889, the colonial government introduced constitutional changes in 1891 which took the initiative away from the planter class. The significance of the constitutional changes of 1891 lay in the fact that they eventually gave rise to a shift within the legislature, from a situation in which confrontation primarily had been between the colonial officials and the planters, to one in which both of these interests banded together to confront the emerging non-sugar, middle class influences which began to appear in the legislature. By 1916 the Colonial Secretary was calling for constitutional protection for the mercantile and sugar interests. What the colonial authorities had envisaged as a mild adjustment to pacify middle class ambitions and to curb the power of the planters was in fact a growing movement towards the democratization of the economic and political life of the colony. The tendency to misread the political currents in the society was a constant feature of colonial rule, which usually led to over-reaction by the authorities. This was particularly noticeable in the industrial disputes of the early years of the twentieth century, which the authorities termed, and then turned into, political riots. Despite the rational arguments advanced in the name of the 23

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doctrine of trusteeship, the real relationship between the governed and the rulers was coercive. The colonial state in British Guiana developed as the needs of capital developed. The response of the state to labour unrest, caused by low wages and the degrading housing and medical facilities provided for the indentured labourers, was to use the law as part of the coercive apparatus to keep labour in line. Labour ordinances, riot acts and states of emergency were the normal instruments of justice. In addition to the use of the judicial system to maintain its dominant position the colonial state also created a militia. Membership of the militia required an annual income of G$300, which would have admitted lower middle class occupations such as bakers and tinsmiths but not unskilled labourers. The function of the militia was to contain disturbances and riots until the British troops could be brought from the West Indian islands. Against this background of 200 years of unbroken absolute rule in the interest of sugar, the minor adjustments made to the constitution in 1891 were insignificant. Their limited significance was demonstrated by the Georgetown riots of 1905. What began as an industrial dispute over wages ended on the scale of an insurrection thanks to the high-handedness of the governor. Labourers on the East Bank Demerara sugar estates went on strike and began a march to Georgetown to discuss their grievances. Police blocked their entrance to Georgetown and in an ensuing melee opened fire on the workers. Seven died and 17 were injured, and as the news spread, rioting and some looting of shops took place. One colonial report stated that 'four-fifths of Georgetown seemed to have gone stark, staring mad'. Large numbers of the militia refused to answer the governor's call, and eventually order was restored when British warships arrived. The governor actively intervened to prevent a settlement taking place because it contained certain wage increases. The failure of the militia to answer the call to muster demonstrated how little sympathy the middle class had with the colonial authorities. Although middle-class advance was dependent on their acceptance by the social and political elite of the colony, the evidence suggests that they were not as fawning or slavish towards this group as is usually suggested. Individual members of the middle class such as lawyer Patrick Dargan and Dr Rohlehr showed active solidarity with the working class and attempted unsuccessfully to mediate between the workers and the authorities. Despite the openings for middle class participation which the 1891 reforms had created, the colonial authorities were not prepared to view them as the thin end of the wedge, enabling middle-class elements to champion working-class causes. By and large the colonial strategy worked, because the middle class for the most part earned its living in occupations ancillary to the 24

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main areas of production, which were themselves in expatriate hands. The lack of familiarity of the middle class with the forces of production left it as a class in a dependent economic position. By contrast the ruling elite and the working class represented the two indispensible elements in the process of production, namely capital and labour. Since the raison d'etre of British Guiana was the production of sugar at an exploitative rate, the relationship between the two groups was always tense, with the plantocracy ever mindful that it could lead to violence at any time.

Trade Union Development The aftermath of the 1905 riots saw several attempts to form trade unions, especially of craftsmen. Carpenters and printers were among the first to attempt to combine to improve their economic position. However, despite the 'respectable' character of the associations, they did not prosper. Between 1910 and 1917 several attempts were made by boat captains and even civil servants to form organizations to defend wages and working conditions but none of them took root. In 1919, following agitation among the waterfront workers over the rising cost of living, the British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU) was formed by Nathaniel Critchlow. Besides being the first union in British Guiana, the BGLU was the first in the West Indies. In the early years of its existence the BGLU attracted members from a wide range of occupations. Membership rose to 7,000 and the dues paid amounted to over G$9,000. The formation of the BGLU was the culmination of two years' work by Critchlow and was crowned by an unprecedented two wage increases in one year for waterfront workers. Critchlow was eventually fired from his waterfront job when he started to campaign for an eight-hour day. The BGLU faced a complex situation. From the point of view qf the industrial situation there was need for considerable militancy if any improvement for the workers was to be won. At the same time, the colonial authorities were ready to use any pretext to destroy the nascent union. Critchlow had the job of maintaining the union's credibility with the workers without provoking a confrontation with the authorities which he could not sustain. Alarm among the colonial officials at the development of the BGLU was centred on the fact that the union had more than industrial goals. Not only was the union attracting members at a rapid pace but it had political objectives. The first constitution of the BGLU stated explicitly among its objectives the pursuit of a socialist state in British Guiana. Even less reactionary capitalists than those who controlled the country at that time would 25

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have been alarmed at this propositiOn, coming two years after the upheavals of the Russian revolution. However, given the primacy of avoiding confrontation with the colonial authorities until the union was properly established, the socialist objectives of the union were never given concrete expression. Organizational weakness proved to be a recurring problem for the BGLU over the years. This was manifested dramatically by the widely fluctuating membership figures from year to year. The most obvious explanation for the organizational weakness of the BGLU was that, as with all other attempts at industrial action since emancipation, a pool of reserve labour was always available to undermine union activity. This weakness was most dramatically illustrated in 1922 when the BGLU agreed to accept a pay reduction in order to safeguard jobs. This action on the part of the union did not foster any comparable sense of social responsibility on the part of employers, whose refusal in 1924 to accept an increase in stevedore wages from G$1.60 to G$2.00 per day led to a widespread strike, involving waterfront, sawmill, sewerage, public works, electricity corporation, railway and commercial sector workers and domestics, carpenters and waterworks employees. As in 1905, workers on the East Bank decided to march to Georgetown to lay their grievances before the governor. At Ruimveldt the marchers were halted by the police force who read the Riot Act. When the marchers did not disperse, the police opened fire, killing twelve marchers and leaving fifteen wounded. The ensuing commission of inquiry produced no indictments nor any redress for the workers. In the face of such intransigence on the part of the colonial authorities, it is to the credit of men like Critchlow that they managed to hold the union together at all. It should be noted that the BGLU had been in existence for two decades before the sugar workers won union recognition for themselves. This did not occur until 1939, when the Manpower Citizens' Association, led by Ayube Edun, was recognised by the Sugar Producers' Association following the death of four workers at the hands of the police at Leonora estate. The BGLU was also distinguished by the role women played within it. By 1935 the President of the BGLU was a woman, Johana Harris, and more women than men were members. Although the socialist objective of the BGLU may appear to have been utopian under the conditions in which the union was trying to survive, the union was politically active in favour of universal adult suffrage and political reform. The BGLU established relations early on with the British Labour Party, an indication perhaps that it perceived that any industrial gains would be a function of success in the broader political struggle. Thus the effective goals of the trade 26

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union movement could be described as Fabian and welfare in character. While union gains may not have been notable in the 1920s and 1930s, the union's performance must be judged against both the internal repressiveness of the colonial regime and the collapse on a world scale of capitalist economies. Through the BGLU, organized labour in British Guiana was in contact with the labour movement in the rest of the Caribbean. The BGLU was a founder member of the Caribbean Conference of Labour. A strong radical strain ran through the regional union organizations of this period, and they do not appear to have found the affiliation of unions to political parties to have been a problem. In the early days of unionism the struggle for better wages and working conditions was seen as part and parcel of the broader emancipation of the working class. Lack of political participation in the society was a fundamental problem, and without the resolution of that problem both political and industrial life were plagued by a series of confrontations in an atmosphere of tension, as was borne out by the frequent riots and disturbances during the 1930s. Despite the reactionary constitutional reforms of 1928 which instituted a form of government in which the colonial officials could not be over-ruled by the elected members of parliament, the trade union movement, principally the BGLU, lobbied for a series of reforms. In keeping with its strong regional orientation the BGLU pressed for the federation of the West Indian colonies under a regional parliament, thus foreshadowing developments which were to take place over 20 years later. On the industrial front, the struggle for workmen's compensation achieved some success in 1934 and minimum wage legislation was introduced in 1942. Related reforms such as prison reform, the right to peremptory challenge of juries and universal adult suffrage were longer in becoming realities. Given the unfavourable conditions in which the struggle to establish protection for working people was taking place, in terms of the economic depression, the political restrictions on working people and the use of special juries and of the Riot Act, the achievements of the nascent trade union movement were remarkable. During the 1930s the social and economic hardships endured by the mass of the working class proved too much to contain within the repressive political system operating in British Guiana. The almost incestuous relationship between the Sugar Producers' Association and the colonial authorities which had blocked economic development, militarized industrial relations, restricted political participation and neglected the welfare of the colony, depended for its existence on the uncompromising support of Westminster and a form of preferential economic treatment for the colony, neither of which could be 27 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

sustained any longer. In 1938 the British government appointed a commission under the chairmanship of Lord Moyne which was to prove to be the most thorough indictment of British colonial policy ever documented in the West Indies. The Royal West Indian Commission or the Moyne Commission, as it came to be known, compiled an account of the social and economic neglect of the region which was so explosive in its findings that the British government felt advised for security reasons not to allow its publication until after the Second World War.

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3 The Rise and Disintergration of the

National Movement:

Preparing the Fraud

Post-war Britain was too preoccupied with domestic reconstruction to pay much attention to its West Indian colonies. In 1939 the West Indian Royal Commission had recommended sweeping welfare reforms, more systematic economic investment and a greater degree of political self-determination for British territories. By 1945 global conditions had rendered these suggestions inadequate. It was clear that one of the inevitable consequences of Britain's reduced role in world affairs was to be political independence for its colonial territories, a fact confirmed by Indian independence in 1948. The relationship between Britain and its West Indian colonies in 1945 was similar in some respects to that which had prevailed 150 years earlier between Spain and the Spanish American empire. By 1800 Spain had long since spent the vitality and drive which created and administered its colonies. All that remained was a bureaucratic shell without roots and ready to be shaken off. The wars of liberation in Spanish America were not struggles against a prevailing economic system, namely mercantile capitalism, but rather opposition to being excluded from the benefits of that system by the inefficient and corrupt elite which administered the Spanish colonies. In the case of the West Indies similar considerations motivated the independence movement. Neither the political nor economic systems by which the islands functioned were called into question by the major political parties. The basic grievance was that West Indians were not administering them. As Britain was no longer strong enough to exercise imperial control over its West Indian territories, independence was achieved bloodlessly. The British posture was encouraged by the fact that the United States was waiting in the wings to incorporate the newly-independent territories into a network of 29 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

defence and military pacts as a form of insurance against any developments that might fundamentally contradict the established order. The exception to this general pattern of relations between Britain and the Caribbean territories was British Guiana. After the emergence of the PPP in 1951, there was no fundamental consensus in the country over maintaining either the political or the economic system which had dominated the colonial period of the country's history. This exception to the major political trends in the region generated uncertainty among both the British and United States governments and prompted them to delay independence until domestic politics conformed to the more familiar pattern. Creating that pattern required a decade from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s of bloodshed, arson, murder and traumatic racial violence, factors which set British Guiana apart as an exception to the largely peaceful West Indian independence movements. The official version of the pre-independence decade in British Guiana is of a communist-inspired attempt by the People's Progressive Party to subvert the constitutional processes which would have brought independence in the normal way, and to impose in its stead a revolutionary state governed by a dictatorial minority. In reality, the British and United States governments conspired to allow the constitutional processes to be subverted by a minority of which the People's National Congress was the largest constituent part. This ensured that independence would occur only under a government whose loyalties to the Westminster model of government, and especially to multinational capitalism, could be predicted.

The Rise of the People's Progressive Party In addition to the accumulating neglect of the social and economic development of the West Indian colonies, the post-war period saw the return to the region of significant numbers of West Indians who had fought in Europe. Their experiences and the ambitions which these fostered were not compatible with the restricted opportunities which the colonial administration held out for them. Moreover the war had denied a large number of young men and women the educational opportunities that they would normally have enjoyed and thus added to the growing numbers for whom the existing political arrangements were an obstacle. It was in this climate of growing but inarticulate and unorganized discontent that the Political Affairs Committee was set up by Cheddi and Janet Jagan in 1947. The Jagans had returned to British Guiana in 30 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

1943 and in 1946 he was elected to the Legislative Council (Legco) as representative for the Lower East Coast Demerara constituency. Party developments at that time had not progressed much beyond the phase of creating electoral machines whose function was to return their candidates to the legislature, but without serious commitment to party programme or discipline. Cheddi Jagan was the first member of the Legco seriously to challenge the monopoly of that chamber by progovernment legislators whose business interests depended to a large extent on public subsidies, preferential markets and the security which the colonial administration could provide should industrial unrest get out of hand. Jagan consistently exposed the social cost of the existing economic system to the mass of Guyanese in terms of their wages, working and health conditions and the unrepresentativeness of the local and central governments. He fought for increasing minimum wage levels and improvements in the health services, and exposed the privileged position of the sugar companies in terms of access to public funds which bolstered the profits the industry generated and sent abroad. Predictably, he was attacked as a communist, a description which at the time he had done nothing to merit. Such attacks were to become the cornerstone of the strategy which destabilized lagan's government in the early 1960s. The inaugural group of the Political Affairs Committee comprised the Jagans, Ashton Chase and Jocelyn Hubbard. The PAC provided a forum both for intellectual discussion and for the formulation of a programme of action which built on the positions developed by Jagan in the Legco. In 1950 the PAC declared itself a formal political party under the banner of the People's Progressive Party (PPP). Cheddi Jagan was declared leader and Forbes Burnham, recently returned from law studies in the UK, was named chairman. At its inception the party was firmly rooted in the rural areas, especially among the sugar workers organized under the Guyana Industrial Workers' Union, led by Dr J.P. Latchmansingh, and the Sawmill Workers Union, of which Cheddi Jagan was president. In addition, the mass base of the party was strengthened by the support of peasant farmers, especially from the heavily populated Lower East Coast of Demerara, and a crosssection of urban workers which included stevedores, tradesmen and commercial workers. In 1948, the shooting by the police of five workers from the Enmore sugar estate vividly demonstrated how little had changed since 1905 in terms of the denial of a political or industrial voice to the mass of Guyanese workers. The shootings were seen as a national tragedy uniting the various threads of discontent in the colony. A massive funeral procession was prevented from entering Georgetown by the authorities, who feared a popular uprising. 31 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

In 1950, the Waddington Commission recommended the introduction of universal adult suffrage for all persons over 21. This was aimed at directing protest into parliamentary channels, thus defusing the potential for more violent political action among the excluded majority. Universal adult suffrage set the scene for the emergence of the PPP as a national parliamentary force. The 1953 elections confirmed this process with the PPP sweeping the field by winning eighteen of the 24 seats. The programme of the PPP at that time was radical in relation to the remarkably regressive political arrangements which had stimulated the national movement. In itself, however, it was neither revolutionary nor especially coherent. That greater consensus was evident on the level of principle than programme was not surprising since the party represented a coalition of interests. Central features of the PPP programme were political independence, the channelling of greater economic benefits to the social and welfare needs of Guyanese workers and, in particular, a reduction of the excessive exploitation and dominance of the sugar multinational, Booker Bros McConnell. However, suggestions that the PPP was capable of sustaining a united challenge to the political and economic power structure were misplaced, as internal developments within the party immediately after the electoral victory were to demonstrate. In some ways the relative ease with which the PPP won a decisive victory in 1953 was deceptive. Agreement over the programme of the party, the role of the various component groups and the ideological differences they represented, factors that characterize the normal internal developments of a political party, had not taken place with anything like the rigour which a political struggle would normally demand. Having opted for parliamentary power as the channel for change, anything which would have encouraged divisiveness or exposed differences was subordinated to the vote-catching demands of electoral politics. Once the elections were over, however, the submerged rifts began to surface. Foreshadowing the split which was to occur in 1955, a power struggle developed over who should lead the PPP government when it entered parliament after the 1953 elections. Burnham pressed his own claims but was defeated when the central committee of the party remained loyal to Jagan. However, the eventual sharing of ministries led to Janet Jagan stepping down, contrary to previous agreements; it was not an auspicious beginning for a party riding the crest of a wave. Despite this evidence of lack of internal unity within the PPP there was still enough common ground shared by the various factions for the general character of the party to be identifiably socialist. 32 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

1953 Government and the Suspension of the Constitution The PPP refused to accommodate the colonial fears and pressed ahead with a programme of social reform and political independence. Various pieces of legislation illustrate this position. The Rice Farmers' Security of Tenure Ordinance of 1945 was amended to force landowners to maintain drainage and irrigation facilities for tenants as the counterpart to the obligations of the tenants to maintain the land in good order. An attempt to include rice lands leased from the sugar estates was, however, defeated in the state council. The Undesirable Publications Ordinance was revoked. This piece of legislation had originally been placed on the statute books as the result of a motion by the leader of the anti-communist National Labour Front, Lionel Luckhoo, with a view to restricting communist publications. The very day that the constitution was suspended a labour relations bill, which would have compelled employers to recognize trade unions and which had the support of the majority of workers, was before the House. Despite the fear which it generated, this Bill was not unlike contemporary legislation in a number of industrialized countries. These reforms were vigorously denounced as communist-inspired by the country's hierarchy. Such was the level of hysteria generated that after 133 days the colonial authorities were able to suspend the government. A statement issued by the British government and read on the local radio on 9 October 1953 stated: 'Her Majesty's government had decided that the Constitution of British Guiana must be suspended to prevent communist subversion of the Government and a dangerous crisis both in public order and economic affairs.' The evidence for such infiltration was, in the words of one contemporary, 'pitiably unconvincing' and the subsequent Robertson Commission of Inquiry only served to underline this conclusion. The elected government was replaced by an interim administration, entirely nominated by the governor, which contained many of the figures defeated in the 1953 elections, and which administered the colony until 1957. The theme of communist subversion was embroidered into a plot to burn down Georgetown and was given sensational coverage in the local and the British press. When the debate in the House of Commons took place a fortnight after the emergency was declared, it came as a sequel to lurid propaganda which effectively convinced moderate opinion in Britain that the measure had been necessary to avert an upheaval. The Labour Party dissociated itself from the PPP policies and only nominally opposed the suspension of the 33 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

constitution. They were encouraged in this attitude, as was the Conservative government, by the telegrams and delegations received from bodies such as the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) and the National Democratic Party expressing support for the action of the British government. The gulf between fact and official exaggeration disturbed the Times, which complained on 21 October that 'the Communist plot ... is not exposed with the clarity and completeness which many in the country expected'. The Observer attacked the British government for 'serious mistakes'. However, these misg1vmgs had no reverberations in official circles in the UK and the US, and the unquestioning manner in which the theory of communist infiltration was accepted on all sides initiated the process which was to flourish and dominate the political climate in British Guiana for the next decade. Regional opinion was remarkably supportive of the British action, with both Normal Manley and Bustamante in Jamaica criticizing the PPP leadership. Grantley Adams in Barbados stated that, 'However much we regret the suspension of the constitution, we should deplore far more a government that put communist ideology before the good of the people'. When Jagan and Burnham attempted to go to London prior to the debate to brief opposition parliamentarians, they were refused permission to travel through Trinidad and Barbados. Whatever the spuriousness of the British claims about communist infiltration, within the PPP the loss of office proved too great a strain on a party which was an alliance organized primarily to win power. Whether the PPP strategy of gaining independence by winning control of the legislature was ever likely to be effective is a debatable point. What is clear, however, is that loss of office split the party. The loss carried greater significance for the urban middle class within the party, those who had chafed under their previous exclusion from political power, than for the working-class sectors which, in many cases, had never even exercised the vote until that year. The middleclass section of the PPP, by virtue of its social background and aspirations rather than of its ethnic composition, offered fertile ground for forces both internal and external to the party which were interested in widening the rifts. Furthermore, the middle-class members of the PPP were not from the solid professional and business ranks of that class, a group which had always been suspicious and hostile to the party. They were the younger, liberal professionals and civil servants, who by joining the PPP had already created a distance between themselves and the more established elements of the middle sector. The suspension of the constitution confirmed the fears of the establishment middle class and 34 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

undermined any possibility of a rapprochement between the party and this element in the society. Thus the middle class within the party came under the additional pressure of increasing isolation from the mainstream of their social and economic class.

