Articles by Cheddi Jagan 1964

Articles by Cheddi Jagan 1964-1992

Speech by Dr Cheddi Jagan, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party at an International Scientific Seminar on “The Revolutionary Thinking of Commandante Che Guevara” in Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 8-11, 1988.

Very few persons became legends in their lifetime. Che Guevara was one of them.

That Che was a giant, few can deny. He was a man of extraordinary qualities.

Regis Debray in his analysis of Che’s military failure and tragic death in Bolivia quoted from Bernard of Clairvauz who in the year 1200 said these words: “We are dwarfs perching on the shoulder of giants. We can see better and further than they can, not because our sight is keener or our height greater, but because they are carrying us, raising us to their gigantic level.”

We’re all dwarfs when it comes to measuring a man of Commandante Che Guevara’s stature. We can ask this question - which many have pondered - how is it that after 20 years Che continues to attract the same veneration and devotion that he did when he was alive?

Che was a man of many parts, a complex man. Among his many attributes, he was a person of unusual courage. His military exploits are renowned and revered. According to Fidel Castro, “Che was an incomparable soldier. Che was an incomparable leader. Che was, from a military point of view, an extraordinarily capable man, extraordinarily courageous, extraordinarily aggressive. If, as a guerrilla, he had his Achilles’ heel, it was this excessively aggressive quality, his absolute contempt for danger.”

Che fits our vision of a perfect “new man” of the future - physically and morally strong. With incredible strength, he overcame a serious ailment. And to have practiced what he preached - a stern and sterling character, what the indomitable Vietnamese communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, described as revolutionary morality.

That accounts for the apt description of him as a capable and efficient administrator. From November 1959, he served as Director of the National Bank of Cuba. In 1961, he was appointed as Minister of Industry. He was also Chief of the Industrial department of the Director of the National Bank of Cuba. In 1961, he was appointed as Minister of Industry. He was also Chief of the Industrial Department of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA).

As minister of Industry, he had to correct earlier mistakes, which had been made in the immediate period of euphoria after the overthrow of Batista. In the zeal to move away from Cuba’s one-crop economy, a policy of wide-ranging industrialization had been pursued. A lot of industrial machinery was still in crates on the wharfs. With the blockade, Cuba now realised that raw materials for industry could not be imported without serious problems. As he told comrade Janet Jagan - “build your industries around your raw materials and waste by-products.” Wise advice.

Pointing out his qualities in the industrial field, a Soviet writer noted: “He held a guiding hand over the socialist transformation of industry for a period of four years. During this period private ownership of the means of production in Cuba was completely ended. Exploitation of the working people was halted. The country moved towards a planned economy. Chronic unemployment, the whip held over the working people in pre-Revolutionary Cuba, was now eliminated. The level of consciousness of the working people grew. Thousands of workers upgraded their skills, boosted production and joined in socialist emulation. American imperialism hoped for a collapse of the Cuban ‘experiment’ …Cuban workers disappointed their hopes…Much of the credit for this belongs to the Communist Party of Cuba and to Che in particular, under whose leadership the complex and difficult transition from the rails of capitalist production to those of socialist production was effected.”

But above all Che was a humanitarian, a revolutionary intellectual and fighter and an ardent internationalist.

As a doctor, Che was not content simply to practice his profession, cure sick individuals and live a comfortable middle-class life. His was a broader vision: national and social liberation; the curing of the ills of society through the elimination of imperialism and oligarchic domination, exploitation and oppression. Towards this objective, he dedicated his life. His humanity was expressed in the love for people - ordinary people for whom he was always prepared to risk his life.

In this regard, Che gave us some valuable lessons. In his book “Socialism and Man”, he stated:

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. Perhaps it is one of the great dramas of the leader that he must combine a passionate spirit with a cold intelligence and make painful decisions without contracting a muscle. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love of the people, the most sacred causes and make it one and indivisible. They cannot descent to the level of the ordinary man’s daily expenditure of sentimentality…one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme degradation and cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses.

Che was a perpetual student, always studying always learning. At one time, he even mastered linear mathematics for the more effective functioning of his responsibilities as a Minister.

