Although Columbus sighted the Guyanese coast in 1498, during his
third voyage to the Americas, the Dutch were the first Europeans to
settle what is now Guyana. The Netherlands had obtained independence
from Spain in the late 1500s and by the early 1600s had emerged as a
major commercial power, trading with the fledgling English and French
colonies in the Lesser Antilles. In 1616 the Dutch established the first
European settlement in the area of Guyana, a trading post twenty-five
kilometers upstream from the mouth of the Essequibo River. Other
settlements followed, usually a few kilometers inland on the larger
rivers. The initial purpose of the Dutch settlements was trade with the
indigenous people. The Dutch aim soon changed to acquisition of
territory as other European powers gained colonies elsewhere in the
Caribbean. Although Guyana was claimed by the Spanish, who sent periodic
patrols through the region, the Dutch gained control over the region
early in the seventeenth century. Dutch sovereignty was officially
recognized with the signing of the Treaty of Munster in 1648.
In 1621 the government of the Netherlands gave the newly formed Dutch
West India Company complete control over the trading post on the
Essequibo. This Dutch commercial concern administered the colony, known
as Essequibo, for more than 170 years. The company established a second
colony, on the Berbice River southeast of Essequibo, in 1627. Although
under the general jurisdiction of this private group, the settlement,
named Berbice, was governed separately. Demerara, situated between
Essequibo and Berbice, was settled in 1741 and emerged in 1773 as a
separate colony under direct control of the Dutch West India Company.
Although the Dutch colonizers initially were motivated by the
prospect of trade in the Caribbean, their possessions became significant
producers of crops. The growing importance of agriculture was indicated
by the export of 15,000 kilograms of tobacco from Essequibo in 1623. But
as the agricultural productivity of the Dutch colonies increased, a
labor shortage emerged. The indigenous populations were poorly adapted
for work on plantations, and many people died from diseases introduced
by the Europeans. The Dutch West India Company turned to the importation
of African slaves, who rapidly became a key element in the colonial
economy. By the 1660s, the slave population numbered about 2,500; the
number of indigenous people was estimated at 50,000, most of whom had
retreated into the vast hinterland. Although African slaves were
considered an essential element of the colonial economy, their working
conditions were brutal. The mortality rate was high, and the dismal
conditions led to more than half a dozen slave rebellions.
The most famous slave uprising began in February 1763. On two
plantations on the Canje River in Berbice, slaves rebelled, taking
control of the region. As plantation after plantation fell to the
slaves, the European population fled; eventually only half of the whites
who had lived in the colony remained. Led by Cuffy (now the national
hero of Guyana), the rebels came to number about 3,000 and threatened
European control over the Guianas. The insurgents were defeated with the
assistance of troops from neighboring French and British colonies and
from Europe.
One of the most significant Dutch legacies in Guyana was the method
of land management. Settlement and agriculture initially were limited to
a belt of land extending 50 to 150 kilometers upriver. The marshy coast
flooded at high tide and did not appear conducive to European
settlement. The prospect of large profits for tropical agricultural
products, especially sugar, led to the reclamation of coastal lands in
the second half of the 1700s. The Dutch were eminently suited to this
task, having originated the polder system, a technique by which a tract
of usable land is created by damming and then draining a water-covered
area. Using this system, the Dutch created a coastal plain that remains
one of Guyana's most productive plantation areas.
The polder system entailed the use of a front dam, or facade, along
the shorefront. This dam was supported by a back dam of the same length
and two connecting side dams, which formed a rectangular tract of land
known as a polder. The dams kept the salt water out, and fresh water was
managed by a network of canals that provided drainage, irrigation, and a
system of transportation. The labor for the
""polderization"" of Guyana's coast was provided by
the Dutch colony's African slaves.
Guyana - BRITISH TAKE OVER
Eager to attract more settlers, in 1746 the Dutch authorities opened
the area near the Demerara River to British immigrants. British
plantation owners in the Lesser Antilles had been plagued by poor soil
and erosion, and many were lured to the Dutch colonies by richer soils
and the promise of landownership. The influx of British citizens was so
great that by 1760 the English constituted a majority of the population
of Demerara. By 1786 the internal affairs of this Dutch colony were
effectively under British control.