1953-61: Disintegration of the National Movement Following the suspension of the constitution, a campaign of repression and harassment of the PPP leadership was initiated. Cheddi Jagan was given six months' hard labour for violating a restriction order, and a similar sentence was imposed on Janet Jagan. Other leaders were detained without trial for three-month periods, made to report to the police daily, restricted to different districts, had their homes searched frequently and were generally subjected to considerable harassment. The exception to this was the treatment received by Forbes Burnham, who was served with a restriction order but ignored it without retaliation from the government. In 1954 the headquarters of the party was closed by the police. Because of their disruptive effect on the prison administration, the imprisoned PPP leaders were transferred to the Mazaruni Penal Settlement in the jungle. Among other things, Jagan had argued his way into conducting the weekly prison religious service, the 'uplift hour'. Addressing his fellow prisoners on the text 'Thou shalt not steal', he proceeded to denounce imperialist plunderings and the role of the colonial administration in blocking Guyanese independence. Apart from attempting to strengthen the credibility of the communist subversion theory, the attacks on the PPP leadership were calculated to exacert.ate internal weaknesses within the party by isolating the leaders from the rank and file. The Robertson Commission, which sat in 1954 to review constitutional developments, stated as much by the repeated innuendos about the rapid progress which could be made towards independence once a suitable political leadership was available. By going on to describe Jagan as a 'communist' and Burnham as a 'social democrat' the commission pointed the direction in which a suitable alternative lay. It encouraged a split in the PPP and a search for alternatives among the middle class in the party who were not happy with the prospects of an indefinitely suspended constitution. Suspension in itself had shaken the middle class. The communist plot propaganda had mobilized the right wing and the churches; regional isolation was growing; detention of the left-wing leadership had weakened their influence in the party by restricting their ability to communicate with the rank and file; and the Robertson Commission 35 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

had proposed the indefinite postponement of the major prize, political office, until a new leadership emerged. The pressures proved too much for the progressive leadership to contain, and in 1955 the PPP split into two wings, one under the leadership of Jagan and the other, the breakaway faction, under Forbes Burnham. While the British government used all its bureaucratic power and media access to sell the idea of a communist plot, internal political developments in the party were influenced not only by real ideological differences but also by Burnham's personal ambitions. Frustrated in his earlier leadership bid in 1953 and encouraged by the internal and external reactions to the suspension of the constitution later in the same year, Burnham organized an attempt to pull the party away from the control of the left-wing leaders by taking advantage of the detentions and emergency restrictions under which they were held. In 1955 he organized a congress of the party in Georgetown and, had his manoeuverings gone according to plan, he would have taken over the party and moved it in directions more acceptable to the colonial powers. The manoeuvre ended up splitting the party rather than removing it from Jagan's control. In 1958, following amalgamation with the United Democratic Party (UDP), which was closely associated with the League of Coloured Peoples and had a solid middle-class urban base, the Burnham faction renamed itself the People's National Congress (PNC). Burnham had carefully calculated that if his leadership bid failed, the faction which he would take out of the party which included Jai Narine Singh and J.P. Latchmansingh, would be capable of winning the next election. It was estimated that Burnham would win the five Georgetown seats and that if Latchmansingh, with the influence that his leadership of GIWU in the sugar belt afforded, could bring in a further eight seats, the party would have a majority of one in the 24-seat legislature. The removal by Burnham of a substantial part of its right wing created the need for the PPP to shift to the right in order to fill the vacuum created by the Burnhamites, if the party was to retain its national character. Without such an accommodation the PPP was vulnerable to attack from the right. In fact, it was the need felt by both parties during the late 1950s to present themselves as 'responsible' and so accelerate the return to constitutional government that largely influenced the shift to the right in Guyanese politics. This shift brought to the surface the fundamental structural weakness of Guyanese society, the geographic and corresponding occupational and class divisions between the major race groups. The importance of the racial composition of the early PPP has been frequently singled out as the most important issue in understanding the PPP split. The PPP was the first movement to unite the mass of 36 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Guyanese of Indian and African extraction, and cultural differences cannot be ignored as sources of internal tension. However, in terms of potential structural weaknesses in the PPP edifice, its racial composition was not an over-riding issue. Much more important were the difficulties of organizing previously isolated sectors of the society for the first time, and the twin conflicts of interest between the rural and urban members and the middle- and working-class members of the party. These differences represented points of greater potential vulnerability for the PPP. Furthermore, although the composition of the original PPP had been predominantly Indian, this was not by design. The East Indians were the largest and most exploited bloc in the country and therefore the natural starting point for any political party concerned with economic transformation. Jagan was a product of the sugar plantations and took up cudgels against the social injustices which he best understood. If the first tragedy of Guyanese politics lay in the geographical isolation of the most exploited section of the labour force on the sugar estates and in the intensifying of the differences this produced by an ethnic division, the second tragedy was in the inability of Cheddi Jagan to recognize the potential explosiveness of the situation after the defection of Burnham. Jagan's preoccupation with the ideological balance of the party after the split led to an influx of middle-class Indian farmers and shopkeepers into the PPP. This made it appear much more as a party of the Indo-Guyanese community and created great pressure on the non-Indians who remained. The new middleclass Indo-Guyanese now in the PPP tended to be discriminatory in their attitudes to Afro-Guyanese, having suffered direct racial exclusion at the hands of the creole middle classes. This racial polarisation was not part of Jagan's calculations. His view was that if the PPP assumed a more balanced character politically, the British respect for constitutionality would lead them not to tamper with the colony's Westminster-style system and to accept the impossibility of defeating him electorally. All that was needed, Jagan argued, was for the PPP to survive long enough for its unbeatable majority to reassert itself. Burnham's problems were more complex. His political base was urban and the urban middle class to which he looked for support was black and creole. Such people were, as a group, comfortable with the prevailing power structure to the extent that they understood how it functioned, identified with its goals and, except to seek greater participation in its upper echelons, did not wish to promote structural changes in its operation. As a group they wanted to direct the society, not change it. For this reason Burnham was not an immediate success story with them. His antecedents were not reassuring, since 37 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

distinctions as to which 'wing' of the party a person belonged cut little ice with people who despised or feared the party as a whole. Burnham had made his name with the PPP and that was an obstacle to be overcome. Thus, he was faced with the need not only to reassure the middle class that he shared its aspirations (which he succeeded in large measure in doing by amalgamating with the UDP in 1958), but also to demonstrate that, unlike other urban parties such as the UDP and the National Labour Front, the PNC could win mass support. It was the strategy adopted by Burnham to attract this mass base which provided the essential ingredients for polarizing the country and for its descent into racial violence in the early 1960s. He was aided in this manoeuvre by the fact that the split in the PPP revealed the extent to which the Indian community had progressed in British Guiana. The realization by the black urban middle classes that their former advantages could be offset indefinitely by the racial arithmetic of demographic growth, which pointed to an absolute majority of Indians in the population by the mid-1960s, provoked fears and racial tension. This growth in the Indian population, combined with universal adult suffrage, meant that they had emerged within a generation from being politically insignificant to dominating electoral politics. The speed with which this change occurred is illustrated by results from the 1915 election. In that year, although the IndoGuyanese population made up more than half the population, only 6.4 per cent of those elected were members of that racial group. The black vote had been in an unassailable position (see table). ELECTION RESULTS 1915 Percentage of the population

Negroes British Portuguese Chinese East Indian

42.3 1.7

2.9 0.9

51.8

Percentage of elected members from racial group 62.7 17 II 2.4 6.4

Burnham was conscious that time was not on his side. The 1957 elections had proved his calculations with Latchmansingh incorrect, and the PNC (at this time still called PPP-Burnham) was shown to be a mediocre electoral force. Overtures for a possible coalition with the PPP had been rebuffed due to the latter's confidence that it would 38 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

survive in power until it became unbeatable. By the 1961 elections the realignment of parties along clearly identifiable racial lines was complete. The black radical and intellectual element in the PPP, notably Sydney King, Eric Huntley, Rory Westmaas and Martin Carter, had been expelled in 1957, branded 'ultra-left' by Jagan. The expulsion took place over the party's position on the Federation issue, which this group opposed. Finally the United Force (UF) came into being after the racial character of the two major parties had been established. The wealthier white and Portuguese business sector, which did not trust Burnham and which bitterly opposed lagan's 'communism', was in danger of becoming politically isolated. Rather than work out a modus vivendi with the PNC, which was more feasible politically than it was socially, this group formed the UF under the leadership of Peter D' Aguiar, the most successful private businessman in the colony.

1961 Elections: End of the National Movement The 1961 elections were fought by the UF on a virulently anticommunist platform to which both the press and the churches contributed, the latter especially motivated by opposition to the PPP plan to take education under state control. The PNC for its part asserted that regardless of which party won the elections it would support independence afterwards. Out of 35 seats the PPP won 20, the PNC eleven and the UF four, a result which showed the UF as a more vigorous political force than anticipated and constituted a considerable personal setback for Burnham. More important than the actual election results, however, was the fact that this third consecutive victory for the PPP triggered the disintegration of the political system. The election results convinced the opposition that the PPP was electorally unbeatable as long as racial considerations were the determining factor in voter behaviour. From this point on, the UF and the PNC actively sought to replace the electoral arrangements with a system of proportional representation which would reduce the PPP's voting base. The fundamental political goal of achieving independence was also set aside until such time as the PPP was removed from office. Although numerically smaller than the PNC, the UF was the dominant opposition and was perceived as such by the PPP, which referred in a parliamentary debate in 1964 to the 'UF with its poor little cousins, the PNC'. The UF wedded its forcefulness and ideological simplicity to effective control of the media and its influence on the colonial power structure. The PNC in contrast took 39 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

no parliamentary initiatives, professed a vague socialism but was wary of defining itself too clearly because both its middle- and workingclass support was unstable. In addition the 'anti-communist' feeling which led to a rejection of the PPP could not automatically be relied upon to translate itself into votes for Burnham, who was personally mistrusted and who had shown himself to be an ineffective electoral politician by losing ground to D' Aguiar in the 1961 elections. During the next three years the determination to de-stabilize the PPP turned Guyana into a racial battlefield, with arson, murder and strikes leading to a polarization of the country from which it took years to recover. It began in 1962 with the opposition taking to the streets to protest against the PPP budget prepared by Cambridge economist Nicholas Kaldor. By labelling as 'communist' plans to introduce a capital gains tax and a compulsory savings scheme for upper income earners, the UF led the opposition on to the streets in demonstrations which destroyed a considerable part of the commercial section of Georgetown. Both Burnham and D' Aguiar were responsible for misleading the crowds; both took to the streets without exhausting the parliamentary process. Similarly, in the following year, after the government had announced its intention of reintroducing the controversial Labour Relations Bill which would have made a secret ballot the basis of union recognition by employers, the opposition took the issue out of parliament and on to the streets without any serious attempt to deal with the bill via the parliamentary process.

How the CIA got rid of Jagan

In the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Prime Minister faces a more than usually leading question. Stan Newens, Labour MP for Epping, will ask: 'Will the Prime Minister make a statement on his policy towards efforts which are being made by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other United States intelligence organisations to infiltrate and influence organisations which function in British administered territories for purposes of subversion of law and order?'

Although Mr Newens himself appears to know nothing of the details, he is in fact hinting at a substantial case. This is the downfall of the Left-wing Jagan Government in the colony of British Guiana (now independent Guyana) in 1964. Inquiries by Insight last week made it clear that this was engineered

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largely by the CIA. And the cover which the CIA used was a London-based international trades union secretariat, the Public Services International. As coups go, it was not expensive: over five years the CIA paid out something over £250,000. For the colony, British Guiana, the result was about 170 dead, untold hundreds wounded, roughly £10m-worth of damage to the economy and a legacy of racial bitterness. The Public Services International had been in contact with the Guyana Civil Service union since the early '50s. It was one of the weaker and less prestigious of the various international networks which exist to export the union know-how of advanced industrial countries to less developed societies. By 1958 its finances were low, and its stocks were low with its own parent body, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. It needed a success of some kind. The financial crisis was resolved, quite suddenly, by the PSI's main American affiliate union, the Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Its boss, Dr Arnold Zander had, he told the PSI executive, 'been shopping', and had found a donor. The spoils were modest at first - only a couple of thousand pounds in 1958. It was, the kind donor had said, for Latin America. The money went towards a PSI 'recruiting drive' in the northern countries of Latin America by one William J. Doherty, junior, a man with some previous acquaintance of the CIA. The donor was presumably pleased, because next year, 1959, Zander was able to tell the PSI that his union was opening a full-time Latin-American section on the PSI's behalf. The PSI was charmed. The PSI's representative, said Zander, would be Howard McCabe. McCabe, a stocky, bullet-headed American, appeared to have no previous union history, but the PSI liked him. When he came to its meetings, he distributed cigarette lighters and photographs of himself doling out food parcels to peasants. The lighters and the parcels were both inscribed, 'with the compliments of the PSI'. The full ludicrousness of this situation appears not to have dawned on the PSI. Zander's union had about 210,000 members at that time, and a monthly income of about £600 - barely enough to cover its own expenses. Yet everyone in the PSI knew that the Latin-American operation must be costing every penny of £30,000 a year. 'We did not ask where the money came from,' said the secretary of the PSI, Paul Tofarhn last week, 'because I think we all knew.' The general strike (in Guyana) began in Aprill963. Jagan seems to have thought that the unions could hold out a month. It was an expensive miscalculation, and by the tenth week it was Jagan, not the unions, who was desperate.

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What Jagan had forgotten was the presence of a stocky, bulletheaded man tirelessly bashing a typewriter in the downtown Georgetown hotel that was the strike headquarters - Howard McCabe, the American representative of the Public Services International of London. McCabe was providing the bulk of the strike pay. McCabe found the money for the distress funds, and for the strikers' daily 15 minutes on the radio, and their propaganda, and considerable travelling expenses. All over the world, it seemed brother unions were clubbing together. It was a touching vision, marred only by the fact that the PSI London office sent less than £2,000 to the strikers. Zander's 'kind donor' was putting up nearly all the rest. The best estimate is that the kind donor produced at least £150,000, which reached McCabe from Zander's office. Jagan was crushed by the longest general strike in history - 79 days. Even the mediator sent from London, Robert Willis, then general secretary of the London Typographical Society and a man not noted for his mercy in bargaining with newspaper managements, was shocked. 'It was rapidly clear to me that the strike was wholly political,' he said. 'Jagan was giving in to everything the strikers wanted, but as soon as he did they erected new demands.' To Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys, the strike furnished the required proof that Jagan could not run the country. He used it to justify a remarkable constitution which, by splitting up Jagan's voters, made it inevitable that Jagan lose the 1964 elections to Burnham. In February 1967, Zander confessed that his little union had been heavily financed by the CIA from 1958 to 1964. The 'kind donor' was in fact an outfit called the Gotham Foundation - run from a small law office in New York by 'a man with a funny sounding name' which Zander does not now recall. The Gotham Foundation, now wound up in the Johnson CIA clean-up, is acknowledged to have been a CIA front. Source: Sunday Times, 16 April 1967.

The Trades Union Council (TUC) ostensibly led the struggle against the bill and called a strike, which became a general strike and lasted for 80 days. The Civil Service Association joined the strike, and from the outset employers locked out workers, encouraging them to strike. Members of the Chamber of Commerce were encouraged by their organization to pay the wages of striking workers. The funds to pay these wages plus the other costs of the strike were met by the CIA, 42 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

which channelled funds through the Civil Service union (see box). The general strike was the first manifestation of the links between the PNC and successive US governments, a relationship which has been largely responsible for the PNC obtaining office and retaining it for so long. Burnham for his part no doubt recognized that the US had to develop a modus vivendi with him as the likely alternative to Jagan. While D' Aguiar was in all respects a more attractive candidate from the US point of view, the racial alignment of Guyanese politics and the rightwing views of D' Aguiar left no possibility of his ever being elected. The racial alignment of the parties brought parliamentary politics to an end because the two opposition parties were convinced that the present constitutional arrangements would lead to the indefinite tenure in office of a party which was both Indian and 'communist'. The PPP, for its part, supported 'first-past-the-post' elections because they suited its racial arithmetic. In these circumstances the 'Westminster model' of parliamentary politics was retained only in form. Political strategy was determined outside parliament and racial violence was the inevitable consequence. Both the UF and the PNC adopted strategies that called into question the constitutionality of the government and consequently won the approval of the colonial authorities. Despite the discovery of arms and explosives in the PNC headquarters, no legal action was taken against the party. A police report prepared on a PNC terrorist organization was not acted upon by the colonial authorities, which strengthens the argument that the colonial authorities supported the violent de-stabilizing of the PPP government. Physical violence was also legitimated at the cultural and social levels by the intemperate attacks of the larger Christian denominations against the PPP. Identified, as the churches traditionally were, with the urban creole culture, these attacks served to exacerbate the racial tensions which the parties were promoting. The Christian churches assumed the creole culture to be a national one and disguised in a virulent anti-communist campaign their anti-Indian bias and underlying support for the elite power structure in the colony. The culmination of the racial violence, which continued after the general strike was settled, took place in the bauxite mining town of McKenzie-Wismar in May 1964. While the police and Special Volunteers looked on passively, the Afro-Guyanese engaged in an orgy of violence against the Indian community, involving rape, arson, beatings and murder. Behind the violence the struggle for independence was taking place between the PPP and the colonial authorities. The commission of inquiry which sat after the budget riots and the strike encouraged the political opposition to continue their campaigns by intimating that the 43 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

UK government might have to 'impose a settlement' if social and economic conditions continued to deteriorate. This was precisely what the opposition wanted to hear. In the constitutional conference which took place in 1962, 1963 and 1964 between the political parties and the colonial authorities, Jagan resolutely opposed proportional representation and demanded independence under the existing system. The opposition parties were equally intransigent over a system of PR and elections before independence. The impasse was resolved by the three parties taking the extraordinary step of signing letters of agreement that the colonial secretary, Duncan Sandys, produce a settlement which they would all accept. This remarkable abdication of responsibility was particularly staggering in the case of the PPP. Jagan later justified his action on the grounds that he could not afford to return to Guyana yet again without a firm date fixed for independence. As things turned out, Sandys deferred setting a date for independence and instead instituted PR as the electoral system, setting December 1964 as the date for elections. While Jagan mistakenly placed his faith in the British commitment to parliamentary fair play, he may have also been guided in his agreement to Sandys' settlement by the fact that the country was becoming ungovernable as a result of the unspoken alliance between the colonial authorities and the opposition parties. Following his return from London Jagan set the PPP on a confrontational course, but the battle had already been lost. Widespread mobilization of supporters in the rural areas and a long strike in the sugar industry in 1964 only served to re-fuel the violence which had accompanied the Labour Relations Bill the previous year. The effects of the Wismar violence in May of that year on the IndoGuyanese community were profound. The events clearly demonstrated that the colonial government was prepared to allow the PNC to use the largely Afro-Guyanese security forces while PNC thugs terrorized the Indian population. The PPP was, therefore, faced not only with political opposition but with hostile security forces which were only nominally under the control of the PPP minister of home affairs. The colonial authorities used the Wismar pogrom to assume dictatorial powers and intensify a glaringly discriminatory campaign against the PPP. Over 30 leading PPP activists were detained, in contrast to only two PNC members detained despite detailed knowledge of the latter's terrorist activities. Despite these constraints the 1964 elections saw the PPP win the largest number of votes in the third consecutive election, increasing their share of the vote over 1961 from 42.6 per cent to 45.8 per cent. The PNC vote was reduced by 4 per cent and the UF vote by 3.9 per cent. Nevertheless, under the new proportional representation 44 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:45 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

arrangements this meant that the PPP won 24 seats, the PNC 22 and the UF seven. The governor ignored the PPP and invited the PNC to form a government, which it did in coalition with the UF, thus finally ousting the PPP from office.