But his was not the position of a classroom intellectual, and theory and practice, thought and action; revolutionary intellectual and fighter were embodied in his personality as a single stream.

He applied the Marxist classics in a thoroughly practical manner. His theory guided him at all times, as for example when he made the simple but profound analysis that national sovereignty was unthinkable without economic independence. According to the editor of Che’s “Episodes of the Revolutionary war”, he is described as a “fully endowed revolutionary man, in whom the guerrilla strategist and fighter embodied a Marxist outlook. He left many writings, which show his eager search for fresh theoretical insights over a broad range of interest. His was a revolutionary, a Marxist mind, over critical and open, aware that new revolutionaries always present new qualities and new problems.”

Che showed excellent qualities as a writer. His highly esteemed classic on Guerrilla Warfare is a bible for revolutionaries.

I had the privilege of having several discussions with Che both as head of government and as leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. Those talks were wide-ranging and immensely illuminating. I could not help perceiving him as an intellectual and a visionary, one who was anxious to reshape the world, particularly the third world.

His internationalism and humanitarianism were especially evident in the sympathy and support towards our struggle in the then British Guiana. No doubt, this was in part influenced by the unreserved support given to revolutionary Cuba by the People’s Progressive Party and government which I had the honour of leading.

The agreements I concluded with Che were far-reaching and demonstrated the internationalism of revolutionary hydro-electric project; a wood-pulp factory; a rice agreement and a timber railway ties for cement barter deal; a Cuban Trade mission in British Guiana; a cultural exchange.

The rice deal with Cuba was deemed “blood money” by the opposition United Force, meaning the payment for the rice was coming from the suffering and blood of the Cuban people!

The hydro-electric project had been recommended by British consultants after we (the PPP government) had nationalized the Canadian-owned Demerara Electric Company. It was a tri-state (Guyana-Cuba-USSR) cooperation venture. Its implementation would have prevented the recurrent blackouts of many years and the huge bill for fuel imports.

The US$10 million loan at a low 2 per cent interest rate for a wood-pulp project, to be paid for in supplies of pulp, would have been the impetus for a huge timber development. At first, Cuba had shown an interest in the development of the project through a lease of forest land, as was the practice in colonial times. But Che told me that smacked too much of imperialist exploitation.

On the rice deal, when I asked why he was paying us 2 cents a pound more than we were getting from the west Indies, he said: put that to the solidarity of the Cuban Revolution to the Guyanese peasants.

The trade and cultural exchanges were opening the way for a better relationship and understanding between the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking Caribbean peoples.

Washington was no doubt angry with us that we broke the blockade against Cuba. The CIA conspired with the then reactionary political opposition parties and trade union leaders, and fomented and financed strike, strife, arson and terrorist bombings.

The Cuban cement was inferior, the propagandists asserted; the building and hydro-dam would collapse.

And the Governor reserved the agreements I concluded for consideration by the -----Foreign Office, where -----they were stalled and killed, no doubt on advice from the US State Department.

Further, during the shipping airlines blockade and fuel cut-off from neighbouring Trinidad, when Cuba responded with two ships - one with fuel, another with food -- terroristic violence was resorted to on a wide scale.

In his address to the United Nations, Che gave us firm political support, alerting the international community to the intrigues of imperialism to destabilize our government.

His authentic internationalism was shown in his decision in setting aside family, fame and fortune to continue the war of liberation in Africa and Latin America. Having reached the pinnacle of success – the number two position in the Cuban leadership; the love and loyalty of the Cuban people - only a true revolutionary and internationalist would have taken the course he adopted: to start from the bottom again with gun in hand.

From the late 1960s when Che fought in Bolivia, the crisis has deepened.

The plunder of Latin America and the Caribbean by imperialism which in the 1981-85 period caused a net outflow of US$36 billion annually, has caused increasing misery for the toiling masses. The evidence has been compiled, analysed and published in many countries and by many contributions, including the UN Economic commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), since Che was ambushed and killed in the jungles of Bolivia and all the evidence goes to validate Che’s uncompromising stand throughout his short but glorious life in defence of the people.

On this his 60^th Birthday Anniversary, the best tribute we can pay to the heroic Che is to continue the struggle with the same dedication and zeal he demonstrated. Let us pledge to finish the job he started.

