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FM
Former Member

how he go seh Lard Burnham was ASCRIA? Hey hey hey...ayoo look how he tek he eye and pass black peopkle. Green salipenta and Ronan ayoo come cuss. 

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Land settlements and PNCR economic policy agenda: An attempt at explaining one of the Ethnic Security Dilemmas

In this column, I will continue to explore the rationale of the PNCR’s economic policy since March, 2015. I noted in the previous column that a book on land settlements in Guyana, written by Minister Carl Greenidge, provides important insights into the thinking of the PNCR. We need to account for the economic-policy decisions of this party because it is the dominant partner in APNU. During the period 1970 to 1985, the PNC was largely antagonistic to private enterprise. This was the period of nationalisation of foreign entities, the promotion of cooperatives and general antagonism towards the local private sector. President Hoyte made a complete turnaround from 1985 until 1992, when the PPP returned to government with the appendage C to its name. The period 1985 to 1992 witnessed an open approach to the domestic private sector and an overly generous outreach to foreign businesses. With respect to the latter, two examples will suffice: Omai Gold Mines Limited would pay no corporation tax and Barama Company Limited was offered forest concessions of 1.6 million hectares or 6,177 square miles (Jamaica is 4,244 mi2, T&T is 1, 980 mi2 and Barbados is just over 166 mi2). 

The Hoyte era policies were essentially derived from the standardised Washington Consensus measures of the time. These were basically free-market ideologies which promoted devaluation, privatisation, depletion of government capacity in undertaking industrial policies (no wonder we are all caught with pants down today vexing over local content), and trade and capital-account liberalisation. An astute observer at the time would have also seen several tendencies towards the kickback tax as much as the outward tendencies during the Jagdeo years. Hoyte was able to obtain the outward support of many, including notable East Indians, in the private business community. Many of these people would eventually switch sides to earn rents from the PPP/C after 1992.

The PNCR policy agenda from 2015 is completely different from that of the Hoyte years. On the surface, it appears very different from the 1970 to 1985 period of cooperative socialism and party paramountcy. However, a close examination of economic history – hence the importance of Greenidge’s well-researched book – would reveal that the policy set from 2015 is motivated by the same explanation. The outward appearance of dictatorship, media suppression and coercion are not yet there. These will most likely return if there is an election next year under the same problematic and loophole-ridden constitution.

Several researchers have described the period of party paramountcy and its economic consequences. But I am not so sure these have been fully explained. Describing and explaining are different endeavours. If we can explain the motivation behind party paramountcy, we can also explain the PNCR’s behaviour towards the private sector since 2015. If we are going to find a system to mitigate the harmful effects of the ethnic insecurities, we need to explain things, not just describe them.

In an academic paper published in 1975, the researcher Leo Despres cited an associate from the PNC who notes: “Burnham is ASCRIA as much as Eusi Kwayana is ASCRIA. ASCRIA is the cultural and economic arm of the government: the PNC is its political arm.” ASCRIA means African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa. The core belief of ASCRIA at that time was that all Guyanese have been exploited by British colonialism and American imperialism. In addition, Afro-Guyanese have been further exploited and discriminated against by East Indians and Portuguese. Therefore, according to Despres, Africans have to be re-established on the land, regardless of whether the land is currently occupied by the sugar industry, interests in the interior or by East Indians. Members of ASCRIA were placed in most of the important positions controlled by the PNC in the 1970s and 1980s. Even though ASCRIA does not exist today, it would be naïve to believe it does not have lasting footprints in the PNCR.

It should be noted that immediately after the APNU+AFC came to power, Barama exited the forest concession. Bai Shan Lin had its 680,000 hectares revoked. However, we should also note that an East Indian-owned company was leased 400,000 ha after 2015 from the previous land under Barama’s control. A foreign Chinese company was leased another 400,000 ha formerly under Barama’s control. The government said it intends to lease the remaining 800,000 ha to smaller loggers.

In the background of Greenidge’s book is the idea that East Indians were given favourable treatment under land settlement schemes in the colonial period, while African Guyanese were not. And that this favourable treatment has lasting differential effect in economic outcomes today. In general, however, Greenidge’s work is nuanced, even if some of his conclusions might be wacky. For example, he notes on page 41 of the book that only about 20% of the Indians at the time exchanged their return fee for land. The implication is that landless Indians eventually squatted inside African villages and bought over land from Africans. No data was provided for the rates of squatting versus buying. My research so far shows no work was done to answer this question. Greenidge also observes (page 65), albeit in passing, that foreign demand for rice from the early 1900s resulted in an expansion of rice production, which benefitted Indians disproportionally. This is a crucial point, I believe, that should have received more attention. He gives a plausible explanation why African Guyanese did not pursue the higher yielding aquatic rice even though they planted the land variety long before Indians arrived in 1838. He also mentions in passing that the expansion of rice production benefitted mainly a few large-scale Indian farmers.