As economic growth accelerated in Demerara and Essequibo, strains
began to appear in the relations between the planters and the Dutch West
India Company. Administrative reforms during the early 1770s had greatly
increased the cost of government. The company periodically sought to
raise taxes to cover these expenditures and thereby provoked the
resistance of the planters. In 1781 a war broke out between the
Netherlands and Britain, which resulted in the British occupation of
Berbice, Essequibo, and Demerara. Some months later, France, allied with
the Netherlands, seized control of the colonies. The French governed for
two years, during which they constructed a new town, Longchamps, at the
mouth of the Demerara River. When the Dutch regained power in 1784, they
moved their colonial capital to Longchamps, which they renamed
Stabroeck. The capital eventually would become known as Georgetown.
The return of Dutch rule reignited the conflict between the planters
of Essequibo and Demerara and the Dutch West India Company. Disturbed by
plans for an increase in the slave tax and a reduction in their
representation on the colony's judicial and policy councils, the
colonists petitioned the Dutch government to consider their grievances.
In response, a special committee was appointed, which proceeded to draw
up a report called the Concept Plan of Redress. This document called for
far-reaching constitutional reforms and later became the basis of the
British governmental structure. The plan proposed a decision-making body
to be known as the Court of Policy. The judiciary was to consist of two
courts of justice, one serving Demerara and the other Essequibo. The
membership of the Court of Policy and of the courts of justice would
consist of company officials and planters who owned more than
twenty-five slaves. The Dutch commission that was assigned the
responsibility of implementing this new system of government returned to
the Netherlands with extremely unfavorable reports concerning the Dutch
West India Company's administration. The company's charter therefore was
allowed to expire in 1792 and the Concept Plan of Redress was put into
effect in Demerara and Essequibo. Renamed the United Colony of Demerara
and Essequibo, the area then came under the direct control of the Dutch
government. Berbice maintained its status as a separate colony.
The catalyst for formal British takeover was the French Revolution
and the resulting Napoleonic Wars. In 1795 the French occupied the
Netherlands. The British declared war on France and in 1796 launched an
expeditionary force from Barbados to occupy the Dutch colonies. The
British takeover was bloodless, and local Dutch administration of the
colony was left relatively uninterrupted under the constitution provided
by the Concept Plan of Redress.
Both Berbice and the United Colony of Demerara and Essequibo were
under British control from 1796 to 1802. By means of the Treaty of
Amiens, both were returned to Dutch control. Peace was short-lived,
however. War between Britain and France resumed in less than a year, and
the United Colony and Berbice were seized once more by British troops.
At the London Convention of 1814, both colonies were formally ceded to
Britain. In 1831, Berbice and the United Colony of Demerara and
Essequibo were unified as British Guiana. The colony would remain under
British control until independence in 1966.
Guyana - THE SHORTAGE OF LABOR
Political, economic, and social life in the 1800s was dominated by a
European planter class. Although the smallest group in terms of numbers,
members of the plantocracy had links to British commercial interests in
London and often enjoyed close ties to the governor, who was appointed
by the monarch. The plantocracy also controlled exports and the working
conditions of the majority of the population. The next social stratum
consisted of a small number of freed slaves, many of mixed African and
European heritage, in addition to some Portuguese merchants. At the
lowest level of society was the majority, the African slaves who lived
and worked in the countryside, where the plantations were located.
Unconnected to colonial life, small groups of Amerindians lived in the
hinterland.
Colonial life was changed radically by the demise of slavery.
Although the international slave trade was abolished in the British
Empire in 1807, slavery itself continued. However, the momentum for
abolition remained, and by 1838 total emancipation had been effected.
The end of slavery had several ramifications. Most significantly, many
former slaves rapidly departed the plantations. Some ex-slaves moved to
towns and villages, feeling that field labor was degrading and
inconsistent with freedom, but others pooled their resources to purchase
the abandoned estates of their former masters and created village
communities. Establishing small settlements provided the new
Afro-Guyanese communities an opportunity to grow and sell food, an
extension of a practice under which slaves had been allowed to keep the
money that came from the sale of any surplus produce. The emergence of
an independent-minded Afro-Guyanese peasant class, however, threatened
the planters' political power, inasmuch as the planters no longer held a
near-monopoly on the colony's economic activity.