In the words of his epitaph:

“Wherever death may surprise us, it will be welcome provided that this, our battle cry, reaches some receptive ear, that another hand stretches out to take up weapons and that other men come forward to intone our funeral dirge with the staccato of machine guns and new cries of battle and victory.

Each and everyone of us will pay on demand his own sacrifice…knowing that all together we are getting ever closer to the new man, whose figure is beginning to appear.” Venceremos   -- Che.

       © Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000

Looking For the Way Forward

This is an abridged version of a presentation made before the 1992 elections, by Dr Cheddi Jagan as leader of the Opposition during the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference held in Guyana.



Drugs - this is a very big problem. It is big business with hundred of billions of dollars behind it. We have to examine it from two angles: demand and supply. Recently, I heard that Ron Dellums, head of the Black Caucus in America, after a meeting with President Bush said to the Voice of America that we must not only look at the question of law enforcement and education, but we also have to see the social problems of the country unemployment, broken marriages, cuts in welfare, homelessness, and increasing poverty. He insisted that these problems must be tackled or else frustration and hopelessness will lead to continued demands for illicit drugs.

     Let us take the supply side. Our hemisphere, Latin America and the Caribbean, has intense poverty. A study done in 1980 showed that 8 per cent of the people at the top took 40 per cent of the national income, whereas 40 per cent of the people at the bottom had only 10 per cent of the national income.

     A study of the period 1985-1990 by the UN Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean showed that poverty will increase, unemployment will increase by nearly 50 per cent and the debt problem which was huge - US$368 million in 1985 - will become US$672 million by the end of the decade. More than that, they assumed that dismal prognosis on the basis of the growth rate of 7 per cent but the growth rate has only averaged 1 per cent.

     If we take our own region, the Caribbean, a group of "Wise Men" were appointed a few years ago and they said the unemployment level was already 30 per cent and is likely to reach an explosive 40 per cent. We have to do something about it.

      At one time in Latin America and the Caribbean- in the early part of this century- we not only produced our own food but we exported food. Now, we are importers of food. Although we are predominantly agricultural, we are importing food! Agriculture was destroyed. We have, for instance, in the CARICOM area, a food import bill of nearly US$l billion a year. Trinidad has exhausted its reserves largely by importing nearly $800 million worth of food every year when that can be grown and produced in the country. And that is what we have to be looking at.

     We, therefore, have to seriously study our food policy - mainly the agricultural sector. In the north, agriculture benefits from science and technology are highly subsidized, whereas in our countries agricultural tools are mainly files, cutlasses and forks. Our people do not have the means. And now we are compounding that problem because we have to pay so much debt. We are borrowing money to pay debts, and because we don't have foreign exchange~ we cannot bring the things which are necessary- spare parts for agricultural machinery or new equipment and therefore we are resorting to food aid from outside. That also helps to destroy agriculture because when you produce inefficiently at home, with cheap imports coming in, even the little agriculture that is there is being destroyed. So what is the result? The people start growing marijuana in Guyana. Today it is being grown everywhere because the overall policy is not conducive to developing agriculture, especially rice and sugar, our main crops.

       I mentioned that in the North, agriculture is being subsidized. In our country more pressure is being put on farmers. In this year's budget there is a levy. This shows that we have our priorities wrong. We have to deal with these fundamental issues in a serious way and not look at them superficially.

     How do I see a solution to this problem? As I said, we don't have the foreign exchange; we don't have the money to buy the spare parts, the machinery, the fertilizers, etc., and we are borrowing money to pay debts. We have to link this question to a better way of development and link it to the unprecedented arms race.

     The debt problem is now such a huge problem that it is sometimes referred to as a time bomb which is likely to explode, bringing down the whole structure which ties up the north and south. To give some figures: the total third world debt is over US$1,000 billion; for Latin America and the Caribbean it is $415 billion; for the Caribbean alone it is roughly US$10 billion.