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4 Independence to Paramountcy: Consolidating the Fraud

1964-68: Coalition Government Once the PPP had been removed from office the main obstacle to independence had been overcome. Two years after the new government was sworn in, the country achieved its long-awaited independence from Britain and its name was changed from British Guiana to Guyana. However, fundamental British and US political and economic interests were not sacrificed in granting independence. This was clearly illustrated in the free market development strategy adopted by D' Aguiar, who was responsible for finance and economic development in the new government. D' Aguiar brought the UF development strategy to bear on the coalition's plans, even if in a somewhat modified form. The UF had a scheme for attracting $900m in foreign investment in a vast and ambitious scenario for transforming the economy. To make the country attractive to foreign investors plans for the provision of industrial sites, transport facilities and other infrastructural requirements were drawn up. Attractive fiscal incentives completed the range of enticements. The savings levy which had caused such controversy on its introduction in 1962 was declared unconstitutional, foreign exchange controls were removed, enabling the free repatriation of profits, the gift tax on inheritance was reduced to a nominal level, and property taxes were lowered. The economic strategy was based on the free enterprise model of Puerto Rico, a country which was recording rapid economic growth and attracting considerable investment under an 'industrialization by invitation' policy. Sir Arthur Lewis drew up the First Development Plan (1966-72) for the PNC embodying this strategy. Guyana, 46 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

however, had neither the access to the US domestic market nor the established investment opportunities which had made Puerto Rico so attractive to foreign capital. By 1970 the Plan had been abandoned and in its wake was left a manufacturing sector as small and ailing as it had been in 1964, a higher rate of unemployment and a neglected agricultural sector. The neglect of agriculture which the industrialization drive had occasioned was reflected in the failure to diversify out of sugar, a decline in the rice industry and the neglect of peasant farming. Sugar production was dominated by the multinational Booker McConnell Ltd. This company exercised a remarkable degree of control over the economy, both through its dominant position in the sugar industry and through its interests in fisheries, cattle, timber, insurance, advertising and retail commerce. Booker McConnell had extended the dominance of sugar within the economy, and the company's influence was reflected in the concessionary measures from which it benefited, the abolition of acreage tax and export duties on sugar, and the sale of unused land to the state at enormously inflated prices. Of the 12 sugar estates which had survived the process of amalgamation and concentration, Bookers owned eight. Of the remainder the Demerara Company owned three, and one remained in the hands of a Guyanese planting family. Political considerations dominated the government's policy towards the rice industry, which was seen to be entirely under the PPP's control. Under the PPP governments the rice industry had developed a successful and expanding export market, which included Cuba. After 1964 the PNC government reduced prices to farmers, removed the Rice Producers' Association representatives from the Rice Board, over-staffed the board, confiscated farmers' lands for non-payment of rent, ceased exporting to Cuba, and neglected the infrastructure to such an extent that the rice industry never recovered the prosperity and efficiency it had enjoyed under the PPP. Discrimination against rice farmers reflected a deep-seated dilemma facing the PNC, a dilemma which was partially responsible for encouraging an industrialization rather than an agricultural development strategy. The PNC could find no way to develop agriculture without benefiting those whose political support they did not enjoy. Any attempt to diversify the agricultural sector, for example by curbing the Booker McConnell monopoly, would have worked to the advantage of the Indo-Guyanese peasant farmers, and was thus rejected by the PNC government. The dilemma became more acute after 1970 when the industrial development strategy was abandoned in favour of giving greater attention to agriculture. The Booker McConnell sugar monopoly, and the lack of state 47 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

control over the economy's main source of export production and employment that this entailed, was further enhanced by the fact that a substantial part of the middle-class leadership of the PNC had come up through the Booker ranks. Indeed a number of cabinet ministers were products of the Booker training system. This was the result of the process of 'Guyanization' of senior management in expatriate firms operating in Guyana, aimed at countering the evident lack of national control over key sectors of the economy. The appointment of Guyanese staff, it was argued, would bring these companies to function more in the national interest. It was a resounding failure. Rather than introduce nationalist goals into the operations of foreign companies, the Guyanese managers were drawn to closer identification with the transnational ethic and in a number of cases they functioned with a confidence and aggression that their expatriate colleagues would have never dared to adopt. To complete the dismal picture of the coalition government's four years in office, the substantial and unproductive foreign loans contracted during this period became a heavy drain on foreign reserves. Also the country's balance of payments had been adversely affected by the increased cost of imported foodstuffs caused by the decline in agricultural production. While the failure of the economic strategy to generate growth brought strains to bear on the coalition, the rampant misuse of public funds exacerbated the relationship even more. Both D' Aguiar and the director of audit reported the unaccounted use of sums running into millions of dollars. Eventually D' Aguiar resigned, both in disgust at his inability to stop what was taking place and because he had successfully completed his task of dismantling many of the controls introduced by the PPP government that had hindered the business class's accumulation and export of wealth. The defection of D' Aguiar to the opposition benches went against the flow of traffic. The PPP in particular suffered a number of defections from among its middle-class representatives whose affinity with the party had been a matter more of race than class and who were attracted by the economic policies of the new government. Following the demise of the UF after the 1968 elections, the middle class, or at least that element in it which was organized, was to be found within the PNC ranks.

Co-operative Republic and Co-operative Socialism The 1968 elections were dominated by the PNC's use of an electoral device known as the 'overseas vote' whereby Guyanese resident abroad, regardless of the length of their time overseas, were eligible to 48 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

vote in the general election. Of the 60,000 votes cast in this way, 30,000 went to the PNC, the PPP and UF receiving 15,000 each. A documentary film made in Britain by Granada television documented the wholesale fraud underlying the overseas vote, a finding which was confirmed by a reputable British research institute which estimated that no more than 15 per cent of the names on the electoral list used in Britain were valid. By the use of the overseas vote and the continued and exaggerated use of proxy voting, the PNC won 30 seats out of the total of 53, compared to 19 seats won by the PPP and four by the UF. Thus the PNC was able to take full control of the government. Following the 1968 elections, the government announced its intention of making Guyana a republic, thereby replacing the Queen as titular head of state and, more importantly, replacing the Privy Council as the final court of appeal by a local court of appeal. Although not essentially related to the economic development of the country, the move to republican status in February 1970, was used as the opportunity for the PNC to unfold its strategy of 'co-operative socialism'. Ostensibly, this was an attempt to give a stake in the economy to the previously excluded mass of Guyanese, a policy sloganized in the phrase 'making the small man a real man'. Perhaps of more concern to the ruling party than the plight of the small man was the discontent with the existing economic strategy felt by the left wing of the ruling party, which was generally identified with the African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa (ASCRIA). Together with the PPP and independent left-wing observers, ASCRIA had been exposing the failures of the old PNC economic strategy. While co-operative socialism appeared to bow to these pressures to shift the economy leftwards, the end result was that the process of capital accumulation by the ruling group was never seriously challenged. The most substantial part of the new strategy was to obtain greater national control over the economy by making the cooperative sector the dominant economic sector, by introducing a strategy of import substitution and by nationalizing foreign enterprises. To this end a National Co-operative Bank was opened in 1970, the lending policies of which were aimed at giving preference to co-operative ventures and through which all state business was to be conducted. Although co-operative ownership and control were supposed to provide the economic foundation for a socialist transformation, the co-operative sector never remotely attained this level of importance. Within the sector itself the major co-operatives were either statesponsored, such as the co-operative banks and co-operative insurance companies which functioned on a normal commercial basis, or private 49 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

sector enterprises which hired wage labour and functioned in all but name as limited liability companies. The most prominent cooperatives of the latter type operated in the construction industry and benefited from government contracts. Members of these co-operatives were senior party members or persons close to the government. The co-operatives were, therefore, in large measure a convenient medium for private profit-making. A typical operation in this respect was the creation of a co-operative for the purposes of acquiring state lands, which once acquired, were promptly sub-divided and exploited on an individual basis. The exceptions to this general rule were the cooperatives fostered by ASCRIA. It has been suggested that the success of ASCRIA sponsored co-operatives, in which working-class people had won some degree of influence, may have been one reason why the original policy of making the co-operative sector the dominant one was never pursued. Had there been a serious attempt to co-operativize the nationalized corporations, thus making the co-operative sector the dominant one, the role and influence of ASCRIA and the left wing of the party would have been given a firm, central base at the expense of the established middle-class leadership. Led by former PPP Central Committee member Eusi Kwayana (originally Sydney King), ASCRIA attracted some members of the middle class, but its greatest appeal was to that sector of the workingclass black population which had been forced, in the aftermath of the racial polarization of the society, to associate with the PNC although having an ideological orientation closer to the original PPP. Strong on the east coast of Demerara and in Georgetown, ASCRIA functioned as both the conscience and critic of the PNC. Dedicated to the improvement of Afro-Guyanese in cultural and economic terms, ASCRIA was criticized by the PPP as a racial organization due to its emphasis on black achievements, black dignity and black history. It was, in reality, a more complex organization. ASCRIA was founded on the need for Afro-Guyanese to develop a sense of worth and selfconfidence in order to deal with other races in a positive rather than a defensive and hostile manner. Apart from its success in the cooperative field, its influence on the PNC can be seen in the official party positions on such issues as 'pan-Africanism' and 'black power', two important issues in Guyanese politics in the early 1970s. The apparently progressive postures of the ruling party on these questions was more a manifestation of ASCRIA's influence than an indication that the middle class leadership of the party was being radicalized. This is illustrated by the fact that when ASCRIA's influence in the party waned after it became critical of PNC economic politics, the PNC's relations with Southern Africa became identified with UNIT A in Angola and with Nkomo's ZAPU in Zimbabwe. 50 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The second policy in the economic strategy was import substitution, introduced in 1970 when the government took control of all imports and exports through the newly-created External Trade Bureau. Although the aims of the policy had much to offer, like the cooperatives, it suffered in implementation and it deteriorated into a mechanism for dispensing import licences to favoured businessmen. Import substitution was one strand in a larger policy of 'feeding, clothing and housing the nation', a target which the PNC set itself to achieve by 1976. Production was to be nationalized and geared to these ends, and economic rationalization was introduced to save precious foreign exchange. However, the attempts at import substitution were never co-ordinated into an overall plan. An everincreasing range of goods became short in supply, with the long-term effect of an overall drop in consumption levels. Ventures such as fruit canning factories, cassava mills, a corn and soya company and salt fish production all came into existence, but never flourished, and by 1978 had all gone out of business. More significant than the formation of co-operatives or importsubstitution for both the economic and political future of the country was the programme of nationalization of foreign interests which began in 1971 with the purchase of the Demerara Bauxite Company (DEMBA), a subsidiary of the Canadian bauxite transnational ALCAN, for US$107m. This was the first of a series of nationalizations which, over the next five years, included commercial, manufacturing, communications, transport and agricultural companies. It culminated in 1976 with the nationalization of the Booker empire, which consisted of 16 separate companies, of which all but three were wholly owned. Booker received US$55.3m for its eight sugar companies and a further US$41.9m for its non-sugar interests. These included stockfeeds, distilleries and transport facilities. In all cases the nationalization was arranged on mutually agreeable financial terms and not a single foreign company complained about the terms on which its business was acquired. This gave rise in nationalist circles to accusations of 'mortgage finance' nationalizations. Although the figures for some of the nationalizations are not available, the overall debt incurred by the government to implement its nationalization policy was well in excess of US$250m. Thirty-two companies were nationalized during this period. A further seventeen new enterprises were initiated by the government, four in the financial sector, three in public utilities and the rest in fishing, communications, agriculture and industry. Together with the state enterprises which existed prior to 1970, the new companies were controlled by the Guyana State Corporation (GUYST A C), the 51 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

chairman of which was the prime minister. The withdrawal of expatriate personnel together with a substantial number of Guyanese from the managerial positions of the new corporations provided the government with the opportunity of creating a class of bureaucrats dependent on the ruling party. While the middle-class base of the party was consolidated by jobs in the state corporation, a similar type of patronage was put into effect at the working class level also, providing jobs for party supporters. This was immediately reflected in the wage bill of GUYBAU (the renamed DEMBA bauxite operation), which in 1971 was G$9.6m and which by 1972 had risen to G$25. 7m. This clearly illustrated one reason why the expansion of the state sector was attractive to the PNC. Production on the other hand fell from 3 .1m tons in 1970 to 2. 7m tons in 1971 and declined in every subsequent year. This growing inefficiency in the bauxite industry was typical of the state sector in general. As the PNC control of the state sector grew a considerable number of Guyanese technicians and managers left the country protesting that party interference in their professional work made it impossible to run the nationalized industries efficiently. During the three years following the inauguration of the 'Cooperative Republic' it became increasingly clear that no fundamental change of economic orientation was intended under the new regime. Neither organized labour nor the working class in general assumed more influence over national affairs than they had under colonial rule. The TUC demanded 'less talk and slogans and more jobs to prevent an explosive situation' and the business community argued that the government should indulge in 'less confrontation and more consultation'. The extent of these criticisms made it clear that only a very small segment of the population was benefiting from the new economic policy. The government was fortunate, however, to the extent that world prices for all of Guyana's main exports were buoyant and remained so during the early years of the 1970s. This provided sufficient export revenue to maintain employment levels despite the state sector's inefficiency. On the foreign policy front the PNC enjoyed considerable success, most notably in forcing Venezuela to sign the Protocol of Port of Spain in 1970, shelving the Essequibo border dispute for 12 years. Guyana also took a leading interest in Southern Africa, opening an embassy in Zambia. In December 1972, on the initiation of Dr Eric Williams, the prime minister of Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad took the significant step of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. As a result, Guyana was able to carve out for itself a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement. The high point of this diplomatic manoeuvring was the hosting in Georgetown 52 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of the Third Non-Aligned Heads of Government conference in 1973. This gained for Guyana a diplomatic prestige far beyond anything the size and importance of the country would normally command. However, the elections of 1973 demonstrated clearly how an apparently progressive foreign policy is quite compatible with domestic repression. After the first voting returns indicated a dramatic swing away from the PNC, all broadcasting of results ceased until the following day. In the meantime all the ballot boxes were taken into the central army camp and when broadcasting resumed next day the PNC had won 37 of the 53 seats, the PPP just 14 and the UF two. Two supporters of the PPP were shot dead when they tried to intervene to prevent the army from removing the ballot boxes. The UF, in a remarkable piece of opportunism, broke an agreement with the predominantly middle-class Indo-Guyanese Liberator Party with which it had fought the elections on a shared platform and to which it owed its revival as a party, by accepting the seats offered by the PNC. The PPP boycotted the parliament in protest at the manner in which the elections had been conducted. The cynicism with which the press greeted the election results led to a $100,000 libel suit against the Guyana Graphic owned by the Thompson group. This was eventually dropped in exchange for the dismissals of the leading journalist and managing editor, Rickey Singh and Ulric Mentis respectively. The Catholic Standard editor, Father Harold Wong, suffered a similar fate following an editorial entitled 'Fairytale elections'. The PNC received only an estimated 60 per cent of the votes in Georgetown, underlining the extent of black disillusionment with the ruling party and indicating that Burnham had no future if his retention of office had to depend upon the electoral machinery. By assigning himself two-thirds of the seats in parliament Burnham was taking the first step in a process of freeing himself from electoral dependency, since with this majority he could change certain articles in the constitution without support from opposition members of parliament. Indeed, over the next five years Burnham took a number of steps to ensure the survival of his party in office without a popular base.