Emancipation also resulted in the introduction of new ethnic and
cultural groups into British Guiana. The departure of the AfroGuyanese
from the sugar plantations soon led to labor shortages. After
unsuccessful attempts throughout the 1800s to attract Portuguese workers
from Madeira, the estate owners were again left with an inadequate
supply of labor. The Portuguese had not taken to plantation work and
soon moved into other parts of the economy, especially retail business,
where they became competitors with the new Afro-Guyanese middle class.
Some 14,000 Chinese came to the colony between 1853 and 1912. Like their
Portuguese predecessors, the Chinese forsook the plantations for the
retail trades and soon became assimilated into Guianese society.
Concerned about the plantations' shrinking labor pool and the
potential decline of the sugar sector, British authorities, like their
counterparts in Dutch Guiana, began to contract for the services of
poorly paid indentured workers from India. The East Indians, as this
group was known locally, signed on for a certain number of years, after
which, in theory, they would return to India with their savings from
working in the sugar fields. The introduction of indentured East Indian
workers alleviated the labor shortage and added another group to
Guyana's ethnic mix.
Guyana - BORDER DISPUTE WITH VENEZUELA
When Britain gained formal control over what is now Guyana in 1814,
it also became involved in one of Latin America's most persistent border
disputes. At the London Convention of 1814, the Dutch surrendered the
United Colony of Demerara and Essequibo and Berbice to the British.
Although Spain still claimed the region, the Spanish did not contest the
treaty because they were preoccupied with their own colonies' struggles
for independence. In 1835 the British government asked German explorer
Robert Hermann Schomburgk to map British Guiana and mark its boundaries.
As ordered by the British authorities, Schomburgk began British Guiana's
western boundary with Venezuela at the mouth of the Orinoco River. A map
of the British colony was published in 1840. Venezuela protested,
claiming the entire area west of the Essequibo River. Negotiations
between Britain and Venezuela over the boundary began, but the two
nations could reach no compromise. In 1850 both agreed not to occupy the
disputed zone.
The discovery of gold in the contested area in the late 1850s
reignited the dispute. British settlers moved into the region and the
British Guiana Mining Company was formed to mine the deposits. Over the
years, Venezuela made repeated protests and proposed arbitration, but
the British government was uninterested. Venezuela finally broke
diplomatic relations with Britain in 1887 and appealed to the United
States for help. The British at first rebuffed the United States
government's suggestion of arbitration, but when President Grover
Cleveland threatened to intervene according to the Monroe Doctrine,
Britain agreed to let an international tribunal arbitrate the boundary
in 1897.
For two years, the tribunal consisting of two Britons, two Americans,
and a Russian studied the case. Their three-to-two decision, handed down
in 1899, awarded 94 percent of the disputed territory to British Guiana.
Venezuela received only the mouth of the Orinoco River and a short
stretch of the Atlantic coastline just to the east. Although Venezuela
was unhappy with the decision, a commission surveyed a new border in
accordance with the award, and both sides accepted the boundary in 1905.
The issue was considered settled for the next half-century.
Guyana - POLITICAL AND SOCIAL AWAKENINGS
Nineteenth-Century British Guiana
The constitution of the British colony favored the white planters.
Planter political power was based in the Court of Policy and the two
courts of justice, established in the late 1700s under Dutch rule. The
Court of Policy had both legislative and administrative functions and
was composed of the governor, three colonial officials, and four
colonists, with the governor presiding. The courts of justice resolved
judicial matters, such as licensing and civil service appointments,
which were brought before them by petition.
The Court of Policy and the courts of justice, controlled by the
plantation owners, constituted the center of power in British Guiana.
The colonists who sat on the Court of Policy and the courts of justice
were appointed by the governor from a list of nominees submitted by two
electoral colleges. In turn, the seven members of each College of
Electors were elected for life by those planters possessing twenty-five
or more slaves. Though their power was restricted to nominating
colonists to fill vacancies on the three major governmental councils,
these electoral colleges provided a setting for political agitation by
the planters.
Raising and disbursing revenue was the responsibility of the Combined
Court, which included members of the Court of Policy and six additional
financial representatives appointed by the College of Electors. In 1855
the Combined Court also assumed responsibility for setting the salaries
of all government officials. This duty made the Combined Court a center
of intrigues resulting in periodic clashes between the governor and the
planters.
