WE MUST STOP ADMIRING OUR TWO DEAD SOCIALIST LEADERS
In the aftermath of their deaths, a vast number of Guyanese still bear good memories and scars of them, albeit not much is worthy of praise.
Dr. Jagan’s sojourn at Howard and Northwestern universities exposed him to the hardships of African-Americans in the US, as legal segregation in the United States dictated social life. He identified with this sector – ‘the so-called oppressed people’ and upon his return to Guyana took up the struggle to fight for this ‘oppressed’ sector. He did so from a Marxist-Leninist platform and incurred the wrath of both the British and the US governments.
Having been elected to the Legislature in 1947, Jagan formed the PPP and three years later was the country’s first Premier. But his adherence to the Socialist doctrine and his close ties to Moscow and Havana precipitated the suspension of the Constitution in 1953.
If Jagan truly had loved his country he would have accommodated the Western ideals and principles instead of the hard line Marxist ideology in the height of the Cold War which ultimately saw him ejected from the seat of power through the machinations of the British and the US.
At the Independence Conference in London in 1963, he was advised by his Attorney General, Dr. Fenton Ramsahoye, not to accept the change to a Proportional Representation system of elections instead of the existing First Past the Post, unless it was accompanied by Independence.
Against the advice of his learned Attorney General, the PPP leader went ahead and signed the document handed to him by Commonwealth secretary Mr. Duncan Sandys unknowing to his Attorney General. Poor Jagan. Claiming that the MI-5 had bugged his hotel room may have had some merit, but it was a lame excuse.
After the alleged rigged elections in 1968, Jagan had enough resources to pressure the emerging Burnham dictatorship. His supporters had incisive control of the entire agriculture sector, including the sugar and rice industries, in addition to private transportation, fishing and lumber manufacturing. This was more than enough to break the hegemonic control of the Burnham the regime;
instead, Dr. Jagan cowardly regurgitated his foolish Marxism verbiage—tantamount to holding a red flag in front of the bulls–while his support base attenuated.
In August 1969, the world condemned Russia when it was discovered that it sent more than 600,000 Russian troops marched into Czechoslovakia, yet Cheddi Jagan gave his full support to Russia. The invasion, later known as the Prague Spring, usurped the many freedoms that the leader, Alexander Dubcek, had given his citizens.
He was overthrown and replaced by the Stalinist henchman Gustav Husak, who went on to rule for 20 years until the fall of Communism in 1989. When the military strongman Desi Bourtese murdered 15 opposition parliamentarians in Suriname in 1982,Jagan supported him and labelled the victims as ‘destabilizers and opponents of the revolution.’
On the home front, in the height of the kick-down-door rampage, the Minority Leader, with his lack of ebullience, ascribed this phenomenon as a class struggle. When Burnham nationalized the sugar and bauxite industries in the late 1970’s,Jagan was static. It was power to the proletariat—the panacea for development!
He urged further nationalization which perpetuated a specter of doom over institutions like the commercial banks. In Jagan’s own words “We have forced the PNC to accept Socialism, so while they will be pulling the cart, the PPP will be holding the reins”. He then embarked on a most bizarre programme of ‘Critical Support’ for Burnham. What stupidity from a man who more than half the people of Guyana idolized! Jagan’s skewed political antics had rivaled the convoluted emotional frolics on the Jerry Springer show!
As for being a learned and dedicated politician, Jagan was more interested in the Marxist ideology than Guyana. He was a nostalgic, self-centered and narcissistic politician whose philosophy led to the demise of Guyana.
His supporters believed in private industry, yet they embraced a man whose philosophy embraced state control. They did not realize that their saw-mills, rice mills, manufacturing plants among others would have become collective enterprises owned by the state.
Had he been Head of State in 1964 Guyana would have become another Cuba or North Korea. His whole career was focused on Marxism and, once on a visit to Freedom House, I saw Pyongyang Times and Beijing Review in the waiting room — no New York Times Newsday or Washington Post. Ironically, it was the fall of Jagan’s beloved doctrine of Marxism, which is still enshrined in the PPP’s constitution that saw the advent of free elections returned to Guyana, thanks to President Carter of the United States—a country Jagan described as an Imperialist exploiter in his book ‘The West on Trial.’
It is public knowledge and utter hypocrisy, that while Guyanese were lining up to purchase oil and soap and eating rice flour, the son and daughter of the Marxist Cheddi Jagan were enjoying the spoils of Capitalism in Canada and the United States. That said, neither Forbes Burnham nor CheddiJagan would have allowed the plundering of Guyana’s resources by foreign companies.
Leyland Roopnarine (New York)