Paramountcy of the Party The first steps to ensure the continuation of PNC rule were outlined at the special Party Congress held in December 1974 when Burnham revealed the doctrine of the 'paramountcy of the party', according to which: 'It was agreed after lengthy discussion that the emphasis should be on

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mobilising the nation in every sphere and not merely for periodic elections and in support of specific actions and programmes. It was also decided that the party should assume unapologetically its paramountcy over the government which is merely one of its executive arms. The comrades demanded that the country be given practical and theoretical leadership at all levels - political, economic, social and cultural - by the PNC, which had become the major national institution.' The policy defined in the Declaration of Sophia rested on three main pillars, the allocation of state funds by way of a new body consisting of an amalgamation of the office of the general secretary of the PNC and a newly formed ministry of national development, the expansion of military and para-military forces, and a policy of controlling the economy, especially employment, through the state sector. In 1975 the party and the state were fused in a symbiotic creation known as the 'Office of the General Secretary of the Peoples' National Congress and the Ministry of National Development' (OGSPNCMND). This new body, effectively the administration arm of the paramountcy doctrine, was not provided for in the 1966 constitution, since it was at once an agency of the ruling party and a ministry of the government. The resources of the government, especially a large fleet of vehicles carrying the complex acronym of this entity, were put at the disposal of the party. From an auditing point of view the OGSPNC is clandestine, since the 'Office of the General Secretary' does not appear in the annual estimates submitted to parliament. In comparison to the other ministeries, details of expenditure are sparse, a block vote of millions of dollars being assigned to 'other charges'. Ten million dollars were assigned to this head in 1975, G$13.6m in 1976 and G$8m in 1980. Thus, public funds were officially channelled into the hands of the ruling party. The ministry's main work involved the mobilization of public servants and schoolchildren to ensure their presence at rallies addressed by the (then) Prime Minister and now President Burnham. It also includes organizing 'developers' courses for senior public servants at which co-operative socialism and the paramountcy doctrine are the principal subjects for analysis. These 'live in' courses which have been described as party indoctrination, are compulsory. Through the department of propaganda and agitation the OGSPNCMND both deters criticism of the ruling party and is responsible for collecting party funds, such as the I 0 per cent levy on their wages imposed on public servants and the armed forces in 1975 as their contribution to the First Biennial Congress of the PNC. A further expression of paramountcy was the shifting of the institutional loyalties of the armed forces and the police to the party leaders and away from the titular head of state. Symbolic of the fact 54 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

that the aims of the ruling party were the first consideration in the dispensing of justice, the party flag was flown over the court of appeal. Public directives were given to judges which were later followed by the Administration of Justice Act, which was amended to allow magistrates to adjudicate over a wide range of offences. The second pillar on which the PNC built its independence from popular support was the extension of the armed forces. From its inception in 1964 the PNC government had always governed with the assistance of emergency powers. Prior to Independence British troops had performed security functions and in 1966 a National Security Act was passed, giving the government wide powers of search and arrest, which has never been repealed. From 1974 a considerable expansion of the armed forces occurred with the creation of the Guyana National Service (GNS) followed in 1976 by the formation of a People's Militia. By creating employment opportunities in the armed forces for a large number of unemployed and unskilled urban blacks, Burnham was both reducing unemployment and simultaneously offering the minimum security of food and board to a large number of persons who were then available to be used to deter political opposition. An estimated I in 35 of the population was a member of one or other military or para-military group in 1976. Besides providing the ruling party with a formidable means of deterring opposition, incorporating large numbers of urban unemployed into the military also ensured that they did not themselves become a focus of opposition to the government. The GNS was presented as an educational rather than a military organization, aimed at providing skills for those disadvantaged young people who were willing to assist develop the interior. Hinterland development had been high on the PNC's list of priorities, given the pressure applied by groups such as the ASCRIA, which foresaw the provision of jobs for unemployed blacks in such a policy. However, despite pioneering work by the military in the interior, there is no evidence that any significant number of people stayed on as independent farmers in the interior areas. Although the labour provided by the national servicemen and women was free, the capital investment in militarizing the country was enormous. Defence allocations from the public treasury rose from G$8.76m in 1973 to G$48.72m in 1976, a six-fold increase. Within the ethos of paramountcy the role of the GNS, and to a Jesser extent all educational institutions, became one of socializing young people into the mores and ideology of the ruling party in much the same way as occurs in youth movements under totalitarian governments. Although nominally voluntary, theGNS had a coercive element which was provided by linking all post-secondary education and the granting of scholarships to a one-year period of national 55 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

service. The Guyana Defence Force expanded considerably at the same time. Formed out of the original Guyana Volunteer Force, the post-independence GDF was the only armed unit in the country until the formation of the GNS. Other armed units now include the People's Militia, the Women's Revolutionary Socialist Movement (WRSM) and the Young Socialist Movement (YSM). The intake into all of the disciplined services is 90 per cent black, reflecting the widespread violation of entrance requirements exercised by leaders of the ruling party. As a day-to-day form of PNC control, however, the military has been a less visible weapon than the direct political control of state sector workers. This has proved to be the most effective method of keeping the labour force submissive. Publicity surrounding dismissal of workers for political reasons has served to produce an atmosphere of caution which has been reinforced by the warnings of Prime Minister Burnham that 'if I fire you, you remain fired', a reference to the limited job opportunities outside the public sector. In addition to the direct control of labour in the public sector, the state has considerable influence over private sector firms, especially in the matter of import licenses and access to spare parts. During the period of the early 1970s the trade union movement was not an obstacle to the PNC's policy of making the workers scapegoats for the deteriorating levels of production. PNC control of the labour movement rested on the MPCA-GMWU axis, the former being the official union in the sugar belt and the latter, the Guyana Mineworkers' Union, controlling labour in the bauxite areas. Together with the PNC-controlled Public Service Union and the Guyana Teachers' Association, these unions were sufficient to ensure that the PNC dominated the TUC delegates' conferences. Even if the delegates' conference did make demands that were against the wishes of the PNC, the TUC executive committee could, and often did, ignore them. Another tactic of the PNC to control organized labour has been to create unions with a fabricated membership, such as the Public Employees' Union (PEU) and the Government Employees' Union (GEU). Dues for these unions have been paid by the Ministry of National Development and on the basis of a fictitious membership they have been assigned delegates at conference. Furthermore, the Guyana National Co-operative Bank Staff Association (GNCBSA) and the Mortgage Finance Bank Staff (GCMFBSA), with a combined membership of 138, were assigned six delegates rather than being encouraged to join existing unions. A loophole in the union law allows such tiny unions to register and acquire an influence out of all proportion to their size. PNC control of the larger individual unions was assured by a variety of electoral 56 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

malpractices. The most notable of these was in the Mineworkers' Union in which for many years the PNC kept a compliant executive in office despite rank-and-file opposition. This manoeuvre eventually led to the formation of the Organisation of Working People (OWP) in the bauxite areas which had some success in electing genuine representatives in 1980. Of the three pillars on which state control was consolidated the control of jobs has been the most evident. Through its control of the media, surveillance of the workforce, and systematic distortion and indoctrination, the ruling party created the impression of being capable of detecting any deviation from total compliance with government policy. This deterred industrial action and public protests, and ensured attendance at government rallies. During the early years of the 1970s the workforce was also confused ideologically, being confronted by three antagonistic political groups, all of which laid claim to Marxist-Leninist inspiration. A further step in collective indoctrination was encouraged by the government abolishing private schools in 1975. As with foreign companies, private schools were acquired by purchase or rent without a murmur from the churches. Rather than dispute the take-over on educational, religious or other grounds, the churches acquiesed limiting themselves merely to discussions about compensation. Having made it known that the terms of acquisition would be attractive, no further opposition was forthcoming. This was in marked contrast to the furore which the churches created in 1960 when the schools issue had been broached by the PPP. Ideological control was completed by the government's acquisition of all the national media. In 1973 the state acquired the Guyana Graphic from Thompson Newspapers and in 1976 changed its name to the Guyana Chronicle. As the Evening Post had collapsed in the late 1960s, the Chronicle remained the only daily paper. The Mirror, organ of the PPP, appeared four evenings a week and on Sundays until 1978, when its access to newsprint was cut off. The Catholic Standard, the weekly paper of the Catholic Church, gained prominence in 1978 when it opposed the referendum and served as the only independent source of news until its access to newsprint was also cut off following the referendum. Open Word, a weekly Working People's Alliance oriented newsheet, has never had access to newsprint. It should be borne in mind that in their present one-page formats, none of the above papers, with the exception of the Chronicle, would normally be considered a newspaper at all. Radio Demerara, a subsidiary of Rediffusion, was acquired by the state in 1976 and merged with the state-owned Guyana Broadcasting Corporation in 1980 as its second channel. 57 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Access to information became a serious problem after 1978, given the restrictions placed on the independent press and the fact that party control of the state-owned media reduced them to party propaganda instruments. Further deterrents to the independent media have arisen from the fact that the government has not hesitated to sue papers on very flimsy legal grounds, knowing that serious monetary damages can be inflicted through the government controlled courts. The stateowned media have developed a well-deserved reputation for unreliability and dishonesty and the average Guyanese is not readily persuaded by what he or she sees or hears from them. The national media rationalizes its subservience to the ruling party by a doctrine of 'development-support communications' which supports an authoritarian control of the media. This attitude also characterizes Guyana's enthusiastic support for the New International Information Order.

Opposition Parties and Groups The progressive, even socialist, postures which the PNC adopted on international questions had the effect of convincing the PPP that the ruling party could be pressured into implementing a genuinely socialist programme domestically and this led them to adopt a policy of 'critical support' for the PNC. This was despite the fact that PNC policies had demonstrated a clear antipathy for socialism. The evident spuriousness of much of what passed for socialism in Guyana and its inability seriously to influence PNC policy, left the PPP in a dilemma. This can be seen in the number of times it has left parliament, refused to take up seats, re-entered under protest, boycotted and finally reentered under the rationale of 'struggling in every forum'. While the vacillation in its policy towards the PNC may reflect turmoil within the PPP itself, many observers have questioned why a supposedly Marxist-Leninist party should make a corrupt legislature, in which it has made no gains, the principle arena of its political action. An explanation of the PPP-PNC relationship may more reliably be found in the relation of the two parties to the Cuban Communist party and to the Soviet Union. Burnham had made a very successful visit to Cuba in 1975 and had been decorated with the Jose Marti Award, the second highest Cuban honour. This was the high point of a relationship which had developed over the previous two or three years and in which Burnham had offered refuelling facilities to the Cubans for flights to Angola. Apart from the direct assistance offered by Burnham to Cuba, Guyana's co-operative socialism seemed to the Cuban government to be leaning in the correct direction. Given these 58 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

considerations, together with the fact that Cuba was, for the first time in many years, making headway in normalizing relations with her Caribbean neighbours, there was sufficient ground for the Cubans to develop relations with the Burnham movement. An additional factor which no doubt influenced the Cubans was the inflexible and intransigent support for the Soviet Union which the PPP displayed and which, if they were ever returned to office, would no doubt have provoked de-stabilization by the US. With their expanding commitments in Southern Africa, the Cubans did not welcome the prospect of further conflict with the US. Both the Cuban and Soviet positions appear to have been that they could work with Burnham and since there were no prospects of his losing power, pragmatism dictated this as a sensible course of action. With the main opposition party ambivalent in its reaction to the skillful foreign policy of the government and the trade union movement and the churches largely acquiescent to the ruling party, the only consistent opposition came from the small right-of-centre Liberator Party and the left-wing grouping known as the Working Peoples' Alliance (WPA). Neither of these organizations could claim to be national either in terms of organization or following prior to 1976. The Liberator articulated the interests of the commercial sector while the WPA attracted a variety of groups, from the left, whose politics were critical of the ruling party. Formed by several separate organizations which did not immediately dissolve into a single body, the WP A was founded in November 1974 by the ASCRIA, the Indian Peoples' Revolutionary Association (IPRA), the Ratoon Group and the Working Peoples' Vanguard Party (WPVP). ASCRIA had severed its ties with the ruling party and IPRA had emerged under the leadership of Moses Bhagwan, a former president of the PPP youth arm, who had split with the PPP over what he considered to be their betrayal of principled politics in 1964. Although sharing similar aims to ASCRIA, albeit directed towards the Indo-Guyanese population, there is no evidence that IPRA ever developed the grassroots support among the Indo-Guyanese working people that ASCRIA had achieved among blacks. The third element in the WP A, the Ratoon Group, was made up of Marxist intellectuals from the University of Guyana and other left-wing professionals. Ratoon produced a newspaper which served as the organ of the WP A until 1978, when it was replaced by Dayclean. The Ratoon Group, which provided the intellectual leadership of the WP A, sought to give itself a grassroots anchor by forming the Movement Against Oppression (MAO) in the Tiger Bay slum area of Georgetown. The attempted assassination of Dr Josh Ramsammy and the attempted kidnapping of Dr Clive Thomas in 59 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

1972, two leading members of Ratoon and MAO, suggested that the government was very sensitive to the possibilities of this multi-racial alliance of intellectuals and working people. MAO later went into decline as its members either became more active in general WP A concerns or dropped out of the political arena. The final member of the WP A, the WPVP, was a small left-oriented party led by a former deputy premier in the PPP government, Brindly Benn. Its chief distinguishing mark was its attachment to Chinese socialism, and the party followed that country's lurch to the right after the death of Mao Tse-tung. The WPVP left the WP A in 1976 to enter into talks with the PPP and in 1978 it formed an alliance with the Liberator Party and the Peoples' Democratic Movement, known as the Vanguard for Liberation and Democracy (VLD). Although the WP A was not formally constituted as a political party until 1979, the groups that made up its constituent parts had been the most consistent domestic critics of the government. The WP A's major contention was the need to re-establish the multi-racial character of a genuine socialist movement as the first step in transforming the facade of socialism which the ruling party had constructed into a genuinely worker-dominated process. The organization faced formidable obstacles. Not least among these was the confusion it created by presenting a third brand of socialism in opposition to the 'socialisms' offered by the PNC and the PPP. In a society brainwashed against communism since 1953 and disillusioned with the PNC version of socialism, the uncompromisingly socialist posture that the early WPA adopted, reflecting the heavily intellectual concerns of the leadership during the early and mid-1970s, was an obstacle to its goal of creating a national alliance of all ethnic groups to oppose the dictatorial tendencies of the ruling party. The main threat posed by the WP A was not its ideological position. The ruling party has always felt capable of dealing with the WP A at this level, given its success against the PPP. Of more concern to the PNC was the WPA's multi-racial character, youthful energies and popular appeal which attracted and incorporated a new generation of Guyanese. Both Burnham and Jagan looked as old and bureaucratized as their parties by comparison. That the WPA also posed a significant threat to the PPP did not make relations with that party especially comfortable. However, at the level of working people, notably the young and educated, the multi-racial appeal of the WP A has generated greater support than that which its ideological orientation alone can account for. Over the period 1970 to 1976 the PNC enjoyed its most successful years. On the domestic scene the opposition was in disarray, the PNC having established a series of controls which enabled it to undermine 60 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the development of any organized dissent. Internationally, Guyana's reputation as a progressive Third World nation appeared secure among the non-aligned nations. At the same time, the PNC government was the recipient of considerable amounts of aid from Western industrialized nations which saw it as a bulwark against more genuine brands of socialism. Sir Shridath Ramphal, knighted before colonial honours were abandoned, moved on from foreign minister to secretary of the Commonwealth, from which vantage point he could continue to promote Burnham's interests. On the economic front, 1974 and 1975 were the two best years in living memory for world sugar prices and a substantial wage increase was negotiated in the sugar industry in 1974, creating an amicable industrial relations climate. The prospects for the PNC and for Forbes Burnham, its architect and leader, looked better than they had ever done.

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5 The PNC and the IMF: The Cost of the Fraud

The period in which the major nationalizations were taking place, between 1970 and 1976, was one in which commodity prices experienced a phenomenal boom. This was particularly true of sugar prices, which quadrupled between 1973 and 1975, of rice prices, which almost doubled in the same period, and of alumina, calcined and dried bauxite prices, which also rose substantially. These high prices for Guyana's major exports were reflected in a 5.3 per cent growth in the country's gross national product (GNP) between 1973 and 1975 (see table 1). Table 1 RATE OF GROWTH OF SELECTED INDICATORS (Compound Growth Rate, per cent per annum) Indicator

Gross National Income GNP at Market Prices GDP at Market Prices Gross Domestic Investment Consumption Gross National Saving Exports of Goods and Non-Factor Services Imports of Goods and Non-Factor Services GNP Per Capita

1970-75 7.9 5.2 3.9 10.6 5.1 19.1

1975-80 - 4.2 - 0.6 - 0.5 -11.0 1.3 -13.5

1970-80 1.7 2.3 1.7 -0.8 1.9 2.8

1981 (est.) - 8.0 - 3.1 - 7.9 16.5 - 4.2 -80.3

3.3

-

7.1

-3.6

-11.7

3.1 6.1

- 7.2 - 4.7

-2.2 0.6

-

5.3 8.4

Sources: Government of Guyana, IMF and World Bank Statistics.

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By 1976 prices had begun to fall rapidly and the Guyanese economy went into a crisis from which it has never recovered. It has not been a 'temporary interruption' or even a severe balance of payments crisis, but rather an exposure of the fundamental deficiencies of the government's economic strategy, which has affected the entire social and economic life of the society. These deficiencies would have been detected earlier, had not the high export prices disguised the true state of affairs. This masking of critical developments in the economy took three forms. In the first place, the heavy cost of servicing the foreign debt that had been incurred in the nationalization process was offset by the expanded export earnings. Secondly, these earnings masked the inefficiencies caused by the unplanned manner in which state property had expanded and the erratic way in which it was managed. For example, although the country had a near monopoly of calcined grade bauxite ores, the average revenue per ton which Guyana earned for the period 1974-81 was US$3. 7, as compared to US$11. 5 per ton in Jamaica and US$11.6 in Suriname. Thirdly, the rise in export prices was due to worldwide inflation, which also caused the prices of Guyana's imports to rise. The effects of inflation on domestic prices was already under way in the 1970-75 period, with the cost-of-living index rising by 50 per cent during this period (see table 2).

Table 2

CONSUMER PRICE INDICES, 1970-81 1 (1970= 100) Year 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981

Index 100 101.7 106.7 117.2 140.3 148.7 161.7 179.1 214.0 247.4 279.1 340.8

Note I: Average during the period.

Source: Statistical Bureau.