Other Guianese began to demand a more representative political system
in the 1800s. By the late 1880s, pressure from the new Afro-Guyanese
middle class was building for constitutional reform. In particular,
there were calls to convert the Court of Policy into an assembly with
ten elected members, to ease voter qualifications, and to abolish the
College of Electors. Reforms were resisted by the planters, led by Henry
K. Davson, owner of a large plantation. In London the planters had
allies in the West India Committee and also in the West India
Association of Glasgow, both presided over by proprietors with major
interests in British Guiana.
Constitutional revisions in 1891 incorporated some of the changes
demanded by the reformers. The planters lost political influence with
the abolition of the College of Electors and the relaxation of voter
qualification. At the same time, the Court of Policy was enlarged to
sixteen members; eight of these were to be elected members whose power
would be balanced by that of eight appointed members. The Combined Court
also continued, consisting, as previously, of the Court of Policy and
six financial representatives who were now elected. To ensure that there
would be no shift of power to elected officials, the governor remained
the head of the Court of Policy; the executive duties of the Court of
Policy were transferred to a new Executive Council, which the governor
and planters dominated. The 1891 revisions were a great disappointment
to the colony's reformers. As a result of the election of 1892, the
membership of the new Combined Court was almost identical to that of the
previous one.
The next three decades saw additional, although minor, political
changes. In 1897 the secret ballot was introduced. A reform in 1909
expanded the limited British Guiana electorate, and for the first time,
Afro-Guyanese constituted a majority of the eligible voters.
Political changes were accompanied by social change and jockeying by
various ethnic groups for increased power. The British and Dutch
planters refused to accept the Portuguese as equals and sought to
maintain their status as aliens with no rights in the colony, especially
voting rights. The political tensions led the Portuguese to establish
the Reform Association. After the anti-Portuguese riots of 1889, the
Portuguese recognized the need to work with other disenfranchised
elements of Guianese society, in particular the Afro-Guyanese. By the
turn of the century, organizations including the Reform Association and
the Reform Club began to demand greater participation in the colony's
affairs. These organizations were largely the instruments of a small but
articulate emerging middle class. Although the new middle class
sympathized with the working class, the middle-class political groups
were hardly representative of a national political or social movement.
Indeed, working-class grievances were usually expressed in the form of
riots.
Guyana - Political and Social Changes in the 1900s
The 1905 Ruimveldt Riots rocked British Guiana. The severity of these
outbursts reflected the workers' widespread dissatification with their
standard of living. The uprising began in late November 1905 when the
Georgetown stevedores went on strike, demanding higher wages. The strike
grew confrontational, and other workers struck in sympathy, creating the
country's first urban-rural worker alliance. On November 30, crowds of
people took to the streets of Georgetown, and by December 1, 1905, now
referred to as Black Friday, the situation had spun out of control. At
the Plantation Ruimveldt, close to Georgetown, a large crowd of porters
refused to disperse when ordered to do so by a police patrol and a
detachment of artillery. The colonial authorities opened fire, and four
workers were seriously injured.
Word of the shootings spread rapidly throughout Georgetown and
hostile crowds began roaming the city, taking over a number of
buildings. By the end of the day, seven people were dead and seventeen
badly injured. In a panic, the British administration called for help.
Britain sent troops, who finally quelled the uprising. Although the
stevedores' strike failed, the riots had planted the seeds of what would
become an organized trade union movement.
Even though World War I was fought far beyond the borders of British
Guiana, the war altered Guianese society. The AfroGuyanese who joined
the British military became the nucleus of an elite Afro-Guyanese
community upon their return. World War I also led to the end of East
Indian indentured service. British concerns over political stability in
India and criticism by Indian nationalists that the program was a form
of human bondage caused the British government to outlaw indentured
labor in 1917.
In the closing years of World War I, the colony's first trade union
was formed. The British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU) was established in
1917 under the leadership of H.N. Critchlow. Formed in the face of
widespread business opposition, the BGLU at first mostly represented
Afro-Guyanese dockworkers. Its membership stood around 13,000 by 1920,
and it was granted legal status in 1921 under the Trades Union
Ordinance. Although recognition of other unions would not come until
1939, the BGLU was an indication that the working class was becoming
politically aware and more concerned with its rights.
After World War I, new economic interest groups began to clash with
the Combined Court. The country's economy had come to depend less on
sugar and more on rice and bauxite, and producers of these new
commodities resented the sugar planters' continued domination of the
Combined Court. Meanwhile, the planters were feeling the effects of
lower sugar prices and wanted the Combined Court to provide the
necessary funds for new drainage and irrigation programs.
