Gilbakka posted:Let's not bash Chief. Here is an important fact: During the 1973 election campaign, Dr Cheddi Jagan told his supporters at PPP public meetings that they must "secure the ballot boxes bodily" on July 16. They must ensure that the ballot boxes were counted right there on the spot at the polling stations.
Dr Jagan knew full well that he was encouraging his supporters to engage in an unlawful act. The Representation of the People Act and the Guyana Elections Commission regulations ruled out the counting of ballots at polling places. Through police information from PPP meetings, Forbes Burnham got feedback on what Dr Jagan had urged his supporters to do. As a lawyer and politician with power, Burnham used state[army-police] resources to take the ballot boxes to central counting places in accordance with the laws his government had passed in parliament. And he decided to use force to thwart anyone who held on to the ballot boxes at polling stations, or anyone who attempted to block the transfer of those boxes.
Having regard to the above, Chief has a point though I would have worded it differently. By advising his supporters to flout the electoral laws of the time, Dr Jagan bore some moral responsibility for the disastrous consequences.
Cheddi Jagan never told his supporters that the ballot boxes must be counted at the polling stations. What Cheddi Jagan told his supporters is, they must stay with the ballot boxes during transportation from polling station to the police station or location where the ballots were going to be counted.
Parmanand and Jagessar were prevented from accompanying the ballot boxes, and when they insisted on not letting the boxes out of their sight, they were killed.