     It was suggested that if the arms expenditure of the world is cut by 12 per cent there can be enough money to pay the banks we owe. We should also link the debt issue with making our region, especially the Caribbean, a zone of peace. If that is done, we will start with a clean slate and have the money, (the foreign exchange especially, which is now going to pay debts), to modernize agriculture, to develop the economy, provide employment and give our people better social services - health, education, etc. We should stop taxing agriculture. In fact we should subsidize agriculture and let the sector grow so that we can stop importing all this food from abroad.

     We have a big tourist industry in the Caribbean, but 75 per cent of the tourist dollar goes back outside to bring food to the Caribbean. We have to put a stop to all of that. Merchants are importing food when they should be importing other things which are necessary for the development of the economy.

      We have to see the debt problem in a very comprehensive way in that it is both simultaneously the effect and the cause of the crisis which is facing the Third World. The effect: due to incorrect economic development strategies which had been imposed on the Third World. After the cold war started, the Puerto Rican model of development was proposed. That formed the basis for our first development plan from 1966-1972. That meant concentrating on infrastructure and creating an investment climate for foreigners to invest and bring about so-called "development". What we had therefore, was money borrowed and spent on infrastructure to be paid in 15-20 years. We did not have a favorable capital output ratio, that is, the recovery of that money from infrastructure to pay back loans. Meanwhile, the foreigners who came wanted; recover their money in one to three years and so we have investment of one dollar taking out from these countries roughly three to four dollars annually.

    The net annual outflow from Latin America and the Caribbean, in the period 1981 to 1985, was $36 billion in interest, principal and profits. Last year alone it was $29 billion. We are in the unfortunate situation in the Third World now where we are borrowing, not for development, but to pay back interest. Meanwhile the principal keeps growing. And so we get into what is called 'a debt trap' where the aid donors, through their instruments, like the I.M.F and the World Bank, impose conditions, first economic and then political, ideological, cultural etc and even military. That is the problem.

      The payment of the debt also becomes a cause of the crisis. For instance, in Guyana, by 1984 we were paying more in debt payments than the total revenue of the country. In that year, it exceeded the revenue. Therefore, what we had to do: we borrowed internally to meet expenditure and this meant that we had to pay interest on that and that created a budgetary problem. Thus the deficit keeps growing. And the adjustments, strategy imposed by the I.M.F dictates that you have to solve the budget crisis by cutting spending on social services, wage freeze wage restrains and cuts in subsidies, etc.

      Therefore, what is the answer? I remember in 1979 when the government refused to pay a $14 a day minimum wage which they had agreed to with the TUC, based on the three year agreement. Our party then said: suspend the debt payments or pay only a part. The debt payment in that year was $225 million and the payment of the $14 minimum wage would have meant $85 million. We paid the $225 million and denied $85 million to the workers. And thus the people who are the main factor in development become dissatisfied; they become alienated. They cannot live because the cost of living keeps going up through taxation, more and more borrowing and devaluation, which is part of the strategy which is imposed by the IMF. For instance in Guyana, the wage now with a 20 per cent increase is about roughly $30 a day. A medium size loaf of bread costs $30. A pint of cooking oil is $30, one pound of chicken or beef is around $50 to $60, how can people live? If people cannot live, they cannot produce.

      The problems have to be solved in a radical, revolutionary way. So I would suggest that as a first step we must look at our development strategy. This is important because even if the debt is written off and we start with a clean slate, the absence of a proper development strategy will again get us into trouble. As the saying goes in out hemisphere "when the United States sneezes, Latin America and the Caribbean get pneumonia" This is true because of our dependent economy, depending on a few products.

     In Guyana, as regards the economic model being pursued by the PNC government, we have a hybrid variety - bureaucratic state and parasitic capitalism and I.M.F aid will not help. It will only impose further burdens on the people. The PPP, therefore, has a global outlook and that is why we suggest a radical solution.

      I would like to deal with this question by referring to this phrase which says 'politics is concentrated economics'. All of us today are grappling with economic problems. We have to look at this question in an interconnected and interacting way, that is, we have an economic base and we have a political, ideological, institutional and cultural superstructure. There must be a proper interconnection and interaction between the base and the superstructure if we are to make progress. At the political level there has been failure. Witness the Federation of the West Indies. At the economic level, there has also been failure. The Central American Common Market, which was modeled after the EEC has collapsed. The higher hopes of CARICOM have not been realized, and so now we are talking of a Caribbean Parliament.