To stop the bickering and resultant legislative paralysis, in 1928
the British Colonial Office announced a new constitution that would make
British Guiana a crown
colony under tight control of a governor appointed by
the Colonial Office. The Combined Court and the Court of Policy were
replaced by a Legislative Council with a majority of appointed members.
To middle-class and working-class political activists, this new
constitution represented a step backward and a victory for the planters.
Influence over the governor, rather than the promotion of a particular
public policy, became the most important issue in any political
campaign.
The Great Depression of the 1930s brought economic hardship to all
segments of Guianese society. All of the colony's major exports--sugar,
rice and bauxite--were affected by low prices, and unemployment soared.
As in the past, the working class found itself lacking a political voice
during a time of worsening economic conditions. By the mid-1930s,
British Guiana and the whole British Caribbean were marked by labor
unrest and violent demonstrations. In the aftermath of riots throughout
the British West Indies, a royal commission under Lord Moyne was
established to determine the reasons for the riots and to make
recommendations.
In British Guiana, the Moyne Commission questioned a wide range of
people, including trade unionists, Afro-Guyanese professionals, and
representatives of the Indo-Guyanese community. The commission pointed
out the deep division between the country's two largest ethnic groups,
the Afro-Guyanese and the Indo-Guyanese. The largest group, the
Indo-Guyanese, consisted primarily of rural rice producers or merchants;
they had retained the country's traditional culture and did not
participate in national politics. The Afro-Guyanese were largely urban
workers or bauxite miners; they had adopted European culture and
dominated national politics. To increase representation of the majority
of the population in British Guiana, the Moyne Commission called for
increased democratization of government as well as economic and social
reforms.
The Moyne Commission report in 1938 was a turning point in British
Guiana. It urged extending the franchise to women and persons not owning
land and encouraged the emerging trade union movement. Unfortunately,
many of the Moyne Commission's recommendations were not immediately
implemented because of the outbreak of the World War II.
With the fighting far away, the period of World War II in British
Guiana was marked by continuing political reform and improvements to the
national infrastructure. The reform-minded governor, Sir Gordon Lethem,
reduced property qualifications for officeholding and voting, and made
elective members a majority on the Legislative Council in 1943. Under
the aegis of the Lend- Lease Act of 1941, a modern air base (now Timehri
Airport) was constructed by United States troops. By the end of World
War II, British Guiana's political system had been widened to encompass
more elements of society and the economy's foundations had been
strengthened by increased demand for bauxite.
Guyana - The Development of Political Parties
The immediate postwar period witnessed the founding of Guyana's major
political parties, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) and the People's
National Congress (PNC). These years also saw the beginning of a long
and acrimonious struggle between the country's two dominant political
personalities--Cheddi Jagan and Linden Forbes Burnham.
The end of World War II began a period of worldwide decolonization.
In British Guiana, political awareness and demands for independence grew
in all segments of society. At the same time, the struggle for political
ascendancy between Burnham, the ""Man on Horseback""
of the Afro-Guyanese, and Jagan, the hero of the Indo-Guyanese masses,
left a legacy of racially polarized politics that remained in place in
the 1990s.
Jagan had been born in Guyana in 1918. His parents were immigrants
from India. His father was a driver, a position considered to be on the
lowest rung of the middle stratum of Guianese society. Jagan's childhood
gave him a lasting insight into rural poverty. Despite their poor
background, the senior Jagan sent his son to Queen's College in
Georgetown. After his education there, Jagan went to the United States
to study dentistry, graduating from Northwestern University in Evanston,
Illinois in 1942.
Jagan returned to British Guiana in October 1943 and was soon joined
by his American wife, the former Janet Rosenberg, who was to play a
significant role in her new country's political development. Although
Jagan established his own dentistry clinic, he was soon enmeshed in
politics. After a number of unsuccessful forays into Guiana's political
life, Jagan became treasurer of the Manpower Citizens Association (MPCA)
in 1945. The MPCA represented the colony's sugar workers, many of whom
were Indo- Guyanese. Jagan's tenure was brief, as he clashed repeatedly
with the more moderate union leadership over policy issues. Despite his
departure from the MPCA a year after joining, the position allowed Jagan
to meet other union leaders in British Guiana and throughout the
English-speaking Caribbean.
