President Jagan
by Cheddi Jagan
The PPP always had as its principal objective the attainment of national, racial/ethnic and working unity. Such unity was attained, when the PPP, with the support of the TUC and four of the most powerful unions, won 18 out of 24 seats in the elections in April 1953: a victory which destroyed the racialist/conservative political influences of the League of Coloured People (LCD) and the British Guiana East Indian Association (BGEIA).
Intervention by British troops in October 1953 and divide-and-rule methods led to the split of our national movement in 1955. Thereafter, the PPP consistently and persistently sought to attain national unity. But all its attempts failed, especially in the critical 1961 - 64 period, because of imperialist machinations and manoeuvres and PNC opportunism.
Again in 1975-76, when the PNC government came in conflict with foreign vested interests on account of its nationalization, compensation and taxation policies, PPP/PNC talks began but collapsed because the Burnham regime wanted to maintain state/bureaucratic capitalism masquerading as socialism.
Thereafter, in the 1978-81 period, an IMF agreement led to economic decline, inflation and anti-working class policies. PPP/PNC talks again resumed in 1984-85 after the Burnham regime came under pressure for its anti-IMF and anti-US policies. Desmond Hoyte, who succeeded Burnham as President in mid-1985 ended the talks and proceeded in December with national and regional elections which were blatantly rigged.
The PPP, in alliance with four other opposition parties, formed the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy immediately after rigged elections. And as the 1990 elections approached, we agreed to the formation of a united electoral front. This was in keeping with our call in 1977 for a future government of national unity on the basis of "winner will not take all."
On our insistence, a programme was hammered out. But a power-sharing formula failed to materialize as a result of the unrealistic proposals of one of the coalition partners. PPP was to be debarred from having the presidential candidate on specious grounds: race/ethnicity, ideology, age, involvement in the events of the 1950s and 1960s.
Some, who were closely associated with the other parties, at a special meeting with the PPP, indicated that a PPP Indian Presidential candidate would not secure the Afro-Guyanese support in the struggle for free and fair elections. When Dr Roger Luncheon's name was suggested, the answer was negative: the explanation given was that he was Black (Afro-Guyanese) but Red (Marxist/Communist). Also, the PPP was offered only 30 per cent for the National Assembly.
A democratic procedure for selection of the presidential candidate suggested by the PPP, also did not find favour with the parties. This involved contesting the national elections together on a single list with an agreed provisional presidential candidate, and the regional elections separately. Each party's total votes in the regions would determine which party would have the presidency and how the seats in the National Assembly would be allocated.
Finally, a proposal for candidacy was hammered out with the support of the business community: Cheddi Jagan (PPP) as Presidential Candidate, Clive Thomas (WPA) as Prime Minister and Paul Tennassee (DLM) as Deputy Prime Minister. The admirable compromise proposal, accepted by the DLM and rejected by a section of the Guard movement and the WPA, led to the collapse of the PCD talks.
Thereafter Sam Hinds, who had been elected as Chairman of Guard, and other prominent individuals, not aligned to political parties but prominent in business, academia, religion and the professions formed the Civic component of the PPP/Civic alliance.
The PPP/Civic alliance represents all classes and strata in the Guyanese society, and its victory has instituted a government of national unity. It provides for racial/ethnic and class balance and ideological pluralism in a national-democratic state.
Some have adduced that the PPP/Civic government is not constituted on the basis of the PPP's winner-will-not-take-all policy of 1977, because the Cabinet does not include all the political parties in Parliament, as in South Africa.
There could have been such a Cabinet/government of parties had Desmond Hoyte not terminated the PPP/PNC talks in 1985; and had the PCD talks not collapsed in 1992.
However, political parties represent classes in society. And the state is an instrument of class rule. Consequently, the PPP/Civic alliance, representing all classes and strata with regular consultations with the private sector organizations, the trade union movement and Civic groups, and simultaneously working with religious/cultural bodies, especially liberation theologists, is a government of national unity.
We do not share the view that politics in Guyana is cast in rigid racial/ethnic compartments and would never change.
It is this false assumption that led to the prediction that we would not have won a majority at the 1992 elections. Nor would we have won an even greater percentage of votes at the near mid-term neighbourhood and town council elections (generally ruling incumbent parties lose support at mid-term elections).
Those who see only race/ethnicity in politics in Guyana, as others who see tribe and religion in other countries, are not viewing reality comprehensively, objectively and scientifically. They fail to note that the two major ethnic groups in Guyana are not, in class terms, uni-class; that economics, on the one hand, and politics, ideology, culture and institutions, on the other are inter-related and inter-acting. Race/ethnicity was not the determinant when the 7-unions' candidate, George Daniels, with a minority of delegates won in a secret vote against the PNC-backed presidential candidate. At that time, the struggle at the trade union level was sufficiently advanced to cut across racial lines. So now, the struggle will advance to realize racial-ethnic unity at the political level, as in the 1947-53 period.