     I think in looking at this we have to see three models of regional integration - the socialist model of COMECON, the EEC model like CARICOM and the ANDEAN PACT. The differences between these are fundamental. COMECON is a socialist and the others are virtually free enterprise. The difference between the CARICOM model and the ANDEAN PACT is that in the first you have an open door to foreign capital, whereas in the ANDEAN PACT the premise was that uncontrolled foreign capital does not necessarily lead to progress and therefore there must be some limits. I think we need to learn lessons from those experiences.

      At the ideological level in the Caribbean region we have three socio-economic models socialist as in Cuba; in the P.P.P. government, the Grenada government under Maurice Bishop and the Nicaraguan Government we have a socialist-oriented or revolutionary democratic model. In Trinidad and in Guyana and the rest, I would say there is a free enterprise force although in Trinidad it was somewhat of a hybrid under Dr. Eric Williams' P.N.M Government. His projection was that the model would be neither Puerto Rican nor Cuban, but something in between. In Guyana the PNC baptized its ideology as co-operative socialism.

     In this situation, therefore, I think it is necessary for us to have dialogue if we are to realize our aims and objectives. This must start, first and foremost, with the media. The media is not free in our area. Either big business is in control or there is domination from outside, that is, the press agencies from the capitalist world, and in some countries, it is state controlled. I, as I leader of the minority parties, cannot even get a letter published the Guyana Chronicle when attacks are made against me. I cannot get on the state-owned radio. We must free up the media; we must have dialogue on the way forward. Of course, parliament will help in this direction because you will have the opportunity for dialogue, but what kind of parliament will it be? Will it be a parliament of government or a parliament of government and opposition forces? If it is a parliament of governments, like the Non-Aligned movement, for instance, or even the D.N one does not have the advantage of listening to the voice of the people. Governments in the Caribbean meet, along with a few institutions, to discuss important issues, but generally speaking the people are not involved in the process.

     The President of Guyana said that Guyana supports the idea of a Caribbean Parliament. I am not opposed to the idea. Let me make my position clear. But I don't know that the President has consulted with the opposition or discussed it in the Guyana Parliament to make that decision.

      The PPP has no disagreement with having dialogue at whatever level. We think that the idea of a Caribbean Parliament is good so that the kind of preoccupation with our own insularity can be broken down and we can sit together in a parliament and look at the matter from a regional perspective.

      We would hope that this matter is given serious attention. We have to start out from a democratic base which assumes free and open debate. I was not only talking about the commitment of Guyana because we don't have that kind of commitment yet, although the President of Guyana made a statement. Democracy is fundamental to development and we want to know that if Guyana is going to take part in such a Caribbean Parliament that we should have a democratic decision on our participation. Who will participate will depend on the democratic decision of the Guyanese people. Otherwise, for us, it will be a waste of time.

      This parliament of Guyana is not reflective of the will of the people and if in a similar way we are going to select who is going to represent Guyana abroad in a Caribbean Parliament, then for us it is just a waste of money. I say that because I have here a clipping from Barbados from the former leader of the opposition Mr. Henry Ford. The headline says: 'Wrong timing for Hoyte's Visit to Barbados' and I quote:

        "Perhaps it would have been better if the president had not been invited while things remain as they are in that unfortunate country".

   Mr. Chairman, in your opening remarks, you made the point that military dictatorships will not be permitted in the Commonwealth Association. We are all wasting our time here if we cannot speak freely and say what is happening in our countries or in the Region. We are simply wasting time and we will be spending a lot of money and in the end nothing will come out of it. We are not here just to sling mud, but we have to deal with realities. I, personally, am interested in regional integration, whether economic and political. I favor that. I favor, also, complete and open dialogue. That is the point I want to make.

      I feel, as parliamentarians, we should be open, we should learn. I referred to three economic models in the region - we should go to those countries; study what they are doing. We should take the best from the socialist countries, third world countries like those in the Andean Pact and what is beneficial from the first world. I believe a Parliament of the Caribbean would be fruitful once it is done in an open way, with complete freedom of dialogue and trying to find the way forward.

     © Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000