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After prices fell in 1976 and the fundamental weaknesses in the economy were no longer mitigated by the external price levels, Guyana's economic statistics became uninterruptedly dismal. By the end of 1981, the country's per capita income was lower than in 1970 and 30 per cent lower than the 1975 figure. National income declined steadily, falling by 8 per cent in 1981 alone, along with investments, savings, exports and consumption, all of which contracted between 1975 and 1980. Despite falling imports, the balance of payments deficit grew in the second half of the 1970s. By 1981, the deficit on the current account of the balance of payments (which measures the trade in goods and services) equalled a third of the country's Gross National Product. International reserves declined markedly from their peak of US$100.5m in 1975, which represented the value of 3.2 months' imports, to US$6.9m in 1981, which represented less than one week's imports. These desperate economic circumstances have led to severe restrictions on imports, widespread shortages and high black market prices for all categories of goods. Food items such as milk, cheese, wheat flour, chicken, salt, butter, split peas and coffee have all become virtually unavailable to the average working class household. Production has declined sharply as the lack of inputs has forced a number of private and state firms to reduce their production, close temporarily or shut down permanently. Measured in constant prices, gross national income has declined every year since 1976, with the exception of a small (1 per cent) increase in 1980. Out of this situation an active unofficial, black or parallel economy in scarce items and foreign exchange has developed. The price of foreign exchange on the parallel market has been nearly double the official rate of US$1 = G$3, while five-pound tins of powdered milk which have a controlled price of G$21.25 cost over G$60 on the parallel market. The official diagnosis of the crisis has put the blame for Guyana's problems on imported inflation, the shock of external events such as the rise in oil prices, droughts, floods and the world recession affecting the industrialized capitalist economies. While all these factors constitute elements of the crisis, the evidence suggests that its roots lie in the collapse of the main productive sector of the economy now under state control. This does not imply that it is the fact of state control which has caused the production crisis, certainly not in the simple or abstract sense of 'state versus private' control of production in Third World economies. However, by locating the roots of the crisis in the failure of the state-controlled production sector, it is possible to make a clear analysis both of the responsibility of the state in the development of the crisis and of its role in its solution. The production crisis is reflected in the output figures for the 64 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Table3 OUTPUT AND EXPORT OF PRINCIPAL COMMODITIES ('000 long tons) Output

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Dried Bauxite Calcined Bauxite Alumina Sugar Rice

Exports

Sugar Rice

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 2,290 2,108 1,652 1,665 1,383 1,350 710 690 637 726 778 692 312 305 262 234 311 294 369 315 266 341 300 311 94 110 153 142 120 160 297 59

337 68

300 70

225 48

302 51

285 82

1976 969 729 265 332 110

1977 879 709 273 242 212

297 71

208 66

Note: Peak output is indicated by bold type. Source: Government of Guyana Statistics.

o-Vl

1978 1979 1980 1,022 1,858 1,005 592 590 568 212 236 160 270 298 325 166 182 143

1981 983

248 88

265 78

280 105

264 84

505

167 301 163

principal commodities produced in Guyana (see table 3). The peak year for output in the case of dried bauxite and alumina was as far back as 1970; in the case of calcined bauxite the year of peak production was 1975. In the sugar industry 1971 was the peak year, while for rice it was 1977. These three products together accounted for 38 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product between 1970 and 1974 and 34 per cent between 1976 and 1980. Between 1970 and 1980 the output from the nationalized bauxite industry declined at an average annual rate of 3.8 per cent. Estimates show a decline of 11 per cent in 1981. During the first half of the decade, the sugar industry registered an increase in production of 9 per cent. This was followed by falling production in the second half of the 1970s. While rice production increased during the decade, the rate of growth declined from 2.4 per cent for the 1970-75 period to 0.9 per cent during 1975-80 (see table 4). Table 4 REAL GROWTH OF MAIN PRODUCTIVE SECTORS (Compound Growth Rate per cent per annum) Sector Productive Sectors, of which: Mining Sugar Rice

1970-75 1975-80 1970-80

2.0

-1.6

0.2

-2.3 0.9 2.4

-5.3 -1.3 0.9

-3.8 -0.6 1.7

Sources: Government of Guyana, IMF and World Bank Statistics.

If foreign markets for Guyanese exports had been shrinking, the production crisis revealed by this data would have been disguised. The evidence however, is directly to the contrary, for the country has been unable to satisfy available markets. In the case of rice exports to its Caribbean neighbours, Guyana has been persistently unable to meet demand, leaving the market to be filled by rice exports from the United States. As there is an element of protection for Guyana's rice in the Caribbean Common Market (CARICOM), this failure is of particular note. In the case of bauxite, Guyana has traditionally been the source of about 90 per cent of the world's supply of calcined ore. Yet its inability to supply the quantities ordered and to meet delivery schedules has caused it to lose part of its market share, and Guyanese exports of calcined ore now represent only 60 per cent of the world total. In the case of sugar, Guyana has had great difficulties in meeting its own Lome Convention quotas, much less the shortfalls in production by other Caribbean countries which it is entitled to make up under the ACP-EEC Protocol of the Lome Convention. 66 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The figures in table 3 illustrate the seriousness of Guyana's production crisis. The causes of the crisis are to be found in the fundamental weaknesses that exist in the state production sector: • The state sector was acquired and expanded in an erratic and unplanned manner. Apart from the major nationalizations, the state invested in a wide range of industries, all of which proved to be wasteful and unproductive. Remarkably, the 1972-76 development programme, which contained the plan to 'feed, house and clothe' the nation by 1976, made no reference to the expanding role of the state sector in achieving those goals. • Frustration caused by mismanagement encouraged a flight of Guyanese from all levels of society, but most notably among skilled persons. Between 1976 and 1981, a total of 72,000 Guyanese emigrated, leaving more than 25 per cent of senior positions in the bauxite industry vacant as a result. • The increased regulation of the economy has not been accompanied by a similar increase in the number and competence of state bureaucrats to administer the regulations, causing prolonged delays and frustrations which are reflected in falling production. • The unavailability of local counterpart funds for overseas-financed projects has led to long delays, massive cost over-runs and the cancellation of projects. • Public utilities have been neglected as the production crisis has deepened. Widespread and frequent electricity blackouts hinder production. Sewerage and water supply systems are in danger of collapse and public transport is so poor that some trade unions estimate that the average worker takes four hours per day in travel time to and from work. e Allied with the collapse of the public utilities has been a similar collapse of social services, especially education, health and recreation, as public spending in these areas has been curtailed. • Political discrimination and victimization of workers have become routine, leading to a marked alienation of the workforce. Thus, far from stimulating production, providing employment and generating resources for new investments, Guyana's state production sector has recorded falling output and growing redundancies as its main achievements.

The IMF and World Bank It should have been quite clear to the government by 1977 that its

policy to 'feed, house and clothe' the nation was being overtaken by a 67 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

production crisis, not a temporary financial or foreign exchange crisis. However, maintaining its view that the crisis was financial and externally generated, the government argued that the economy would improve when commodity prices rose in the wake of the oil price rises. Thus they suggested that the historic pattern of the terms of trade would be reversed. With this optimistic analysis in mind, the government opted for what appeared as an 'easy' short-term option, monetary expansion. Thus in 1975 the money supply was expanded by 41 per cent and in 1976 and 1977 by 9 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. Bank credit to the public sector also rose rapidly, increasing by more than 250 per cent between 1975 and 1977. With net international reserves at an all-time high of US$185m in 1975, the boast was that 'we never had it so good'. This was despite the fact that by 1976 the country was producing only eight ounces of poultry per person per week, one egg per person every eight days, 2 ounces of pork per person per week, 3 to 4 ounces of beef per person per week and 0.8 pints of milk per person per week. · Monetary expansion failed to stimulate local production and instead fuelled a rapid rise in consumer prices (see table 2). By 1977, it was clear that deflationary brakes had to be applied. The budget of that year sought to reduce inflation by cutting consumer demand and to redistribute income so as to generate investable surpluses in the state sector. Government expenditure was cut by 30 per cent in one year. Subsidies on transport, poultry feed, flour, water and electricity were removed and redundancies among state employees were initiated. However, these measures had no effect on inflation and the country's balance of payments deficit grew. In 1978, the government was forced to call in the IMF. The first IMF agreement, signed in mid-1978, was for 6.25m Special Drawing Rights (SDRs, the monetary unit used by the IMF and valued at about US$1.10 in 1983) and was to cover a one-year period. Under the agreement, the main focus of government policy was to be on demand management, the objective of which was to reduce the real level of spending in order to reduce imports and to redistribute income in favour of saving rather than consumption. This was to be achieved mainly through reduction in state expenditure, the progressive elimination of government subsidies, the introduction of a number of revenue measures and an imposed policy of wage restraint. Thus, although the government signed an agreement with the TUC to raise minimum wages from G$5. 50 to G$8 .40 per day in 1977 and further to G$11.0 and G$14.0 per day respectively in 1978 and 1979, this agreement was frozen after 1978 and the G$14.0 wage has not been implemented. The result of this IMF policy was to reduce demand within the 68 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

economy by some 20 per cent in real terms. The government's spending deficit was reduced from 26.1 per cent of GOP in 1977 to 10.1 per cent of GOP in 1978. As a result, the balance of payments deficit was reduced from 22.4 per cent to 5.8 per cent of GOP in the same period. These were the objectives that the IMF sought. They were paid for, however, by the workforce. In real terms consumption fell by 7 per cent and per capita Gross National Product fell by 8 per cent in that one year, leading to a significant rise in unemployment to a level, according to some estimates, of 40 per cent. In August of 1979, in recognition of the fundamental nature of the economic crisis and the time that would be needed to correct it, a three-year loan from the IMF's Extended Fund Facility for 62. 75m SORs was negotiated. As is normal in these circumstances, a long list of policy criteria were demanded by the IMF. These included the progressive elimination of subsidies and all forms of price control, the adjustment of energy prices to bring them into line with international oil price rises, the payment of overdue commercial debts to foreign suppliers, an increase in interest rates to encourage saving, no significant increase in wages in the public sector, increases in taxation and a restraint in the growth of the public sector. These measures were aimed at further reducing demand and cutting the role of the state in regulating and controlling the economy. However, the shortcomings of the new agreement were soon manifest in a further 4 per cent fall in GOP in 1979 and the inability of Guyana to meet the IMF targets. By the time of the demise of the 1979 agreement, the IMF had come round to the view that demand management alone could not work in Guyana. Something had to be done to stimulate the sagging productive sector since the attacks on spending had left it further weakened. Thus a new Extended Fund Facility loan was negotiated which was complemented by a World Bank structural adjustment loan, the object of which was to stimulate the supply side of the economy. The new IMF loan was for three years and for the much larger sum of lOOm SORs, a figure which was subsequently increased to 150m SORs in mid-1981. This was very close to Guyana's IMF borrowing limit. The World Bank loan was for US$22m. Of this total US$8m was used to establish an export development fund; the remainder was to be used to purchase equipment and spare parts for the electricity, forestry and fishing industries as well as chemical inputs and spare parts for the bauxite-alumina industry. The objective was to increase production for export and thus reduce the balance of payments deficit. While the recognition of the supply problems by the IMF and the government was an improvement over the crude 'excess demand' approach of the earlier agreements, the view of what constituted the 69 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

supply problem was very limited indeed. It was not only a case of too little too late, it was also that the demand adjustment pursued earlier helped to exacerbate the crisis and widen it into other areas of social life. The IMF insisted in its view that the main hindrance to increasing export production and replacing imports with domestically produced goods was the over-regulation of the economy, inefficient pricing policies in the state sector, price subsidies and a lack of incentives for managerial and technical employees. Their solution was the privitization of the state sector, replacing state control by market forces in the regulation of the economy. Such IMF policies have been roundly criticised by a wide range of Third World opinion, which see them as no more than a charter for the take-over of Third World economies by transnational interests. In the case of Guyana the IMF policies were doubly deficient as they cut across not only the country's nationalist interests but also the government's supposed socialist ideals contained in its 'co-operative socialism' policy. Once again however, Guyana was unable to meet IMF targets and was forced to withdraw from both the IMF and World Bank programmes. This occurred in the third quarter of 1981, just months after the agreements had been reached. Subsequently, a further approach was made to the IMF on the basis of an 'action programme' which brought to an end even the pretence of co-operative socialism. As well as re-negotiating the US$35m debt servicing due to be paid in 1982/83 and proposing a new investment code to promote foreign and local investors, the action programme sought to reduce the scope of the state sector. This was to be achieved by entering into a partnership agreement with a foreign company to manage the bauxite industry, reducing the operations of the Guyana Rice Board, restricting public sector activities in manufacturing and privatizing government assets in fisheries, forestry, glass, pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs. There is little doubt that this 'action programme' is based on the IMF view that the three key constraints to supply growth are weaknesses in the public sector, over-regulation of the economy and the denial of a full role to the private sector. Although these constraints were confronted in the structural adjustment programme, from which the government had to withdraw because of the failure to meet its targets, the government is prepared to make the overcoming of these constraints central to any new agreement it makes with the IMF. While it is true that dependent Third World economies have few options when they are forced to accept IMF financing, the willingness of the government to dismantle the state sector illustrates clearly the hollowness of its beliefs in socialist or co-operative ideals. How could co-operative socialism be presented as an 'alternative development' if it was being built with the support of the IMF and the World Bank, 70 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:50 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Employment

Bauxite workers at Linden, employed by the US company Greens, which has leased part of the mineral workings.

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institutions which are diametrically opposed to the creation of state capitalism? Furthermore, why have these international financing agencies been prepared repeatedly to agree new programmes when previous programmes fail, in marked contrast to the way they have cut off assistance to progressive regimes such as those in Jamaica under Michael Manley and Nicaragua? The answer lies in the fact that the IMF has not met any fundamental government opposition to its proprivate sector policies, nor does it fear Guyanese co-operative socialism, the rhetorical content of which far exceeds its real achievements. What is clear from the present crisis is that the constraints on Guyanese production are in the first instance political in nature and stem from the government's manipulation of the state sector for party political ends. The resulting lack of democracy in the production system has led to inefficiency and demoralization. Co-operative socialism can be judged as little more than a political device to maintain itself in power by a party that was neither co-operative nor socialist. Yet if PNC-style state capitalism has failed to serve the interests of the majority of the Guyanese people, the privatized economy that is replacing it offers little prospect of improvement. It will however clarify any lingering confusion that exists as to the true political colours of the PNC government.

72

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6 Paramountcy to

Executive Presidency: The Fraud Disintergrates

Decline of the PPP and rise of the WP A In 1977 the PPP, in an effort to reaffirm its role in Guyanese politics, called a strike in the sugar industry which lasted for 135 days. In industrial terms the stoppage challenged the TUC's passive acceptance of the draconian budget of that year. More importantly, on the political front, it was a serious show of PPP strength. The government confronted the striking workers with a range of obstructions. The national press disguised the extent of the movement and distorted its industrial character, the courts accepted charges against the striking workers of 'causing public terror' and levied thousands of dollars in bail and 'volunteers' from the public service and the armed forces along with the House of Israel (see appendix) were drafted in to replace the striking cane-cutters. Thus, with a minimum of violence the government was able to render the strike ineffective. No attempt was made to meet the demands of the union, and the government initiated in this strike what was to become a familiar ploy of deeming any strike 'political', thereby claiming the right to use all means to bring it to an end. Although the PPP could claim a moral victory in having sustained such a long strike, its failure to achieve any tangible results marked an irreversible decline in its fortunes. Its political strength had always been calculated on the basis of its control of the sugar industry, but the strike made clear that the ruling party was prepared to go to any lengths to neutralize that strength. The failure of the sugar strike coincided with a rash of defections among senior PPP Central Committee members who joined the PNC and were almost immediately given ministerial posts. The loss of Vincent Teekah, former leader of the PYO, Ranji Chandisingh, the leading pro-Moscow theoretician in the party and the senior GA WU 73 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

official Lallbaichan Lallbahadur was a serious setback for the PPP. The loss of internal dynamism was aggravated by the tendency in the party to discourage new faces and new ideas. A rigid party hierarchy looked for conformity rather than initiative. By the end of the 1970s a generation of Guyanese who had not experienced the paralyzing racial violence of the early 1960s were unimpressed with the racial underpinnings of the two main parties and were either migrating in large numbers or looking for new political solutions. While control of the state machinery allowed the PNC to substitute coercion for popular support, no such levers were available to the PPP, which responded to its declining popularity by reasserting its traditional positions. In this situation of political and economic stagnation the Working Peoples' Alliance, under the leadership of Walter Rodney, took on a new importance. Walter Rodney, an eminent Guyanese historian, returned to Guyana in 1974 to take up a post at the University of Guyana. The post was subsequently denied to him by the university council for reasons that were never stated but which clearly related to the potential threat which Rodney was seen to pose to the ruling party. Rodney returned to Guyana with an international reputation as an effective political activist and Marxist theoretician, respected among African and Caribbean left-wing parties. He had been banned from Jamaica and several other Caribbean islands where his presence was perceived as a catalyst for the mass discontent which the existing political and economic systems had created. Guyana, despite its somewhat different path, had arrived at the same critical situation when Rodney returned. He immediately became the prim us inter pares of the WP A collective leadership, injecting a vigour and appeal into the organization which it had previously lacked. Rodney was not the only reason that the PNC felt threatened by the emergent WP A. In 1976 the party organ Dayclean was sued under the Newspaper Act for not having posted a bond. Since Dayclean was produced on a single mimeographed sheet of paper, there was some question as to whether it was a newspaper at all. However the legal aspects of the trial were secondary to its political implications. Eusi Kwayana, one of the defendants, demanded that the magistrate declare his independence of the paramountcy doctrine. The WPA's tactic of treating the issue for what it was, namely a directly political use of the courts rather than a purely legal matter, was successful in so far as the magistrate eventually postponed the case indefinitely on a legal technicality. Similar tactics were then applied to a case in which a PPP activist, Arnold Rampersaud, charged with shooting a policeman, had narrowly escaped hanging after a trial conducted as a straightforward legal issue in which one member of the jury held out 74 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

against conviction. This led to a second trial, which took place after the formation of a defence committee, in which Rodney played a leading role, and a team of Caribbean lawyers participated; it ended ambiguously, requiring yet another trial. The political nature of the charges had been so thoroughly exposed by the time the third trial took place that it became a formality and ended with the accused being acquitted. Apart from exposing the political character of the courts, the political mobilization which the WP A spearheaded around these trials also laid the groundwork for bringing civic and religious bodies into open dissent with the ruling party.

The 1978 Referendum The occasion for such a confrontation was provided by the decision of the ruling party in April 1978 to introduce a referendum, the effect of which would be ultimately to postpone the elections which were due to be held in 1978. The referendum bill sought to change that provision of the constitution which required that a referendum be held before certain provisions of the constitution could be amended, and to vest the power to change any provision of the constitution in a two-thirds majority of the existing parliament. In view of the widespread opposition to the bill voiced by civic, religious, professional and political bodies, the original proposition was amended by Burnham to one of establishing a constituent assembly following the referendum with a view to preparing a new constitution. The Guyana Council of Churches opposed the bill on the grounds that 'it places too much power in the hands of this or any other parliament', and the majority of the Bar Association endorsed a statement which stated that the bill was an attempt to get the electorate to place 'a blank cheque and put our future in the hands of a dying parliament' (see box). Access to the media was denied to groups opposed to the bill, and permission refused to publish statements as paid advertisements, a denial of access justified by Prime Minister Burnham on the grounds that 'paid advertisements are inconsistent with socialism as they give the wealthier groups in the society an advantage the poorer ones do not enjoy'. Prior to referendum day the campaign was marked by violent attacks on opposition meetings, interference with the opposition and church press and a flood of imported propaganda in support of the proposal. Two committees, one comprising the political parties and the other civic bodies, orchestrated the opposition to the bill. In a report following the referendum, the Committee of Concerned Citizens, which comprised a large number of Guyanese civic bodies, denounced the 97.7 per cent 'yes' vote as a fraud. Immediately after the elections the PNC amended the constitution and 75 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The Constitutional Amendment BILL 1978

Why The legal Profession Opposes lt. The Constitution is the Suprell'le Law of the Land Lawyers therefore have a special interest in it, as does every citizen. 2.

The referendum seel(:s to deprive the people of their right to approve or disapprove any new Constitution

3.

It takes away the people's right to have a say in the changing of the supreme law of the land.

4.

It will put abs•lute power t lllter the Constitution In the two-thirds majority in Parliament.

5.

A new Constitution tha·t the ptoJ"le do not like can be imposed on them.

6.

The power in the two-thirds majority in Parliament is enough, to enlarge it would be dangerou~.

7.

Any n~w Constitution sho1:1ld be approved by the people through national elections.

8.

The Bill is an attempt to side track: elections due this year.

9.

