Articles by Janet Jagan
November 1947 – “A People’s Victory”
by Janet Jagan
In the 1947 elections 60 years ago, Cheddi Jagan declared himself a candidate for Central Demerara (Buxton to Kitty), which was held by John D’Aguiar (no relation to Peter D’Aguiar) who had represented that constituency since 1939. Mr D’Aguiar was a member of the Executive Committee (something like a Cabinet), Chairman of the Rice Marketing Board, Managing Director of J.P. Santos and Co. Ltd. and held top positions in many Boards and Committees. Other candidates for that seat were Frank Jacobs, a lawyer and member of the Labour Party, and H.L. Palmer, an elderly village leader.
One of the main contestants at the 1947 elections was the newly formed Labour Pary. However, according to Dr Jagan in “The West on Trial” … “with only 14 elected seats to share it could not accommodate all the ambitious individuals who wanted legislative honours. Consequently, this jockeying for position left the LCP (League of Coloured People) and the BGEIA (British Guiana East Indian Association) still dominant.”
According to Cheddi Jagan in his book: “So certain of victory were his (John D’Aguiar) backers in the Catholic Church and in business circles that they concentrated their power, influence and propaganda not against me, but against my wife” (referring to my campaign in Central Georgetown).
Cheddi Jagan won the Central Demerara seat by a close margin. He put this victory to his regular visits to the area over a period of time, working in the sugar estates and villages.
As he noted in “The West on Trial”: “And so I was in the legislature, an end of sorts, yet in fact only the beginning of the long, hard struggle ahead.” How right he was!
Further he noted: “I regarded my victory at the 1947 general election as the people’s victory. In a brief post-ballot-count speech, I said: `We the people have won. Now the struggle will begin’.”
He was only 29 years old at the time and he had entered a Legislative Council made up of 4 ex-officio members including the Governor, 7 nominated non-official and 14 elected members. It was a traditional colonial parliament; fearful of granting too much power to the people being governed under colonial rule. And as I had noted in my previous article, the franchise was restricted to property or income qualifications, as well as literacy.
Again, it is useful to refer to Dr Jagan’s book which in reality, is a history of our country. He wrote about his early experiences in the Legislative Council: “I brought a new dimension to the politics of protest, a continuity between the legislature and the street corner; the legislature was brought to the “streets” and the “streets” to the legislature. The Legislative Council was no longer the hallowed Chamber where “gentlemen” debated at leisure and had their words recorded in Hansard for posterity. The legislature at last became part and parcel of the struggle of the people.”
He joined forces with the Labour Party which had won 6 of the 14 seats. He describes some of the problems of that party which worsened as party decisions were flouted and members did not support positions arrived at. A crucial break came when the issue of Universal Adult Suffrage came up, with Mr Kendall and Dr Nicholson of the Labour Party voting with the colonial government side. After this debacle, the Labour Party faded out and never revived.
There is always a humorous side to many aspects of life and the Legislative Council and Cheddi Jagan produced one. Cheddi, as those who knew him or heard him were aware, was a speaker who spoke at length on many issues, bringing out all the facts and statistics to prove his points. This was his style and he spent many hours doing research and gathering material for his speeches. But the aristocrats of the Legislative Council could not believe that a product of plantation life, the son of a “coolie”, could be so knowledgeable and fluent. To them, it was an impossibility, so they began the rumour that his white wife wrote all his speeches and he memorized them. Even though they detested me, I was still of their colour.
But after a while, it became clear that no one could memorize all he had to say, and Cheddi had a lot to say in his almost one man battle to fight for the rights of the oppressed, the poor, the neglected, and the exploited.
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2009
-- A Voice Calling for Justice
by Janet Jagan
We commemorate on December 18th the 60th anniversary of the entry of Cheddi Jagan to the Legislative Council of the then British Guiana (BG) after the elections of November 24, 1947. The year before, he, along with three others, had formed the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) which set out as its goal, the formation of a political party to lead the country in its quest to end colonial rule by Britain.
Cheddi Jagan’s spirited and positive advocacy of the rights of the Guianese people helped prepare the ground for the formation of the People’s Progressive Party in January 1950. His forthright, able and consistent stand in the Legislature gave him an unusual status and acceptance as a leader in many parts of Guiana, through which he and the members of the PAC travelled, held meetings and met the working people, assisting them in their problems and articulating their hopes and desires for the future of the country.
As Cheddi Jagan recorded in his book “The West on Trial”: “The struggle in the next five years was to become intensified – a struggle in which I stood practically alone in the legislature against big business, though with growing support among the peoples; a struggle in which the task was to expose and attempt to break the hold the sugar planters and the Chamber of Commerce had on the legislature, the administration and the economy of the country.”