The essential difference between the PPP/Civic and the PNC government is the nature of the state: who controls it and whose interest's it serves.
The PNC-controlled state served the party/state elite and a section of the parasitic, neo-comprador bourgeoisie, who later, through the "Committee for the Re-Election of Hoyte," had raised G$35 million for a campaign fund.
The PPP/Civic by the very nature of its method of operations is balanced for cooperation with business, on the one hand, to ensure growth, and with the trade union movement, on the other, to ensure social justice.
Two examples will suffice, from racial/ethnic and class positions, to demonstrate the difference between the two governments.
The PNC had sold the Guysuco rice mill at Blairmont and sold and leased lands at Bath - lands which had previously been occupied by retrenched sugar workers. In the interest of the working people and social justice, the PPP, despite pressures, succeeded in a compromise settlement where the workers and farmers will resume possession of a substantial portion of the land.
In the case of the Public Administration Project (PAP), the PNC government had proposed huge salary increases but only for about 100 top civil servants. The PPP/Civic government changed the project to include all civil servants, with nearly 70 per cent increases at the bottom and graduated smaller percentage increases for the middle and top sections.
During the 1992 electoral campaign, the PNC exploited two fears - fear of the business community and fear of the Afro-Guyanese community. Business people were told that because of the PPP's "communist ideology," there would be no place for the private sector: those in business here will be forced to leave and those overseas will not come. And the Afro-Guyanese were told that the PPP/Civic in government will embark on a policy of discrimination and victimization.
These engineered fears of insecurity led to the 41 per cent poll for the PNC in the 1992 elections. The lies were exploded during the past two years. That is why the PNC refused to contest in the name of the party all of the neighbourhood and three out of the six town council elections.
In time, with the PPP/Civic government's commitment to and attainment of further economic growth and human development, fears of racial/ethnic insecurity will disappear, despite charges of ethnic cleansing, and the ground will be prepared not only for national unity but also for racial/ethnic and working class unity.
Change will come but only when and if the balance of forces in the government is in the hands of the working class and the progressive sections of the petty-bourgeoisie (the revolutionary democrats). This is what October 9, 1992 signifies - a new beginning for human development and the restoration of hope for the future.
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000
The Struggle for Independence
Text of Radio and Television Broadcast to the Nation by His Excellency Dr.Cheddi Jagan, President of Guyana on May 15, 1993.My dear fellow Guyanese, Greetings!
Independence Day is around the corner. For the first time in many years, May 26th will be celebrated in an appropriate and many-faceted way.
This is how it should be. Not only because it is the most important day in our history, but also because October 5, 1992 has brought a new spirit of independence and freedom. You can now feel it in the air.
In the past, emphasis was placed on Republic Day with Mashramani,, which we will continue to celebrate. Now, we want to emphasize also Independence. Now, we want to read-discover ourselves and our lovely country.
I want to say something about these two concepts - Independence and Republic.
When the Americans fought for their freedom, they produced a Declaration of Independence, based on a break from the monarchical system for a republican system, and successfully fought a war to attain their objectives.
In a monarchy the King/Queen is sovereign, and his/her power is absolute based on "Divine Right". That's why the phrase: "The King can do no wrong". Incidentally in the course of the struggle for democracy, the King of England was beheaded, and absolute monarchy was changed to a constitutional monarchy.
In a Republic, sovereignty, comes from the people: the people are sovereign.
We took our cue from Americans in the early days of our struggle for freedom. At the Independence Talks in London, the PPP called for immediate independence and the Indian form of a Republic, where the Queen is head of the Commonwealth but not head of the country, as was established here in the 1970-1980 period.
That PNC's position was different: in 1960, it opposed immediate independence; in 1962, it tied Independence with a call for a change of voting system; and on republicans status, it said that it was in favour of it, but for a later date. This PNC's positions peeved the British Government's delegation, which stated: if you want a republic, you might as well have it from the beginning.
Why did we fight for Independence? Because life was hard and conditions were abominable. Sugar was "King", and British Guiana was called Booker's Guiana, in reference to an expatriate firm which monopolized the political, economic, social and cultural life of the country.
The sugar plantocracy was buttressed in the Essequibo county by a semi-feudal aristocracy - an octopus combination of landlord/ricemiller/shopkeeper/moneylender, under whose grip the tenant/farmer started and ended his crop in debt.