The Life of Parliament, Elections, tha Constitution itself and the Jurisdiction of the High Court in certain matters would be left completely in the hands of a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

national.

I 0. The Bill is asking us to sign a blank cheque and

rut our future in the hands of a dying Parliament

II. The referendum will be

referenda.

a referendum to end all

12. No Nation or People should ever surrender their

rights.

THE BILL AIMS TO DESTROY DEMOCRACY AS WE KNOW IT. THE LllGAL PROFESSION OPPOSES IT IT INVITES YOU TO DO THE SAMit 76 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

prolonged the life of parliament. The referendum campaign had been waged by the PNC around the need for a new 'socialist' constitution, the existing one (which they helped draw up) being disparaged as 'not being an effective vehicle for restructuring the society and economy'. On the basis of one fraud, the referendum, the ruling party was now constructing a second. The constituent assembly, comprising members of the ruling party and the United Force, received depositions from 139 organizations and individuals during its 19-month life. The constitution which emerged was an exact replica of the submission made to the assembly by the PNC and included many of the slogans used in the referendum, such as 'land to the tiller' and 'the right to work'. This remarkable display of contempt for widespread opposition views was justified by the speaker of the parliament, Sase Naraine, who stated that 'the draft (constitution) reproduced exactly what was in the People's National Congress memorandum because nobody objected during the taking of oral evidence'. The major changes introduced into the constitution related to the creation of an executive presidency, to replace the Westminster-model political system and the granting of extraordinary powers to the president. Thus, the president cannot be charged for any legal offence committed during or before his period of office and the machinery for removing him from office, other than by election, effectively depends upon his consent. Through his controls over public service appointments the president has a determining influence over the electoral machinery. When the presidency was introduced in 1980, Forbes Burnham assumed the office. Inaugurating the executive presidency marked the final step in a process of constitutional change which was conceived after the massive popular rejection of the PNC which took place in the 1973 elections. Party paramountcy, and what followed from it in terms of state control, was the response to a need to build a political base independent of electoral support. That a new constitution should be written to enshrine in a legal framework the effective political power wielded by Forbes Burnham, was an acknowledgement both of the extent to which he dominated the PNC and of his personal penchant for legal formality. He did not, in other words, wish to appear to be a dictator.

Jonestown After the referendum in July 1978 internal political developments were temporarily diverted by the catastrophe of Jonestown in which 77 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the meglomania of a tyrant was played out to its grim conclusion (see appendix). One of the useful purposes served by the presence of Jonestown for the Guyana government was that a settlement of US citizens in territory disputed by Venezuela would prompt the US to intervene in support of Guyana should any Venezuelan invasion of the territory occur. However, this rationale played little part in determining the real relationship between Jonestown officials and the Guyana government. A number of senior government officials were compromised either by money or Temple women into an attitude of passive complicity with the legal violations which were taking place in the settlement. Although the Burnham government convincingly extricated itself from any responsibility for the tragic events of Jones town as far as the international media was concerned, the catalogue of violations of local law, together with the collaboration of the Peoples' Temple with the ruling party, ensured that domestic opinion remained convinced of PNC collusion in allowing the tragic situation to develop. A one-man commission of inquiry was officially announced six months after the massacre under Chief Justice (now Chancellor) Victor Crane. One year later he denied having been asked to perform such an inquiry.

Limits of Paramountcy In response to the political problems created by PNC rule, the PPP in 1977 proposed the formation of a 'National Patriotic Front' comprising all democratic, socialist-oriented and anti-dictatorial forces in the society. The most significant feature of the initiative was that for the first time the PPP intimated that it was prepared to abandon the 'first-past-the-post' electoral system in favour of a power-sharing arrangement. The PNC ridiculed the proposal. It was, however, welcomed by the WPA, and the initiative gained momentum in the following year when the referendum campaign brought together all the opposition parties. During the course of 1979 the WPA capitalized on the dissent generated by the referendum campaign and drew crowds to public meetings such as had not been seen for years. In July dissatisfaction with the economic hardships led to a six-week strike in the bauxite industry where an independent group, the Organization of Working People, had challenged the PNC-dominated Mineworkers' Union. Events took what could have been a decisive turn in August when the CCWU, the largest urban union with members in many state corporations and the private commercial sector, took the decision to strike in solidarity with the bauxite workers. As events turned out, the 78 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CCWU partially backed down, and called out the least important of their affiliates in the private sector rather than initiate a total confrontation. In the face of divisive action by the government in breaking up a demonstration and sacking workers, the first concerted attempt to confront the PNC petered out. The PPP was critical of the whole bauxite strike initiative, calling it immature and comparing it with the 'black power' riots in Trinidad in 1970. By 1979 the executive council of the TUC had become a mere cypher of the government. Since 1976, when the GA WU had been recognized as the official union in the sugar belt and replaced the MPCA, an even more unjust distribution of TUC delegates to unions had been necessary to maintain PNC control of the organization. Membership of the PNC-controlled unions was bolstered in an inexplicable manner, raising the number of delegates assigned to them. In 1980 this was particularly true for the National Union of Public Service Employees (NUPSE) (1 ,990 members to 4,050 in one year), the Union of Allied and Agricultural Workers (UAA W) (1 ,856 members to 4,023), and the Guyana Workers' Union (6,123 to 8,005). The system of allocation of delegates created the anomalous situation in which GA WU, with almost 25 per cent of the entire organized labour force in its ranks, was represented by a ratio of one delegate for every 442 members, while in the case of the GNCBSA it was one delegate for every 13 members. The additional delegates picked up in this manner by the PNC unions allowed them to send to the annual conference delegates, whose prime function was to endorse PNC policy. Furthermore, the PNC discouraged the unions it influenced from maintaining their international links. It was argued that, given Guyana's transition to socialism, unions should weaken their links with bourgeois and capitalist organizations. The subsequent debilitation of the unions which this produced was reflected at times of confrontation with the employer state. For example, the bauxite workers were not able to reinforce their demands and local strike action with action at an international level during their July strike. Later· in the year, when a formal conference was called to outline the principles on which a government of national unity could function and discuss manifesto proposals, the PPP frustrated the initiative. In order to avoid the appearance of collaborating with the centre-right Liberator Party, the PPP proposed unacceptable conditions as the basis for its participation in any unified programme of action. The ideological rigidity of the PPP was the undoing of the conference and the national unity of initiative, which at one time appeared to have the makings of a revival of the national movement of the 1950s, was dissipated. However, pressures on the ruling party still proved too strong for 79 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the quasi-legal paramountcy methods to contain, and open violence erupted. Following the arrest of Drs Rupert Roopnaraine, Rodney and Omawale on charges of arson after the Office of the General Secretary of the PNC had been razed to the ground by fire, Father Bernard Darke, a Jesuit priest who was the photographer of the Catholic Standard was stabbed to death by members of the House of Israel on the streets outside the courts. His death was the most serious event in a pattern of violence which the government directed mainly against members of the WP A. Two activists were shot dead and others imprisoned on spurious charges, while many of the sympathisers, including senior management figures, lost their jobs in the state sector on the grounds that they constituted security risks. This campaign of violence culminated with the assassination of Walter Rodney in June 1980 (see box).

Walter Rodney On the evening of 23 June 1980, Walter Rodney was buried at the age of thirty-eight. It was a people's funeral. Earlier in the day, thousands of Guyanese had walked over a distance of twelve miles behind the murdered body of this young historian. He was not the first victim of political murder in Guyana, but the radical nature of his commitment as a teacher and activist, the startling promise that his life symbolised, made of his death something of a novel tragedy. Directions had gone out to government employees that they should avoid this occasion; yet no-one could recall, in the entire history of the country, so large and faithful a gathering assembled to reflect on the horror that had been inflicted on the nation. For Guyana had become a land of horrors. Democracy was no longer on trial here. The question was whether it would survive this official crucifixion. The Caribbean has been deprived of a great creative mind; but Walter Rodney had achieved at an early age the special distinction of being a permanent part of a unique tradition of intellectual leadership among Africans and people of African descent in the Americas. He belongs to the same order of importance as Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Dubois, George Padmore and C.L.R. James. Products of various doctrines of imperialism, they had initiated through the work, as writers and orators of distinction, a profound reversal of values. It is not possible to have a comprehensive view of all the ramifications of Africa's encounter with Europe without reference to these men. Source: Extract from the Foreword by George Lamming to A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1891-1905 by Walter Rodney.

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The conspiracy to kill Rodney involved the use of an explosive device concealed in a two-way radio which Rodney had been given by a government agent and was triggered near the Georgetown prison. The government-controlled media had been primed to report that a man had been killed when the explosive device he was carrying, with the aim of releasing WP A activists from Georgetown prison, had exploded prematurely. The force of the blast, the media reported, rendered the body unrecognizable. They continued to carry this story for some hours after the event despite the fact that the explosion occurred a block away from the prison and Rodney's face was left perfectly recognizable. The involvement of the government in the conspiracy was beyond doubt. This was clearly underlined in the attempted cover-up of Sergeant Gregory Smith, an electronics expert in the GDF, who had given Rodney the device which killed him. The GDF denied the existence of Smith despite a wealth of evidence of his being on the army payroll until the time of the assassination and his hurried departure from the country immediately after the event. No inquest was held into the circumstances of Rodney's death and a report by Home Office experts from the United Kingdom has never been made public. Its contents were partly revealed to the prosecution lawyers at the trial of Donald Rodney, Walter's brother, who had been with him at the time of the explosion and who was charged with possession of explosives. Defence lawyers were denied access to the document. Having removed what was seen as the main threat to its hold on the country and destroyed, at least temporarily, the momentum of the WP A, the PNC went ahead with the general elections which had been postponed since 1978. The already tenuous opposition unity was dealt another blow by the decision of the PPP to participate in the elections, thus legitimizing what was certain to be another fraudulent vote. Despite national and international denunciations, the government awarded itself another two thirds majority, in an election which an international observer team described as 'rigged massively and flagrantly' (see box).

Jobs and Food Crisis Since the general election attention has been focused on the person of the executive president rather than on the ruling party. Paramountcy of the party has been replaced by the paramountcy of the president. The paramountcy of the (then) prime minister had been the effective reality for some time, but the new office of the president and the powers invested in it, which materialized in a new office building and 81 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Election Fraud 1980 The observer team spent polling day in various parts of the country (Georgetown, Kitty, Cummingslodge, Ogle, Plaisance, Better Hope, Vryheid's Lust, Mon Repos, Lusignan, Buxton Enmore, New Amsterdam, Lower and Upper Corentyne, Houston, Linden and Wismar). We reached a unanimous view on the conduct of the election, which may be summarised as follows: I. We found a relatively high turnout of voters in some areas such as Corentyne, Cummingslodge, Better Hope and Enmore, and a relatively low turnout in others such as Georgetown, New Amsterdam and Linden. 2. We collected considerable evidence that voters in many instances were intimidated and physically prevented from voting for opposition parties. 3. The staff of the whole polling process appeared to be supporters of the PNC. 4. We have massive evidence that large numbers of eligible voters were denied their right to vote. The following are examples: Deletion of names from the electoral Jist. u Abuse of proxy voting. m Abuse of postal voting. iv People were told that they were dead. v PNC agents outside the polls gave people slips of paper bearing wrong ID numbers, or told them their names were not on the Jist, although they were. vi Voters were disenfranchised because of minor technical or clerical errors in the list. vii Fraudulent votes has already been cast in the voters' name. These abuses were primarily directed against supporters of the opposition parties. 5. Evidence was supplied to us of double registration. 6. Ballot boxes arrived late at many stations. In some areas: The hours of polling were arbitrarily extended. ii The processing of votes was deliberately stalled. m Polling agents were not allowed to inspect ballot boxes before polling started. IV Incapacitated voters were not always helped and were sometimes instructed to vote for the PNC. v Persons who had not voted claimed that they had their fingers inked forcibly by PNC agents. Conversely, PNC supporters who fingers were inked were allowed to vote and some PNC supporters did not have their fingers inked after voting.

•

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7.

8.

9.

vt There were also complaints that the Presiding Officers had written voters' numbers on the ballot papers. vn Unlisted PNC supporters were allowed to vote, but in PPP areas Returning Officers invariably refused to exercise their discretion in favour of unlisted persons voting. In some areas there were many polling stations adjacent to, or very near, PNC offices. Some polling stations were in the private residences of PNC activists and candidates. Some were in police stations, one at least with an armed guard on a locked gate. The military presence in some areas was intimidating. The boxes were collected by military personnel who prevented accredited officials of the opposition, sometimes by force or the threat of force, from accompanying or following the boxes. Military personnel refused accredited representatives of opposition parties access to the count at gunpoint in some cases. The forcible expulsion of the opposition's agents from all the places where ballot boxes were held, and the delay of at least fifteen hours in the announcing of first returns of the count undermines the credibility of this process.

Conclusion We came to Guyana aware of the serious doubts expressed about the conduct of previous elections there, but determined to judge these elections on their own merit and hoping that we should be able to say that the result was fair. We deeply regret that, on the contrary, we were obliged to conclude, on the basis of abundant and clear evidence, that the election was rigged massively and flagrantly. Fortunately, however, the scale of the fraud made it impossible to conceal either from the Guyanese public or the outside world. Far from legitimizing President Burnham's assumption of his office, the events we witnessed confirm all the fears of Guyanese and foreign observers about the state of democracy in that country. Source: 'Something to Remember'. The Report of the International Team of Observers at the Elections in Guyana. December I 980.

numerous presidential advisers, brought this reality into the public eye. The office was bolstered by a personality cult which had much in common with the North Korean deification of Kim II Sung, a comparison given greater point by the new practice of the executive 83 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

president of dispensing 'advice' to all and sundry on a variety of topics, organizing adulatory mass games in which schoolchildren, under the guidance of North Korean technicians, produced composite pictures of the president's face and the sycophantic treatment of the president in the Chronicle fashioned apparently on the Pyongyang

Times.

The 1980 elections instilled in most Guyanese a sense of futility and indignation. Among the remaining hard-core supporters of the ruling party these elections were a turning point. Unlike rigging in previous elections, when they had felt they were adding 'more' votes to the PNC's honestly obtained votes, in 1980 they knew that the rigging was virtually all there was. This realization, together with the fact that they were receiving no economic benefits to justify such massive rigging, brought a sense of disillusion. This rapidly turned to indignation when, in the massive redundancies which took place in the public service, many party workers lost their jobs. The haughty and speedy manner in which this exercise was implemented rubbed salt into a wound already made raw by the marching, 'voluntary' work, and attendance at rallies which many had accepted as an insurance policy for their jobs (see box). It created another category of persons who now had nothing to lose by venting the anti-PNC feeling which had been repressed for a number of years. For the traditional PPP supporter the 1980 elections provoked a similar response. The PPP used the presence of the international observer team at the elections to persuade the rural Indians that the team's presence would ensure free and fair elections. This PPP argument was used to overcome the people's natural inclination to boycott the election (given the success of this tactic in 1978). It was intended to encourage a large turnout and ensure a PPP majority. The subsequent fraud created hostility to the PPP among rural voters when it was realized that they were the only section of the population which had gone to the polls, thereby frustrating what would have been a resounding boycott. The post-election indignation was compounded by the disappearance of many basic food items from the shops, giving rise to long queues as a familiar feature of city life after 1981. The extent of the food shortages can be gleaned from the Ministry of Trade's price control lists. In 1978 the list of price-controlled food items numbered 271. By 1981 the list had been reduced to 106 items, import of the rest having been suspended. By August 1982 only three of these 106 items were available in shops, and a year later, all three - sugar, rice and chicken - were in short supply. Since 1981 the only continuously available foodstuffs have been vegetables, fruit and root crops. In mid-1982 the import of wheat flour was suspended due to lack of foreign exchange, immediately driving the black-market price up and 84 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Job Security? GUY ANA ELECTRICITY CORPORATION From: Personnel Director To: All Staff Subject: Attendance at National Rally on Sunday 26 October 1980 at the 1763 Monument On Sunday 26 October, between the hours of 6.30pm and 10.30pm there will be held a massive rally on the ground of the 1763 Monument and will be addressed by The Cde. Leader and Executive President of the Nation, His Excellency Cde. L.F.S. Burnham. During the feature address, it is expected that the Cde. Leader will made pronouncements and announcements affecting the future of all of us Guyanese. The importance of our attendance at this historic rally cannot be under-estimated. Your future and indeed the future of your children will be discussed and therefore you must attend. Heads of Departments, Supervisory and Controlling Officers are requested to discuss firstly, with staff immediately under their control, their participation in the rally and compute a register of all those who have indicated their intention to attend and, secondly, with the Personnel Officer and agree on a suitable place where those participating will assemble prior to marching under the Corporation's banner to the 1763 Monument. We are all involved. We should all attend. W.N. James Personnel Director Personnel Department 22 October 1980

making bread extremely scarce. In attempting to disguise its complete loss of control over the economy, the government initiated a campaign to promote the sale of rice flour. The arguments used, that rice was the 'food of revolutionaries' and that bread was 'imperialist' food, were met with uniform cynicism and contempt by the working population. This was the first time that the PNC propaganda machine had failed to generate even a minimum acceptance of its policy. By mid-1983 discontent with the food shortages triggered a series of one-day strikes in the bauxite industry which spread shortly to the sugar belt. In retaliation, the state-owned bauxite company unilaterally placed almost the entire work-force on a three-day week, thereby provoking a seven-week strike in the industry. Solidarity for 85 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the bauxite workers came from the sugar belt, in terms of food supplies and go-slow actions, which, together with protest actions called by the WPA, considerably strengthened the bauxite workers' cause. A unity committee of bauxite and sugar workers was established to give coherence and structure to the developing relations between the two groups of workers.