I argued in previous columns that there are two ethnic security dilemmas in Guyana. Both are underpinned by economic concerns. Both result today in pro-ethnic strategic voting by about 87% of the masses. However, the party elites of both PNCR and PPP/C are also motivated by these economic concerns. They also stoke the pro-ethnic strategic votes. In previous years some leaders, realising their numerical disadvantage, seized power. Therefore, I posit in this essay that Despres’ paper and Greenidge’s book hold important insights into the nature of President Granger’s economic agenda. It also explains what is likely to be the result if there is no constitutional overhaul.

A seat at the table in determining who gets what is the central motivating principle of APNU. Mr. Aubrey Norton also reinforced the latter point in a paper he published in 2007. It really does not matter what the ABC countries say. The PNCR is not interested in electoral politics for its own sake. The PNCR has its economic concerns and it does not want the PPP/C to tell it what it gets and how much. The PPP/C is not interested in electoral politics because Mr. Jagdeo and his immediate group are great liberal democrats. The PPP/C leadership believes they still have a numerical advantage and as a result they can win a free and fair election, thereby becoming top dogs in deciding who gets what and how much. We are, therefore, witnessing a conflict over the control of economic resources. This conflict started long before 1955.

I plan to explore further some issues which Greenidge mentioned in passing but are important in determining the relative success of the rice sector in Guyana. We also have to take up the false notion that East Indians control 95% of the economy (Greenidge did not write this; it came from a newspaper columnist), as well as the fact that most East Indians are underdeveloped just like most African Guyanese. These points will soon be in one place in an academic paper I am presently writing: “Two economic ethnic security dilemmas.”

 

Copyright © 2017 Stabroek News. All rights reserved.

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Prashad posted:

Leo Despres can go and kiss my brown bottom. Prashad wants a sovereign independent country for his people so that they don't have to put up with this B.S.

Just examine that bigger version of your nation and see if that solves the problems of Indians.  Even you will admit that most Indo Caribbean people are way better off than their cousins who remained in rotting villages of the "Hindu" belt of India.

FM
caribny posted:
Prashad posted:

Leo Despres can go and kiss my brown bottom. Prashad wants a sovereign independent country for his people so that they don't have to put up with this B.S.

Just examine that bigger version of your nation and see if that solves the problems of Indians.  Even you will admit that most Indo Caribbean people are way better off than their cousins who remained in rotting villages of the "Hindu" belt of India.

In a general sense, you are quite correct, however, I have seen and have been into houses in both India and Pakistan; the likes of which will make some of our people soil their underwear ! (I hope Prashad is reading this.) In addition to the unbelievable sizes of these homes (haveli), their opulence (stone, terazzo, marble, quartz, granite etc.) make description of some of these properties virtually impossible !

K

Hey hey hey hey hey...Freddie declare war pon dem ROAR bais and now he sayin dem black peopkle want entitlement. Hey hey hey. Dem ROAR bais seh black peopkle muss be equal partner pon de table. Freddie seh dem blackman muss get entitlement 

 

Political rejection of Africa entitlement under the guise of scholarship


 