We had a typical colonial economy: the production and export of food and raw materials (sugar and bauxite) and the importation of manufactured good: the same pattern as in the days of slavery, except that the slaves, were not being brought from outside; the wage slave was already here. This sweat and labor assisted in an overseas aluminium magnate to leave on his death a personal fortune of $200 million; it also helped to build an overseas Booker's empire.
Outside of the sugar belt, cattle and sheep, according to the Moyne Commission, were living in an amphibious existence like alligators - meaning no drainage, so as to prevent the emergence of an independent farming community.
As a result a sugar worker in 1945 told the British Royal Commission, headed by Lord Moyne, that he had to walk five or six miles to the backdam everyday and to work from dawn to dusk; further, that he had no rice field, no cow and no money.
When he was asked by the Chairman: "How much did you learn last week?", he replied: "one can earn from $5 to $10 a week but as I am an old man I cannot earn more than $5 to $7 a week, which is not sufficient. The week I buy clothes I cannot buy rations."
An officials survey in Georgetown in 1942 showed that the cost-of-living was 60 per cent higher than in 1938, that the working-class family's expenses were greater than its income, that an average family of five persons earned $7.41 per week but spent $8.23, that woman had to do domestic work to augment the family income; and as many as nine (9) persons were living in single tenement rooms.
A Nutrition Committee report disclosed that 25 per cent of school children were necessitous.
Material hardships were linked with the denial of civil and political rights.
There was apartheid in the sugar estates, the bauxite town, Mackenzie and on the bauxite riverboat R.H Carr.
As a youth, I experienced the same at Mackenzie. I had gone there in answer to an advertisement by the Demerara Bauxite Company for part-time dentist. After all the formalities, the company officials faced a dilemma - where to accommodate me and my wife overnight. Since it was inconvenient to put us up in the fenced Watooka compound for white only, we were given a room at the hospital!
An exclusive few in the Golf Club enjoyed a lease to a large area of land in Georgetown. The PPP government cancelled the lease and converted the land into the National Park for the many to have recreation.
The right to vote was restricted. There were also restrictions on who could contest a seat in Parliament. At the same time, we were faced with abominations like this one: the head of the " sugar gods" had lost his seat in the 1947 elections yet he was nominated to the Legislative Council.
But that was not all. Pamphlets and books which could be bought on the streets of London were banned in Guyana. Several crates of books I had imported from England were seized and burned. Many leaders, including Janet Jagan, were jailed for being in possession of banned, so-called "subversive literature".
Many prominent West Indians and others were banned from entering Guiana. And Mrs. Jagan and I were also banned from entering certain West Indian Islands.
Yes, our struggle for independence was long and bitter because it was linked to change through structural adjustment - not the kind of structural adjustment we hear so much about today. Our structural adjustment was meant to end colonial rule and form political, economic, social and cultural domination.
Our Independence struggle was hard and was complicated by the Cold war. We were clobbered, jailed, detained and restricted. Some of our comrades were tried on treason charges. We were removed from government through force and chicanery on two occasions, 1953 and 1964.
Independence finally came on a platter to the PNC in 1966. Since then, under the past administration, it has been 26 wasted years. All we have to show are the symbols of Independence - the flag, the national anthem and the coat of arms.
For the vast majority, Independence has meant misery, pain and haplessness.. This is not how it could have been.
As for me, I have no bitterness, no recrimination. A big moment in my life was in New York in April 1990 at the editorial office of the liberal American weekly, the Nation. Tears of joy welled up in my eyes as I heard Arthur Schlesinger Jr. say that he was sorry for what he had done 30 years before, and a great injustice had been done to me. Schlesinger as Chief Adviser had recommended to President Kennedy in 1962 that Burnham and not Jagan must be supported in Guyana.
Actually, the injustice was not against me, but against our nation and our people - an injustice which led to so much suffering.
As we celebrate Independence Day, let us honour our heroes who, from the days of Cuffy, fought to free our nation. And let our past be a guide for action in the future.
And a special word to the younger generation. I know that much of the significance of Independence has been lost to you. Those who are responsible for this did you a great disservice and injustice. It is up to our educational system, our cultural and academic communities, and the still living heroes of part of the Independence struggle, in imbue the younger generation with this knowledge and experience.
I urge all Guyanese to get involved. It is only in working together for our country that we can achieve our goals of peace, harmony and prosperity.
On this occasion I want to salute all the heroes of Guyana who played a roll in bringing Independence to Guyana! Let us unitedly struggle for national liberation and social progress.
Forward ever, Backward never!
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000