The PNC Elite In a population as small as Guyana's it may be an exaggeration to use the word 'class' to describe the small number of people who have enriched themselves under the auspices of the government. Yet, however small they may be in number, their influence should not be under-estimated. A series of PNC-controlled enterprises and firms run by staunch supporters of the ruling party have been given preference and, in some cases, monopoly control of areas of economic activity. One law firm, for example, in which the president was a leading figure, benefits from much of the legal work generated by the state corporations and the ruling party; the bulk of public sector construction and architectural work is channelled to two construction firms; the distribution of many foodstuffs is handled by the curiously named and PNC-owned Knowledge Sharing Institute (KSI); the PNCcontrolled company, the National Guard Service, is contracted to supply guards to and owns a number of enterprises which operate dredges in the goldfields; the PNC-supporting House of Israel has a variety of businesses. More recently the ruling party has moved into the cinema business by acquiring the rights to the film Ghandi for a sum reputedly in the region of US$50,000. By competing from a position of massively unequal power these and other enterprises have been the source of considerable profits for a very reduced group of people. There is little reason why this pattern of profit accumulation should change even if the government accepts the IMF and World Bank pressures to expand the private sector and accommodate foreign private capital. A good example of how the government is capable of meeting such demands is illustrated by the case of the airline GUYAMERICA. The majority of the shares in the company were held by US interests, allowing it to be designated as the flag airline of the US on Guyana flights. The rest of the shares were widely believed to be held by a few prominent supporters of the ruling party, although no official in formation has been published. The airline benefited from promotion by Guyanese diplomatic personnel in the US and from government contracts in Guyana, despite being in direct competition 86 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

with the Guyana national airline, Guyana Airways. This government support for a private airline is contradictory to its supposed policy of promoting 'co-operative socialism'. The mere expansion of the private sector within the existing political framework will stimulate more party-related private business of this nature with the state providing the necessary infrastructure and administrative back-up to ensure success. The refusal by the government to make foreign exchange available for food and drug imports in 1982 occurred simultaneously with the flaunting of the fruits of private profit-making. A flood of expensive, modern cars have appeared on the streets of Georgetown in the last year, the first imported cars in a decade. Luxury housing is the only domestic construction taking place, and the children Of the new class are routinely educated abroad rather than exposed to the tatters of the state system. Lavish presidential trips abroad accompanied by an enlarged entourage have occurred on four occasions in 18 months. At the same time the government prosecutes people in possession of bread and flour and destroys black market foodstuffs, which clearly does nothing to improve the country's balance of payments deficit, the rational for such policies. The government's argument that the people must eat what Guyana produces can only be regarded as a cynical rationalization of policies that have produced serious food shortages. Nor has opposition to the food shortages been reduced by government propaganda. Token strikes for food, which began on a one-day per week basis among bauxite workers, have now spread to other sectors of the workforce, and the major bauxite and sugar union leadership is having to give official sanction to protest action initiated by the rank and file. Given that the tension generated by the present crisis is affecting every section of the population, including numbers of the ruling party itself, there is no longer any consensus at any level that what is taking place in Guyana has anything to do with a transition to socialism. Those on the right of the political spectrum are convinced that the collapse is an inevitable consequence of socialist experiments, while those on the left argue that it is precisely the fact that the PNC government has never been a genuinely socialist party that is responsible for the deep economic and social crises. The forces within the ruling party which would prefer to see some, even token, allegiance to co-operative socialism retained are weak and declining. They are over-shadowed by those who point to the fact that the economy is virtually being run by the IMF and the World Bank and that the trend towards privatization must be accelerated. This course of action is supported by the US embassy, which since mid-1982 has made no bones of its irritation with Forbes Burnham and its 87 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

preference for someone more predictable. Politically the PNC is bereft of support from left or right on both the national and international level. The prestige enjoyed by Guyana among Third World countries withered away after the murder of Walter Rodney, a fact which weakened international support for Guyana in relation to the Venezuelan border dispute, especially since Venezuela has emerged from the 1970s as one of the few democracies in the continent and a leading international power (see appendix). The ability of the PNC to weather this loss of national and international support depends in part on the capacity of the Burnham security apparatus to retain control, and in part on the ability of the opposition parties to take advantage of the crisis. To what extent the controls built up by the ruling party, especially the support of the armed forces, are capable of withstanding the internal divisions and shrinking size of the ruling party is not easy to assess. The armed forces have largely kept to themselves, although their loyalty to the PNC has never been in question. Furthermore, the ruling party has never depended for power on being a mass party, as the party organization is essentially an extension of Burnham's personality. As far as opposition parties are concerned, the current dynamism of the WP A, and the inroads it is making into the traditional strongholds of both the traditional parties, is an important development. Nevertheless, the lack of unity among opposition parties and the unwillingness of the PPP to confront the government creates serious difficulties. Guyanese politics over the past three decades has revolved around the rise and consolidation in power of Forbes Burnham. The beneficiary of constitutional irregularities and political frauds, of inept opposition and timely international support, Burnham has turned all to his advantage. By adopting the most convenient ideological posture of the moment, he has managed to leave the majority of Guyanese thoroughly confused as to where he or his party stands, and survived a series of crises. His pragmatism has been guided by the needs of a minority party bent, not only on governing, but on governing absolutely. The ambitions of Forbes Burnham and those around him could not be contained within the framework of a democratic constitution, so they took the ultimate step of writing a constitution around their ambitions. It is safe to predict that when Burnham falls, their constitution will be rendered unworkable. Thus, post-Burnham politics, whenever they materialize, will not be a question of replacing a man but of replacing a system. At present, there appear to be only two forces in the society which are capable of inaugurating a new era of Guyanese politics. These are the Working Peoples' Alliance, which plans to win increasing popular support, and 88 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Consumption

The informal market for ground provisions.

Empty supermarket freezers at Linden illustrate the critical food situation .

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the Guyanese Defence Force, which may yet prove capable of following the PNC and Burnham himself in suppressing popular discontent and imposing both IMF policies and 'public order' by force.

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Appendices

Appendix One The Essequibo Border Dispute The claim by the neighboring republic of Venezuela to 53,000 square miles of Guyanese territory (amounting to five-eighths of the total Guyanese land area) is one which has dogged the course of events in Guyana from the time that the United Kingdom signalled its intention of granting independence to its colony. Commentators even then remarked on the coincidence of Venezuelan timing in reopening the question of its boundary with Guyana and have pointed out that during the years following the settlement of the border issue in 1899 (and while sovereignty over Guyana was exercised by the United Kingdom) Venezuela had never voiced any substantive interest in having the issue re-opened. Prior to 1962 the boundary between the two countries, a boundary that had been settled by formal treaty and international arbitration in the closing years of the last century, had been consistently recognized by successive Venezuelan governments. However, in 1961 the leftwing government of Cheddi Jagan was re-elected in Guyana and before the year was out the Venezuelans had resuscitated their claim. The position of Jagan's PPP government, and subsequently of the PPP in opposition, was that there was and could be no frontier dispute since the boundary with Venezuela had been laid down pursuant to an award given in 1899 in Paris by an International Arbitration Tribunal, whose judgment Venezuela had solemnly agreed by Treaty to regard as 'full, perfect and final settlement' of the 91

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border issue. This too, was the stand taken initially by the PNC-UF coalition headed by Forbes Burnham when it came to power in 1964. Of course, during the PPP's tenure in office, it was the United Kingdom that had responsibility for the colony's external relations. While, at least publicly, the British rejected the Venezuelan contention respecting the border, nevertheless it was agreed that experts from each of the three countries involved would meet to examine the documents relating to the question in order to remove any Venezuelan doubts as to the circumstances in which the 1899 Award was decreed. The basis of the Venezuelan contention, and successive governments have maintained a devotion to the claim that runs deep within the military and bureaucracy, was that the decision of the arbitration tribunal was null and void because of alleged fraud and pressure. Although this examination of the relevant documentation in London led to no definitive conclusion, Venezuelan agitation continued up to the eve of Guyanese independence and begs the question of why President Betancourt of Venezuela opened the border issue in 1962. One persistent view is that Betancourt perceived Jagan's visit to Cuba in 1961 and his avowed espousal of socialism as a vexation to US policy makers. And while it has never been possible for the PPP to substantiate their allegation that there has always been a link between Venezuela's manoeuvres and US interests, it is probable that even a 'socialist' Guyana would not have been viable, if deprived of two thirds of its territory. Furthermore, the well-known history of US covert activities in British Guiana in the early 1960s serves as a warning that such a charge cannot be dismissed out of hand. Other actions by the United States towards British Guiana at the time merit some mention. At the United Nations in 1962, when the draft resolution on British Guiana's independence was being debated, the Venezuelan delegation had pressed for the inclusion of a provision in the resolution stating that British Guiana was gaining its independence with a boundary dispute hanging over its head. As it turned out, Venezuela failed to persuade most of the world's nations that the inclusion of such a clause was necessary, but the United States, along with 12 Latin American nations, abstained from voting in favour of the resolution. While it is fair to note that, in contrast to the 12 Latin American states, the US made no reference to the noninclusion of the Venezuelan clause as an explanation of their votes, nevertheless their abstention assumes all the more significance when it is recalled that Venezuela was represented on the arbitration tribunal in 1899 by two US justices, one of whom was freely chosen by the Venezuelan president himself. In other words the unquestioned legality of the 1899 award ought to be consistently upheld by any US administration. 92 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Following the inconclusive re-examination of the 1899 documents during various periods from 30 July 1963 through to 1964, there were further discussions between 1965 and 1966 which led directly to the setting up of the Geneva conference to settle the 'controversy'. This first period, 1962 to 1966, could be summarised therefore as one of a low level of conflict between the protagonists. Only through discussions and negotiation, often at a ministerial level, did Venezuela try to advance its point of view and, indeed, the agreement to hold the Geneva conference marked in itself a considerable advance for Venezuela in winning recognition of its case. The Geneva conference of 1966 marks the turning point in the border issue. Indeed, beginning from that date, the charge had been levelled at the PNC government that it had deliberately chosen to handle the border issue as a party affair rather than as a matter of the gravest national importance. Critics have pointed out that Venezuela's 'spurious claim' ought never to have been raised to the status of an internal 'controversy'. This had occurred because the opposition PPP, for example, were unhappy with the agenda for the Geneva talks, arguing that it appeared to give the Venezuelan claim a status it did not deserve. More important was the exclusion of any opposition members from the delegation to Geneva in spite of the specific request that the team represent a national consensus. However, the Venezuelan coup de grace was yet to come. After referring to the need to resolve 'any outstanding controversy' in the Preamble, Article 1 of the Geneva Agreement, signed by the PNC government, declared that 'A Mixed Commission shall be established with the task of seeking satisfactory solutions for the practical settlement of the controversy between Venezuela and the United Kingdom which has arisen as the result of the Venezuelan contention that the Arbitral Award of 1899 about the frontier between British Guiana and Venezuela is null and void.' Since then the Venezuelans have insisted on making the Geneva agreement the central focus of all discussions between themselves and Guyana, claiming that the recognition by the UK and Guyana of a 'controversy' had, by reason of point 2 of the agenda and article 1 of the agreement, admitted grounds for the invalidity of the 1899 award. A counter-refusal by the UK and Guyana to recognize controversy over the border as such has not led to anything more than deadlock. The PNC government has never felt obliged to issue a public explanation of the reasons for its signing of the Geneva agreement. No doubt PNC awareness that an agreement at Geneva had become a requisite for independence encouraged Burnham to sign the agreement, the implications of which were not fully considered until it was much too late. Nevertheless, the issue has become a sensitive one 93 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

to the regime as indicated by Burnham's ongoing libel case against Dr Makepeace Richmond over a letter published in the Catholic Standard of 30 May 1982 referring to Burnham's role in the Geneva negotiations. The Geneva agreement opened the way to what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Guyana in 1968 described as 'a shameful catalogue of acts of pressure, of intimidation, of economic blackmail directed at thwarting Guyana's development, of physical occupation of Guyana's territory and of blatant interference in Guyana's internal affairs.' Indeed, the period 1966 to 1970 was marked by an increasing level of conflict while the mixed commission talks between the two sides were deadlocked from the start. By mid-1968 Venezuela had unilaterally withdrawn from the sub-commission on joint development projects in the disputed region, in addition to having brought territorial and economic pressures to bear on Guyana. Yet each move by Venezuela- the occupation of the Guyana half of Ankoko island in 1966, the paid advertisement in the London Times in 1968 warning companies against investing in the Essequibo; the Leoni Decree of 1968 declaring sovereignty over coastal waters within three miles of the Essequibo - led to corresponding diplomatic manoeuvres by Guyana to win friends at an international level. Within the United Nations and other international forums Guyana was seen as being strongly anti-colonialist, anti-racist and supportive of national liberation movements, so that Guyana was able to publicize its case before a sympathetic audience. For example, Guyana's exclusion from signing the Treaty of Tlatclolco in 1967 because of Venezuelan objections drew a widely acclaimed impassioned speech from the Guyanese delegation to the UN General Assembly in that year. Conversely Guyana signed the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties in 1969 while Venezuela did not. Moreover, although Venezuelan complicity in the Rupununi uprising of 1969 was never proved, it became clear by then that Venezuela's image as being a Third World leader was becoming tarnished through Guyana's efforts at the UN. Nor would Venezuela ignore the existence of a tacit agreement on Britain's part to assist Guyana militarily in case of Venezuelan aggression. The US took an ambiguous position in the dispute. Its unstated line appeared to offer Burnham sufficient support to prevent Jagan gaining ground out of the dispute, but insufficient support to deflate the Venezuelan claim. Finally, there was the Brazilian position, a constant source of difficulty for Venezuela. Brazil had issued a declaration of diplomatic support for Guyana following the Leoni decree. Given the conflict between Brazil and Venezuela over regional zones of influence, 94 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Venezuela no doubt considered it diplomatically astute to restrain its actions. By 1970, therefore, with the Geneva Agreement about to expire and the failure of the mixed commission talks, Venezuela was reluctant to take its case to the UN, being only too well aware of Afro-Asian support for Guyana. By this time, too, both parties were interested in minimizing conflict. Guyana was anxious to reduce tensions with Venezuela and to proceed with the social and economic development of the disputed areas. Venezuela, for its part, had a more important border problem with Colombia on its hands, and at the same time was anxious to refurbish its image within the region as a champion of anticolonialism and non-intervention. These factors led to the signing of the protocol of Port of Spain in June 1970 which froze the controversy for twelve years. The express aim was to promote mutual confidence around positive and friendly intercourse between Guyana and Venezuela. The protocol was seen in Georgetown as a diplomatic triumph for Guyana and represented the high point of Guyana's diplomatic manoeuverings. This protocol to the Geneva agreement did not cause the problem to go away, much as Guyana may have wished. In fact, it was never ratified by the Venezuelan congress, all of the political parties rejecting it on the grounds of non-consultation. The view within Venezuela was that while the government may have been forced into accepting the protocol because of Guyana's successful diplomatic offensive, in no way could it be regarded as a logical extension of the Geneva agreement. On the other hand, in spite of the obvious limitations (it dealt neither with the main issue of the controversy nor with Ankoko and the Leoni decree), it was still in Guyana's interest to ensure that the protocol be renewed in 1982. Given its internal difficulties and lack of military power, Guyana could only rely on world opinion and international law to ensure its territorial survival. It was therefore incumbent upon Guyana to ensure by co-operation and diplomacy that the protocol be extended. However, in the decade that followed the signing of the protocol, Guyana's international reputation deteriorated considerably. Nor did Guyana make any efforts in its bilateral relations with Venezuela nor in developing joint development projects in the disputed area. In fact, if the border issue was kept alive in Guyana, it was mostly because it provided a cover for the steady militarization of Guyanese society. But whereas Guyana was no longer a leader of the developing world, Venezuela's position had strengthened internationally. Its oil wealth helped in the pursuit of good relations with Caribbean and other states and this was complemented by the prestige that accrued from its successful adherence to democratic traditions. These factors ought to 95 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

have forewarned Guyana that there would be little chance of Venezuela agreeing to a renewal of the protocol. By 1980, the Venezuelan mass media had begun to reflect a renewed interest in the disputed area, and the government took steps to preclude the disbursement of international aid or loans for the development of the area. In April 1981, shortly after a state visit by Burnham, Venezuela indicated its intention not to extend the life of the protocol. Although there was much hue and cry within the PNC administration at this turn of events, the border issue gave to the regime its only excuse to mobilize support internally. Parades of schoolchildren and workers were mounted to denounce the Venezuelan position and distract from the regime's domestic problems. Indeed Eusi Kwayana, well-known critic of the regime, pointed out that the Venezuelans had given Burnham a golden opportunity to improve his internal political standing. Internationally, Cuba's support for Guyana early in 1981 caused great alarm to the US, and led to the subsequent White House authorization for the sale of F16 fighter planes to Venezuela. But Guyana's support for the British position during the Malvinas war (after New Zealand, Guyana was the second country to offer Britain its support) has lost regional sympathy for Guyana, especially in the light of Venezuela's aggressive support for Argentina. With the expiration of the protocol of Port of Spain, there followed a period of stalemate over the choice of mechanism to be used to resolve the dispute. Recently, however, Guyana acquiesced to Venezuela's demand to refer the decision as to how the controversy should be settled to the secretary general of the United Nations. No doubt both sides will now settle down to long, protracted and fruitless negotiations which will, in turn, serve as a useful distraction from more pressing internal problems on each side.

Appendix two Cultivating Violence: Jonestown and the House of Israel There has been no dearth of commentators, both local and foreign, who point out that in spite of Guyana's chequered political history over the last generation, it took the tumultuous events of Jonestown in November 1978 to place the country effectively on the map for millions of people all over the world. Prior to that catastrophic 96 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

occurrence, the Guyana government had not been averse to openly championing the cause of the cult leader, Jim Jones. His ostensibly agricultural commune was held up as a model to be emulated by the Guyanese people. And its strategic significance on account of its location in the disputed Essequibo region was not lost on the PNC. In his book Black and White, Shiva Naipaul described the growing relationship between the Jonestown People's Temple and the PNC. 'Gradually, the Temple insinuated itself into Guyana's political fabric. Linda Amos, who was in charge of the Temple's Georgetown office, was a member of Viola Burnham's Women's Revolutionary Socialist Movement. In August 1978 a WRSM delegation had spent three days in Jonestown. The People's Temple marched on behalf of the PNC, flaunting their banners. They were part of the May Day celebrations committee; they mounted agricultural exhibitions; they played basketball matches against police and army teams; their pop music band gave concerts and became a conspicuous element in the cultural life of the capital. Jim Jones and the Guyana of Forbes Burnham appeared to have a thorough understanding of each other's needs.' However, when news of the mass murders broke first internationally and then later in the state-controlled media, the PNC government acted quickly to dissociate itself from any connection with Jonestown. What had taken place at Jonestown was deemed by the PNC to be an American problem which therefore had to be handled by the United States authorities. Not even the dead bodies of the 114 cultists were allowed to rest in the Guyanese soil and the airlift out of Guyana of the rotting corpses was expedited. But whatever credence may have been given to this version of events by the outside world and however momentarily the Guyanese people may have been arrested by the sheer magnitude of the disaster, it did not take long before voices were calling the government of Guyana to account for its own part in such a macabre event. As more and more information was disseminated in the days and weeks following the events, proof emerged that there had been more complicity on the part of the regime with the Jonestown cult than Burnham cared to admit in its aftermath. The Human Rights Report published by the Guyana Human Rights Association (January 1980-June 1981) states: 'Collusion by the Guyana government, of at least a passive nature, with the Jonestown leadership requires that they accept part of the responsibility for what occurred. Violations of currency and weapons laws, of regulations governing health and education, and of customs laws had been the subject of complaint to the government. Interference with the Guyanese judiciary, threats of mass suicide and constant allegations by relatives that persons were forcibly detained at Jonestown, furnished numerous occasions for the government to investigate what was taking place there.' 97 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

But Jim Jones was not the only cult figure allowed to parade with impunity before the Guyanese people. A rather more resilient figure, whose entrance on to the Guyanese stage pre-dates that of Jim Jones, is the Rabbi Washington, also known as David Hill, who fled Cleveland, USA, in 1971 while appealing conviction for corporate blackmail. The Rabbi's House of Israel organization, the overwhelming majority of whose members are Guyanese, is unlike Jones' following, which was exclusively American. Both cults, however, were given a free rein to operate as they pleased and were extended privileges denied to ordinary citizens. The implication of the House of Israel in the murder of Fr Darke generated repeated calls for justice and for a full investigation into the cult, but the latter continued to operate. Indeed, on 22 July 1979, within a week of the killing, a minister of the government, Kit Nascimento, was reported in the Toronto Star as describing the House of Israel as a 'small ... religious group that lives in a cloistered, communal atmosphere. The members have declared their support for the government and they haven't committed any crimes. There is no reason why we should be concerned.' Although the People's Temple described itself as an ethnic rainbow, its membership was largely black. Two thirds of the Temple following in Guyana were either young or very poor, and were thus easily manipulated into supporting their leader's ambition. Being generally uneducated, economically deprived and lacking resources to break out of the poverty cycle, they invariably succumbed to the alternate threats and blandishments of the 'father' (Jones) and of the 'master' (Washington), submitting sheep-like to indoctrination and subsequent manipulation. Another important ingredient in the exercise of control was the manipulation of secret fears and prejudices in the cult following. The Rabbi is quoted as saying that his followers must be ready to defend themselves and fight the 'battle of Armageddon' which he sees as a race war beginning in Guyana in the next two years. Widespread protests against the offensive racist message disseminated daily by the Rabbi over the national state-controlled radio have not succeeded in getting his programme off the air. It seems plausible to conclude that the open and racially provocative message of the House of Israel reflects precisely the relationship Burnham would like to see re-created within Guyanese society. This no doubt explains why the Rabbi is useful since the PNC party cannot spell out a racist message quite so crudely. The Jonestown commune, also, had been allowed radio time in order to broadcast their message whereas even the mildest opponent of the government is consistently denied access to a national audience. All essential controls relating to his followers' lives are exclusively 98 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

in the hands of the Rabbi. As in the case of Jonestown, members do not have control over their own children, no male and female relationship is allowed without the Rabbi's approval and the House marriages form an important area of control. While no member can own a bank book, he or she must at the same time contribute exhaustively towards the House's food supply. According to the Caribbean Contact expose on the Rabbi (June 1982), no-one protests because all are afraid of the Rabbi's power: 'The votaries of the House of Israel who keep the rules lose their family links, often for problematic ones ordered by the Rabbi. They lose all they have here, as they try to keep up with the tithing and pledging, sometimes selling all they have. They get more and more lonely, poorer and poorer and more loyal and afraid to part with the cult. Some drop out. None at all ever raise their voices in public against their former associates.'