He tackled early on the role of bauxite and its very low contribution to the economy, even though British Guiana and Dutch Guiana were the largest producers of high grade bauxite, supplying then two-thirds of the world’s bauxite requirements. The Demerara Bauxite Co. (Demba) paid no royalty on bauxite mined from its own land and a small royalty of 10 cents per ton on ore mined from leased crown lands. Dr Jagan urged, in the legislature, increased royalties on bauxite. He challenged the government: “It may well be asked whether government is satisfied that the wealth of the people of this country should be dug out of the earth and shipped out of the colony without one cent being paid in royalty, with the exception of a small percentage…which the company pays 10 cents per ton.”
He dealt in full with the ramifications of price control of aluminum by the monopoly ALCOA, charging manipulated prices, low taxes, forcing BG to be a primary producer only, etc. Obviously, he put much time and effort into his research on bauxite and its international control.
Today there are some hate-filled writers who attempt to lower the prestige and love Dr Jagan earned through some 60 years of work and dedication to the interests of the people and his country, forgetting the quality of the man, his intellectual grasp that led to a better understanding of the exploitation of the nation and to the man himself, a man of dignity, integrity, culture and most of all, his fighting spirit.
Not only did Dr Jagan tackle the issue of Demba getting away with ripping off BG as regards taxation, he also exposed other wrong-doings of the British colonialists and their flunkies. He exposed the machinations of the sugar planters, showing not only their control of sugar, but other controls. For example, he showed how the radio station was owned jointly by Booker Brothers, Mc Connel & Co. Ltd., William Fogarty Ltd., Wieting & Richter Ltd and the Argosy Co. Ltd., and was given a 15 years contract and a government subsidy equivalent to 90% of the licence fees collected from owners of radio sets. Also, the three daily newspapers – the Guiana Graphic, the Daily Argosy and the Daily Chronicle, along with the radio station, had interlocking directorates. The sugar planters and the leaders of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce owned the Graphic and Mr HG Seaford of Bookers was chairman of the Chronicle. In other words, the name this country once had was “Bookers Guiana,” a British company which was almost in full control of the country’s economy, its media and its politics – all under colonial rule.
These revelations were all steps in the direction of educating the people about what being a colony meant and why there was need to begin the struggle for independence. This began in earnest when the People’s Progressive Party was formed in 1950, with its declared intention of seeking an end to colonialism.
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2009
by Janet Jagan May 5, 2007
During the period I served as President of the Republic of Guyana, I attended all the Caricom heads of government meetings. I was on friendly terms with all the island prime ministers and found them to be affable conference mates. One who was always there, polite almost to the extreme, courteous, friendly was Sir James Mitchell of St Vincent. I know this island, having visited it twice – once I was banned from St. Vincent, but because of the infrequency of air and boat travel, remained for two weeks. My other visit was memorable, as I was the house guest of one of St. Vincent’s national heroes – Captain Hugh Mulzac, the first black man to captain an American vessel (World War II). Despite our sharp political differences, we got on very well.
It was thus not unexpected that I read a review of his autobiography “Beyond the Island” in Stabroek News (April 29, 2007) which revealed a side of his character which I had discerned – his frankness. According to the review: “… and another concerning the secret agreement between Desmond Hoyte and six Caricom leaders on the island of Mustique in the Grenadines in January 1986. More than a footnote in history, Mitchell describes how in a compromise put forward by himself, the leaders agreed not to challenge the legitimacy of the Guyana December 1985 poll, albeit for the last time. In exchange there would be a change in Burnham’s “leftist policies” and all future elections would have to have observers.”
The reviewer, whosoever he is, erred in not remembering that Mr Burnham died in August 1985 and Mr Hoyte was in charge of the 1985 electoral rigging, so the reviewer must have meant that Hoyte change the policies of his deceased leader.
Be that as it may, the fact remains that Sir James Mitchell’s autobiography places the seal of authenticity on the charges made by the People’s Progressive Party that the Mustique meeting, was rigged to protect Hoyte from attacks by Caricom as to the absence of free and fair elections in Guyana. However, Mitchell leaves out one very strong part which the PPP has always exposed – that the USA was behind the whole Mustique fiasco, pushing it on and financing the high expenditure. After all, it was the island of wealthy visitors and posh homes, Princess Margaret being the best known
The PNC has not done well in recent years in its public relations and has proved careless in many ways, the most recent being the exposure of its internal problems. One of its most obvious mistakes has not yet been commented on – am I the first to note that its newest acronym is PNCR1-G, or to me, PNC Rig? How could anyone be so stupid as to allow that to happen? I’m not being subversive or nasty in recalling the PNC’s horrid history of rigging, but it’s part of our history and I, for one, who lived through the ghastly elections of 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985 know how they traumatized the population and the heavy blows they dealt to the concept of democracy. I even wrote a booklet outlining all, and there were many, the methods of rigging used in the 1973 elections that future generations would not gloss over what happened, but would see that it never happened again.
Thus I find it distressing and I won’t call names, to see some of those who actively carried out electoral rigging, the consequences of which almost destroyed Guyana, being honoured, yes honoured, at universities and by international bodies. It is almost obscene to see this happening, but some tend to have short memories, or is it just sheer opportunism?
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2009