The British didn't dump us, we dumped them. Go back and read the Kabaka ' A Destiny to Mould.' 

Oh the British. So diplomatic.   They didnt tell you all to get lost. They just offered us money if we did. And invited us to go pester Canada and the USA if we wanted more.

Indeed in order to hasten the departure of these colonies they engineered the creation of the West Indies Federation.  BUt when Jamaica said that they dont want anything to do with these "small islanders", and Cheddi was offended by the notion of being in a majority black federation Eric said "1 from 10 makes zero" and that ended that.

The only pre-requisite was that they didnt want another Cuba in the Americas, which is why they ensured that Cheddi was replaced and as soon as this happened Guyana was born.

Sugrim when these Caribbean countries raised their flags the British royalty arrived, not enraged, as did DeGaulle with his African colonies, but with bright smiles.  So happy to see "you natives go".

Burnham and Cheddi can delude themselves that they "won" Independence from the British.  They didnt.

I agree with Carib on this point.  The colonies became a drain on Britain.  Imagine this country of Guyana provided so much for Britain by laying the economic foundation for successful British companies such as Booker Tate  yet our citizens have to get visas to visit Britain.  And it is not even an easy visa to get.  It is a difficult visa to get if you are a Guyanese living in Guyana. And not only that too.  Even with the visa the person will have to get permission from the British immigration officer at the airport before they can enter Britain.

Maybe they know Guyanese people real well. 

Who knows, they probably follow some of these threads and get a real good impression of the people they could possibly run into and they doan like what they see.

I work with a guy from Jamaica.  He was jumping up in the air when he heard that Jamaica was getting rid of the Queen as head of state.  He said 'We are finally free" I said "Hey pal you are finally free of British visas".  Those Jamaicans think it is hard to get British visas now.  Just wait until they get rid of the Queen as head of state.  British visas will be ten times harder to get then.

The wealth of the British Empire was originally obtained in the 17/18th centuries, from the then prosperous plantation islands like Barbados and Jamaica, with the slave trade also being highly profitable.  Profits earned were redirected to new colonies in Africa and India where even more profits were made.

By the 19th century Caribbean sugar was no longer profitable and the cost of maintaining a system based on slavery was a pain. So slavery was abolished because the British thought that it had outlived its uses.  These rotting plantation based societies with uncompetitive sugar relied n preferential access and budgetary supports.

BG with its expensive drainage and sea defense systems was especially expensive to administer...and with the colonial administrators getting hardship allowances to compensate them from being based there and not Barbados, or Jamaica, which were much preferred.

This is why prior to the 60s there was almost no infrastructure in BG, outside of the twons and the sugar estates.  Those of us who are old enough can well remember that the ECD road as a red dirt pot holed monstrosity, little better than that interior road is today.   How many rural British Guianese had electricity?  I am told that even on the sugar estates they had to suffer with lamps and candles while the estate managers had electricity.

There is an illusion that people like Burnham and Cheddi gave that we "won" our independenc.  What we "won" was a purely domestic matter. Universal adult suffrage and the end of the dominance by the planter elite.

One can even ask whether the average Caribbean person in 1960 wanted independence, or just greater control over their lives, and input into how their countries were governed.

In other words exactly what the few existing British colonies like Anguilla and the Cayman Islands now have.  Being tiny they werent seen as a drain so were allowed to remain colonies and they can live in the UK if they so chose, even having UK passports.  Yes their priviledges were obtained because the rest of us are no longer around.

Dem boys does sing Bob's tune

"You gotta chase dem crazy, Chase dem crazy ball head

Chase dem crazy baldhead outta town."

When the French were leaving Pondicherry after India became independent.  They offered every Indian citizen of Pondicherry French citizenship.  One hundred thousand people of Pondicherry took the French citizenship but remained in India. No former British colony ever had that option. 

With a name like, Pon de Cherry, Iman wooden leave neither.

If you understand how international finance works you will know that we are not really independent.  We are still colonies.  The mother country does not have to pay any significant amount of money for the former colony's upkeep.  Instead we "so called independent counties have to borrow money and pay interest to the mother country".  So the exploitation/colonialism continues indirectly.

Caribny, Cheddi definitely won something -- you could tell by the rage coming from the Brits. They don't like uppity colonials, and their hatred for nations like Sudan and Zimbabwe today still knows no bounds. I don't know about the average Caribbean person in 1960, but the leaders of the independence struggle in Guyana were in constant peril, and they accepted the danger because they were fighting for something greater than personal comfort or "autonomy." They were genuine patriots.

When we speak of the Caymans, don't forget that the British Empire today is not based on sugar. It is based on money laundering and other forms of financial gangsterism, and the Caymans are an important jewel in the crown.

You are forgetting Monsterrat a small island that is populated by blacks but was let go by the Brits because the colony had little to offer and of course the people were/are black. The Falklands on the other hand is a different matter.

We don't need the British ever again in Guyana.  We only need their symbols for foreign investment purposes, financial purposes and tourism only. That is it.  Without Dr.Jagan and others in the independence struggle (who were jailed,beaten, shot at, blown up) we would still have a small white and light skin ruling class governing over us. 

Remember this.  Dr. Jagan was invited to a hospital in Linden to work.  Yet he could not stay in the hospital's personnel living area because no non-whites were allowed to stay there.  But the hospital was very willing to allow his wife to stay there.  This is in the man's country of birth.  

They had already enacted immigration regs aimed at restricting migration to the UK from the Caribbean, Africa and India.  After all in 1962 few of us would have been likely to have British born grandfathers or to get work permits.

Jagan was not imprisoned because he wanted independence. He was imprisoned because the Americans told the British to "control that little communist".  THey did not imprison Burnham because they didnt view him as an Marxist ideologue as they saw Janet and Cheddi.

Most certainly Grantly Adams of Barbados didnt face imprisonment.  I doubt that Eric Williams did and others who might have, VC Bird (Antigua), Bradshaw (St Kitts), Gairy (Grenada) and Bustamante (Jamaica) were trade unionists and it would have been the plantocracy who would have done this.

MacKenzie was controlled by Canadians and the Canadians didnt want to mix with non whites.

There was certianly a battle for universal adult suffrage and to improve the conditions of the working class.  But that was not a battle for independence as most assuredly the small islands certainly didnt see themselves as having the potential to be viable independent nations in the 1950s.  And the fact that ALL these countries, even Guyana kept the Queen as Head of State.  Guyana changing because Burnham had his own agenda as you know.

Of what value are British symbols.  We are NOT British.  Will NEVER again be British and the British will NOT give permission for their symbols to be used because to do this will suggest that we have some ties to them aside from being a sovereign Commonwealth nation with our own Head of State, so having no ties to the Queen.

Given that Guyana has its own sordid reputation...a govt which uses criminals to harrass the opposition...protesters being killed with no cause...the reputation of being the most corrupt country in the English speaking Caribbean, etc....the British will not compromise their reputation by allowing us to destroy it. 

 ANy investor will do their research and determine whether a country is stable and has potential...a fake "British" tagged on to it will actually be damaging.

If Jamaica can create a BRAND Jamaica to promote itself, despite its reputation for high crime, then surely Guyana can as well.  Ghana is also not especially negatively perceived either, not from the massive foreign investment that they attract.