This article dismisses the Rabbi's claim to a membership of 8,000 but concedes that 'what he does have is a much smaller band of fanatics who will obey Elijah's command whatever the cost, when the Master receives his command from the political arm, the PNC. Thus there was hardly any surprise in May 1982 when the Rabbi openly boasted that his House also considered itself a 'military organization' as reported in the state-controlled daily newspaper. The Rabbi declared that his organization had been involved in military training over the past six years as there was 'need to be prepared'. The WPA's assertion in 1979 that a batch of weapons, including G3 rifles, bayonets, and small arms, had been transferred from the army to the House of Israel seemed then to be vindicated. Jim Jones and David Hill were only two such fringe elements to be welcomed officially in Guyana. It was to Guyana also that Michael X fled after the gruesome killings in Trinidad; initially at least, he was given the red carpet treatment by top government functionaries. Then there was a New York Post report quoted in the Catholic Standard of 24 December 1978 stating that the United States FBI had issued arrest warrants for four Americans living in Guyana. The article in the Standard further mentioned that a newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which had sent a correspondent to Georgetown, reported that in an interview with David Hill, he himself estimated that at least 10 fugitives from the Cleveland area alone were living in Guyana. Any similarity between the rules that prevailed in the People's Temple and the House of Israel and those that prevail within Guyanese society in general should not be exaggerated. However, similarities existed in terms of severe living conditions, food shortages, a heavy dependence on rice in the diet and heavy-handed discipline against those who opposed the status quo. In fact, the 99 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

argument that the cults and society may have more in common than meets the eye is provided by Burnham himself: In a 12 October 1982 New York Times interview, he declared, 'But we will survive. And even if we all perish, since we are only about one million people, we wouldn't create a public nuisance.'

Appendix Three The Role of the Christian Churches in Guyana In colonial Guyana the mission of the Christian churches was to the slave and subsequently ex-slave population and had a specific purpose in mind, to inculcate in them Christian virtues of thrift, sobriety and obedience. This was particularly true of the established Anglican church and to a lesser extent of the Methodist and Presbyterian churches. A more progressive stamp could be discerned in the Nonconformist Congregational and London Missionary Society church activities. In the latter case, ideas of emancipation of the slave communities in a social and political sense informed their work and frequently brought them into conflict with the colonial authorities. The planter class quickly perceived the value of missionary work as a form of pacification and approved grants from the public treasury to promote the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and later Catholic churches' activities, particularly in education. The Guyanese historian Robert Moore summarized the plantocracy support for the churches as an attempt to 'imbue the negro with bourgeois values but not with bourgeois ambitions', in other words to work hard and know their place. Acceptance of this role by the churches was reinforced by the arrival of Catholic missionaries on the coast in the 1830s after the influx of Portuguese immigrants, which consolidated the ties of the Christian churches with the colonial power structure. The churches, in other words, became channels for integrating the black and coloured majority of the population into acceptance of the prevailing values of the European elite and, for a minority, avenues of upward mobility. A further effect of the Christian mission to the black and creole society was to identify this group as the primary recipients of the Christian message, in contrast to the indentured Indian immigrants who arrived afterwards, whose customs and culture were considered 'pagan'. As a 100 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:54 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

consequence of this strategy the majority of the Guyanese population today is either Muslim or Hindu, with the Anglican community being the largest of the Christian denominations, followed in size by Roman Catholics. Although the Canadian Presbyterian and Lutheran churches in particular made a specific effort to spread the Christian message among the lndo-Guyanese community, the mainstream churches continued to be identified with the creole majority of the population and, in the case of the Catholic church, with the Portuguese. This emphasis had geographic implications given the preponderantly AfroGuyanese concentration in urban areas. Thus, in ministering to a predominantly urban following, the churches did not establish day-today contacts with the predominantly rural Indo-Guyanese population. While this obstacle should not be over-emphasized, it contributed to the inability and unwillingness of the churches to play an intermediary role between the races and parties when the political polarizations began to occur in the country after 1955. Throughout the decade of the 1950s and early 1960s the Christian churches waged an incessant campaign against the evils of communism; in reflecting the 'cold war' hostility which dominated international politics, they revealed the strength of metropolitan influences on the established churches' outlook in Guyana. This was particularly true of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, whose leaders, respectively Bishop Guilly and Archbishop Alan Knight, led the onslaught against the supposed communism of the PPP. The Catholic Standard, a quarterly publication until the mid-1960s, distributed propaganda leaflets called Soviet Life Series which quoted the worst excesses of communist governments. One stated that it was a 'crime to laugh' in the Soviet Union, and the tone was summed up in an issue which stated that 'experience shows that men and women degenerate morally in the communist ranks'. Long stories of the lurid treatment meted out to priests imprisoned under communist regimes were frequently carried. A good deal of effort was put into disseminating the social teachings of the church, particularly those aspects of it which dealt with the state. The subsidiary role assigned to the state was underlined in one article which cited public gardens as an example of appropriate state property. The Anglican church pursued a similar line of hostility to the governments of the PPP, although the Archbishop was more moderate in his attacks; to his credit he expressed relief at the revoking of the Undesirable Publications Ordinance, which he had supported when it was first introduced by Lionel Luckhoo. The editor of the Catholic Standard, by contrast, took the PPP to task for suggesting that the ordinance was an infringement of human rights. 101 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Given its close association with the Portuguese community and the influence which the United Force exercised over the clerical leadership of the Catholic church, together with the presence of a number of priests who were confident of their grasp of the church's social doctrine, the Catholic church was by far the most vigorous opponent of the PPP government and what it perceived as its intentions to enslave the society. The chief instrument for mobilizing Christian support on issues such as the government control of state schools was the Christian Social Council, which produced the largest crowd on record at Bourda Green (20,000 people estimated) in 1961 to oppose the government on the schools issue. The PPP for its part handled the situation badly. It did nothing to raise the level of debate above ideological wranglings nor to assuage the fears of the urban population by showing that such fears were unfounded. Benefit of hindsight has demonstrated the degree to which the established churches, especially the Catholic church, allowed themselves to be manipulated by the powerful elite with which they associated. It also demonstrates the extent to which their metropolitan structures, origins, personnel and directives isolated them from understanding what was taking place within Guyana. The PPP was perceived not only as communist, and therefore ungodly, it was also seen as an alien force with its roots in a sector of the society the church understood least, namely the rural Indian masses. By the mid-1960s the Catholic church was reverberating internally from a series of internal reforms generated by the Second Vatican Council, which had set the scene for far-reaching changes. Similar reforms were renovating the rest of the Christian churches. Although once again metropolitan-induced, these changes in emphasis and direction opened the way for a variety of initiatives in the Guyanese Christian churches. The tone of Vatican II and the World Council of Churches Assemblies was more respectful of the non-Christian faiths and of socialism. At the regional level the formation of the Caribbean Conference of Churches in 1972, following the 'Consultation for Development' at Chaguaramas in 1971, created a framework and a mandate for the churches to become 'partners' in the development of the Caribbean. Within the Guyanese Catholic church the internal renewal was wedded to a sense of nationalism to which political independence and the declaration of a republic in 1970 had given an impetus. This was reflected in policy terms in an attempt to 'Guyanize' the church personnel by promoting local young men to the priesthood and by encouraging the predominantly British-born clergy to take out Guyanese nationality. In 1970 also Bishop Guilly stepped down to allow Benedict Singh to become the first Guyanese-born bishop in the 102 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Catholic church. Guyanization of church personnel led to a church agreement with the government on a specific number of future clergymen to be allowed to enter to work in the church in Guyana from Britain and India, following which no further permissions would be asked or granted. While the policy of encouraging Guyanese clergymen has not been as successful as originally predicted, the agreement has been maintained. The high schools which the Catholic church had built and staffed were 'creolized' during this period, so that the almost exclusively Portuguese and near-white clientele which they had traditionally served was broadened to incorporate black, Indian and coloured children. This openness was also reflected in the personnel who came to the fore in the local churches, most notably in the arrival in Guyana in 1967 of Fr Michael Campbell-Johnston, a Jesuit priest whose background was more suited to developing in the Guyanese church the flexibility which the reforms had made possible. Unlike his predecessors, who were essentially Christian Democrats by conviction, arising out of the European-oriented teachings of the church which promoted a modified version of capitalism as the most appropriate form of social organization, Campbell-Johnston had been educated at the London School of Economics in the 1950s and spent several years working in Mexico and Brazil before coming to work in Guyana. The Guyana Institute for Social Research and Action (GISRA), which he established under the auspices of the churches, provided a channel for more direct social action on the part of the churches, forcing them to address the Guyanese reality and attempt to understand it more seriously than they had had occasion to previously. The Social Action Committee of the Guyana Council of Churches, under the chairmanship of Fr Campbell-Johnston, put this concern into practical effect by establishing the David Rose Training Centre in Ruimveldt, a working-class area of Georgetown with a high rate of unemployment, and also by establishing the Guyana Legal Aid Centre in collaboration with a group of socially-minded lawyers. The effect of the GISRA made itself felt, especially in terms of the church's reactions to the growing national crisis. The take-over of all schools by the state in 1975 forced the church to reassess its role and its involvement in the society. The first sign of the direction it was to choose was a public disagreement by a number of priests at the announcement by the Superior of the Jesuit community that the involvement of Fr Malcolm Rodrigues in the 'Friends of the Sugar Workers' Committee' (which assisted families of striking GAWU workers) was personal and not to be taken as representative of the church. The priests, in contrast, associated themselves with Fr Rodrigues' action as a genuine concern of the church. 103 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

A somewhat similar situation confronted the Catholic Standard. Following the removal of Fr Harold Wong from the editorship of the paper, the Standard had moved away from social involvement. By 1976, when Fr Andrew Morrison took over the editorship, assisted by Mike James, the decision had to be taken whether the Standard would continue to serve the limited church community or attempt to fill the void created by the nationalization of the media by providing an independent comment on national events. Perhaps more than any other factor the sustained revelation by the Catholic Standard of facts and opinions embarrassing to the government has contributed to the current confrontational church-state relations which exist. The cost to the church of using the Standard to promote social justice has been heavy: its photographer, Fr Bernard Darke, SJ, was killed on the street, and its sub-editor, Mike James, almost suffered the same fate. Fr Morrison is subjected to almost continuous slander, and threats have been made on his life. Libel suits from the government have piled up, and the paper's printing problems are legion. During the same period the multi-racial character of both the clergy and the church membership was emerging as a result, on the one hand of the 'Guyanization' policy, and on the other by the mass exodus of Portuguese, largely to Canada. Without giving the impression that the Catholic church had completely thrown off the features of race and class which had made it a useful tool of the colonial power a generation previously, it would be reasonable to conclude that in terms of the composition of the clergy, openness of membership and general policy that the church was on more secure ground to challenge the abuses of the government. In contrast to what had prevailed in earlier times, the larger churches were now searching for a more socially responsible role while the smaller, predominantly black churches were having a difficult time dealing with the smothering embrace of the PNC. These churches had allowed themselves to be identified with the new power structure and were unwilling to confront it on issues of principles. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that many of these churches had their governing boards in the United States and had come out of an historical milieu which saw the disenfranchisement of US blacks as the major social obstacle with which they had to deal. These boards had somewhat unquestioningly accepted a black government in Guyana as automatically contributing to the liberation of the society and encouraged their missionary wings to support it. The Burnham government perceived this trend very accurately and encouraged it by appointing senior clerics from these churches to diplomatic and ministerial posts. Dr Fred Talbot, Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopalian Zion church, was appointed as 104 This content downloaded from 77.111.247.188 on Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:10:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Guyana's ambassador to the United Nations and his wife Sylvia Talbot was made minister of health. PNC politicians frequently climbed the pulpits of these churches and through them were able successfully to restrain the more progressive churches on the Guyana Council of Churches. The council was able to resist the more flagrant initiatives of the ruling party to control it, such as an application from the People's Temple for membership, but the basic problem remained and continues to frustrate forthright action by the Guyana Council of Churches. Despite the attempts at manipulation, the Guyana Council of Churches has retained a certain measure of independence, as witnessed by its position on the referendum in 1978 and its sponsorship of the National Crisis Council in response to the food shortages and retrenchment in 1982. The Catholic church has not been a significant force in the council since Fr Campbell-Johnston's departure in 1975, which partly explains its weakness. Rather than a concerted ecumenical stand on questions of social justice, individual churchmen, notably Bishop Randolph George and Fr Malcolm Rodrigues, SJ, have expressed their concern at a personal level; both of them have as a result incurred the hostility of the government because of their forthright criticism. Catholic priests are subjected to restrictions and harassment, especially in the interior of the country, and many of them have been peremptorily moved out of these areas. The government invariably responds to criticism by persistently attacking the church on the grounds of its historical association with the small Portuguese community and its reactionary anti-communist posture of the 1950s.

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Bibliography and Suggested Readings Adamson, Alan H., Sugar Without Slaves: The Political Economy of British Guiana, 1838-1904, Yale University Press, New Haven 1972. Chase, Ashton, A History of Trade Unionism in Guyana 1900-1961, New Guyana Co. Ltd., Guyana 1965. Citizens' Committee, Referendum: A Question of Human Rights, Cedar Press, Barbados, 1978 DeCaires, David (Ed), New World (fortnightly) No.1-46, 1961-1966. DeCaires, D. and Fitzpatrick, Miles, Twenty Years of Politics in Our Land, Carribbean Development and the Future of the Church', GISRA, Georgetown, 1969. GHRA, Human Rights Report: January 1980-June 1981. Guyana Human Rights Report: July 1981-August 1982. Des Voeux, Experiences of a Demerara Magistrate 1865-1870, reprinted Daily Chronicle Ltd., Georgetown, 1948. Jagan, Cheddi, The West On Trial, Michael Joseph, London, 1966. Lutchman, Harold, From Colony to Co-operative Republic, Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico, 1976. Rodney, Walter, A History of the Guyanese Working People 1881-1905, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1981. Thomas, C.Y., Guyana: The Political Economy of Co-operative Socialism, mimeo, University of Guyana, 1982. Thomas, C.Y., The Rise of the Authoritarian State (forthcoming), Heinemann, London. Tinker, Hugh, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1830-1920, OUP London, 1974. UK Parliamentary Human Rights Group, Something to Remember, Guyana 1980 Elections, London, 1981.

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GRENADA

WHOSE FREEDOM?

The US invasion of Grenada in October 1983 was a flagrant and direct violation of international law. The Reagan government's determination to suppress the Grenadian people's right to sovereignty and the shallowness of its justification for this position indicate a preparedness to escalate further the violence with which its mandate is imposed in the Caribbean and Central America. Grenada threatened the US because it remained stubbornly independent and sought to develop its tiny society on its own terms. The tragic collapse of the government of the New Jewel Movement simply provided the pretext for an invasion that had been prepared and rehearsed long before. Grenada: Whose Freedom? gives the background to and outlines the substantial advances of the 1979 'Peaceful Revolution' and shows why it was repugnant to both Washington and the Thatcher government. It discusses the debate inside the New Jewel Movement, the fall of Maurice Bishop and the events surrounding the invasion itself .

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latin America Bureau Available from Latin America Bureau. 1 Amwell Street, London EC1R 1UL £2.95 plus £0.75 postage and packing US$6.00 plus US$2.00 postage and packing ISBN 0 906156 25 4 Publication April 1984

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THE POVERTY

The IMF and Latin America

The international debt crisis which hit the headlines in Snt••ml-.r 1982 has underlined the power that is wielded by the International Monetary Fund. As the ultimate source of credit for heavily endebted Third World countries, it can impose onerous conditions on those nations that need its assistance. The burden of such conditions always falls most heavily on the poorest sectors of the population. The Poverty Brokers rejects the IMF claim that these conditions are based purely on technical considerations. The IMF subscribes to a particular political and economic view of the world which reflects the priorities of the few Western nations that control it. This view favours those who stand to gain most from the unhindered operation of market forces, notably the transnational corporations and the international banks. By imposing such views on Third World debtor nations, the IMF in fact perpetuates the structures which sustain underdevelopment and poverty. The Poverty Brokers explains the role of the IMF, examines how it works, who benefits from its operations and shows why it is crucial to the efforts of Western nations to resolve the present debt crisis. It analyses, through case studies of Peru, Jamaica and Chile, how previous IMF interventions have affected the poor and underprivileged of the Third World. Finally, it examines proposals for reform of the IMF and the international financial system.

Available from Latin America Bureau, 1 Amwell Street, London EC1R 1UL £3.25 plus £0.75 postage and packing US$7.00 plus US$2.50 postage and packing ISBN 0 906156 17 3 Published October 1983

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