The lava spewing from the no-confidence volcano is engulfing the society where masks are falling off like mangoes on a tree in a yard of one of the managers’ home on a sugar estate. Some want to see the PNC retain in power because of ethnic loyalty.
Some want to see an Indian government return to rule Guyana. Some want to see Jagdeo ride the waves again. Some are so annoyed with the failures of the AFC that they want to see the PPP return so they can laugh at the humiliation of Nagamootoo and Ramjattan. Some feel the APNU+AFC’s time was an abject failure and the no-confidence vote (NCV) offers a new pathway.
Since the NCV on December 12, 2018, Ravi Dev’s popularization of the Indian Ethnic security dilemma (IESD) has risen from the dead and the resurrection has been done by Indian intellectuals. Now mind you; Dev was a little barefaced guy. He dramatized the IESD when the PNC regime under Burnham was in power. The sermon was Indians were denied electoral, political and economic power.
The IESD preachers (Dev and his political party, ROAR) cut off one of the fulcrums of the IESD when Hoyte implemented the neo-liberal economic platform know as the ERP, (economic recovery programme).
For an excellent adumbration of the ERP see the work of one of the men who was responsible for seeing its success, “Structural Adjustment and Good Governance: The Case of Guyana,” Tyrone Ferguson.
That fulcrum was the economic pillar. Extensive privatization accompanied the ERP and almost 90 percent of state companies were bought up by Indians. The opening up of the economy saw a nascent nouveau riche class dominated by Indians. By the time the PPP settled down to rule Guyana after its victory in the 1992 elections, the Indian presence in the economy was deep and extensive.
As the PPP settled into power under the aegis of Jagdeo and Ramotar, a new class appeared in Guyana’s sociology – the criminalized nexus. This was an interrelationship between drug traffickers and state actors. It is best epitomized in the Roger Khan saga.
So what Dev, ROAR and Indian intellectuals did was to maintain the other pillars of the IESD. The pulpit still preached about the Indian fear of a state sector and security apparatus dominated by Africans. They wanted ethnic balance in the public service and the wider and state sector and the army and police.
Dev and ROAR went out of fashion. ROAR died but Dev moved on to Guyana Times where he found a weak (the Times’ circulation is pathetically poor) but useful avenue to fan the ISED flame. The ISED has risen from the grave since the lady shouted in Parliament on December 12, 2018; “no Charran, no Charran, no Charran.”
Dev is doing his ISED thing over at the Times and has been joined by a school of Indian intellectuals that include Drs. Ramesh Ganpat, Lomarsh Roopnaraine, Baytoram Ramharack and Tarron Khemraj. Here is the argument especially of Ramharack and Khemraj. The Indians are still living in fear of domination and there are serious intentions of transferring wealth to African Guyanese by the PNC leaders.
For a reply to Ramharack, see my column of Friday, February 22, 2019, captioned, “My problem with Indian academics writing about African Guyanese.” In yesterday’s Stabroek News, Tarron Khemraj reproduced the identical ISED argument of Ramharack. But there is one new element. He disputes the basic contention of Carl Greenidge’s book, “Empowering a Peasantry in a Caribbean Context: The Case of Land Settlement Schemes in Guyana, 1865 -1985.
That contention is that the freed slaves were terribly treated by the plantocracy in relation to land entitlements and the Indians and Portuguese were highly favoured and wide concessions given to them. Today the shape of wealth in Guyana is directly related to that era.
This was what my research for my M.A. degree at MacMaster University in Canada was based on. For me it is downright intellectual dishonesty for any scholar to deny the land discrimination against the freed slaves by the plutocracy.
Greenidge’ book offers more details and more convincing arguments that one published 48 years ago that centered on the same argument. Greenidge’s book came out in 2010. In 1972, one of the most authoritative works on how the emancipated slaves were denied land entitlement in Guyana was published by a white American historian, Alan Adamson. See his brilliant book, “Sugar Without Slaves.”
Finally, Ganpat, Ramharack and Khemraj think they are successful in arguing that Indians do not own a large chunk of the Guyanese economy because they keep asserting that there are poor Indo-Guyanese as poor African Guyanese. Credible statistics are not offered.

FM

I see dat he also took a swipe at TK. 

FK is facing a “blacklash” after he wrote articles supporting Charandass. 

FK is now outgrasshopping TK. Looks like FK ketch jumble and TK is having the last laugh. 

Is FK that insecure ?

Hey Hey Hey.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
yuji22 posted:

I see dat he also took a swipe at TK. 

FK is facing a “blacklash” after he wrote articles supporting Charandass. 

FK is now outgrasshopping TK. Looks like FK ketch jumble and TK is having the last laugh. 

Is FK that insecure ?

Hey Hey Hey.

Hey hey hey...De funny ting is de man TK who suppose to be wan coolie ROAR racial man seh he na support NCM now. Dat it would divide de kuntry and wider racial divide. PPP should wait and keep regrouping and let de eleckshun be next year. But one love Freddie scheme wid he buddy Charrandas and dem foh bring down de black peopkle govt. Hey hey hey...

FM

De salipenta seh dat he supporting the Shoeman party but it all depends cause he has about ten handles saying ten different things. The green salipenta even tun into wan sakawinki. 

Me think dat snowie is currently serving time at GNI cell. 

Hey Hey Hey. 

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Keffer posted:
 

In a general sense, you are quite correct, however, I have seen and have been into houses in both India and Pakistan; the likes of which will make some of our people soil their underwear ! (I hope Prashad is reading this.) In addition to the unbelievable sizes of these homes (haveli), their opulence (stone, terazzo, marble, quartz, granite etc.) make description of some of these properties virtually impossible !

And given the status of those who left for Guyana its hardly likely that their cousins are the ones living in this opulence. More likely oppressed by those who do.

FM

Of course FK said NOTHING about Africans wanting entitlement.  What he is disputing is an assertion by some that Indians dont economically dominate Guyana.  Well if they dont who does, and it isnt black people.

Now a more accurate way of describing this will be to assert that a tiny % of Indians dominate the economy leaving the rest of the population, including most Indians, to scratch out a living.  And also to admit that this Indo oligarchy have corrupted governance in Guyana, especially the PPP.  But that through bribes, they also have influence over the Coalition.

Of course druggie and others who scream that Indians are all rich cannot have their cake and eat it too.

FM

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