The springboard for Jagan's political career was the Political
Affairs Committee (PAC), formed in 1946 as a discussion group. The new
organization published the PAC Bulletin to promote its Marxist
ideology and ideas of liberation and decolonization. The PAC's outspoken
criticism of the colony's poor living standards attracted followers as
well as detractors.
In the November 1947 general elections, the PAC put forward several
members as independent candidates. The PAC's major competitor was the
newly formed Labour Party, which, under J.B. Singh, won six of fourteen
seats contested. Jagan won a seat and briefly joined the Labour Party.
But he had difficulties with his new party's center-right ideology and
soon left its ranks. The Labour Party's support of the policies of the
British governor and its inability to create a grass-roots base
gradually stripped it of liberal supporters throughout the country. The
Labour Party's lack of a clear-cut reform agenda left a vacuum, which
Jagan rapidly moved to fill. Turmoil on the colony's sugar plantations
gave him an opportunity to achieve national standing. After the June 16,
1948 police shootings of five Indo-Guyanese workers at Enmore, close to
Georgetown, the PAC and the Guiana Industrial Workers Union (GIWU)
organized a large and peaceful demonstration, which clearly enhanced
Jagan's standing with the Indo-Guyanese population.
Jagan's next major step was the founding of the People's Progressive
Party (PPP) in January 1950. Using the PAC as a foundation, Jagan
created from it a new party that drew support from both the
Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese communities. To increase support among
the Afro-Guyanese, Forbes Burnham was brought into the party.
Born in 1923, Burnham was the sole son in a family that had three
children. His father was headmaster of Kitty Methodist Primary School,
which was located just outside Georgetown. As part of the colony's
educated class, young Burnham was exposed to political viewpoints at an
early age. He did exceedingly well in school and went to London to
obtain a law degree. Although not exposed to childhood poverty as was
Jagan, Burnham was acutely aware of racial discrimination.
The social strata of the urban Afro-Guyanese community of the 1930s
and 1940s included a mulatto or ""coloured"" elite,
a black professional middle class, and, at the bottom, the black working
class. Unemployment in the 1930s was high. When war broke out in 1939,
many Afro-Guyanese joined the military, hoping to gain new job skills
and escape poverty. When they returned home from the war, however, jobs
were still scarce and discrimination was still a part of life. By the
time of Burnham's arrival on the political stage in the late 1940s, the
Afro-Guyanese community was ready for a leader.
The PPP's initial leadership was multiethnic and left of center, but
hardly revolutionary. Jagan became the leader of the PPP's parliamentary
group, and Burnham assumed the responsibilities of party chairman. Other
key party members included Janet Jagan and Ashton Chase, both PAC
veterans. The new party's first victory came in the 1950 municipal
elections, in which Janet Jagan won a seat. Cheddi Jagan and Burnham
failed to win seats, but Burnham's campaign made a favorable impression
on many urban Afro- Guyanese.
From its first victory in the 1950 municipal election, the PPP
gathered momentum. However, the party's often strident anticapitalist
and socialist message made the British government uneasy. Colonial
officials showed their displeasure with the PPP in 1952 when, on a
regional tour, the Jagans were designated prohibited immigrants in
Trinidad and Grenada.
A British commission in 1950 recommended universal adult suffrage and
the adoption of a ministerial system for British Guiana. The commission
also recommended that power be concentrated in the executive branch,
that is, the office of the governor. These reforms presented British
Guiana's parties with an opportunity to participate in national
elections and form a government, but maintained power in the hands of
the British- appointed chief executive. This arrangement rankled the
PPP, which saw it as an attempt to curtail the party's political power.
Guyana - PREINDEPENDENCE GOVERNMENT, 1953-66
The PPP'S First Government, 1953
Once the new constitution was adopted, elections were set for 1953.
The PPP's coalition of lower-class Afro-Guyanese and rural Indo-Guyanese
workers, together with elements of both ethnic groups' middle sectors,
made for a formidable constituency. Conservatives branded the PPP as
communist, but the party campaigned on a center-left platform and
appealed to a growing nationalism. The other major party participating
in the election, the National Democratic Party (NDP), was a spin-off of
the League of Coloured People and was largely an Afro-Guyanese
middle-class organization, sprinkled with middle-class Portuguese and
IndoGuyanese . The NDP, together with the poorly organized United
Farmers and Workers Party and the United National Party, was soundly
defeated by the PPP. Final results gave the PPP eighteen of twenty-four
seats compared with the NDP's two seats and four seats for independents.
The PPP's first administration was brief. The legislature opened on
May 30, 1953. Already suspicious of Jagan and the PPP's radicalism,
conservative forces in the business community were further distressed by
the new administration's program of expanding the role of the state in
the economy and society. The PPP also sought to implement its reform
program at a rapid pace, which brought the party into confrontation with
the governor and with high-ranking civil servants who preferred more
gradual change. The issue of civil service appointments also threatened
the PPP, in this case from within. Following the 1953 victory, these
appointments became an issue between the predominantly Indo-Guyanese
supporters of Jagan and the largely Afro-Guyanese backers of Burnham.
Burnham threatened to split the party if he were not made sole leader of
the PPP. A compromise was reached by which members of what had become
Burnham's faction received ministerial appointments.
The PPP's introduction of the Labour Relations Act provoked a
confrontation with the British. This law ostensibly was aimed at
reducing intraunion rivalries, but would have favored the GIWU, which
was closely aligned with the ruling party. The opposition charged that
the PPP was seeking to gain control over the colony's economic and
social life and was moving to stifle the opposition. The day the act was
introduced to the legislature, the GIWU went on strike in support of the
proposed law. The British government interpreted this intermingling of
party politics and labor unionism as a direct challenge to the
constitution and the authority of the governor. The day after the act
was passed, on October 9, 1953, London suspended the colony's
constitution and, under pretext of quelling disturbances, sent in
troops.
Guyana - The Interim Government, 1953-57
The 1957 elections held under a new constitution demonstrated the
extent of the growing ethnic division within the Guianese electorate.
The revised constitution provided limited selfgovernment , primarily
through the Legislative Council. Of the council's twenty-four delegates,
fifteen were elected, six were nominated, and the remaining three were
to be ex officio members from the interim administration. The two wings
of the PPP launched vigorous campaigns, each attempting to prove that it
was the legitimate heir to the original party. Despite denials of such
motivation, both factions made a strong appeal to their respective
ethnic constituencies.
The 1957 elections were convincingly won by Jagan's PPP faction.
Although his group had a secure parliamentary majority, its support was
drawn more and more from the Indo-Guyanese community. The faction's main
planks were increasingly identified as Indo- Guyanese: more rice land,
improved union representation in the sugar industry, and improved
business opportunities and more government posts for Indo-Guyanese. The
PPP had abrogated its claim to being a multiracial party.
Jagan's veto of British Guiana's participation in the West Indies
Federation resulted in the complete loss of Afro-Guyanese support. In
the late 1950s, the British Caribbean colonies had been actively
negotiating establishment of a West Indies Federation. The PPP had
pledged to work for the eventual political union of British Guiana with
the Caribbean territories. The Indo-Guyanese, who constituted a majority
in Guyana, were apprehensive of becoming part of a federation in which
they would be outnumbered by people of African descent. Jagan's veto of
the federation caused his party to lose all significant Afro-Guyanese
support.
Burnham learned an important lesson from the 1957 elections. He could
not win if supported only by the lower-class, urban AfroGuyanese . He
needed middle-class allies, especially those AfroGuyanese who backed the
moderate United Democratic Party. From 1957 onward, Burnham worked to
create a balance between maintaining the backing of the more radical
Afro-Guyanese lower classes and gaining the support of the more
capitalist middle class. Clearly, Burnham's stated preference for
socialism would not bind those two groups together against Jagan, an
avowed Marxist. The answer was something more basic--race. Burnham's
appeals to race proved highly successful in bridging the schism that
divided the Afro-Guyanese along class lines. This strategy convinced the
powerful Afro-Guyanese middle class to accept a leader who was more of a
radical than they would have preferred to support. At the same time, it
neutralized the objections of the black working class to entering an
alliance with those representing the more moderate interests of the
middle classes. Burnham's move toward the right was accomplished with
the merger of his PPP faction and the United Democratic Party into a new
organization, the People's National Congress (PNC).
Following the 1957 elections, Jagan rapidly consolidated his hold on
the Indo-Guyanese community. Though candid in expressing his admiration
for Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and, later, Fidel Castro Ruz, Jagan in
power asserted that the PPP's MarxistLeninist principles must be adapted
to Guyana's own particular circumstances. Jagan advocated
nationalization of foreign holdings, especially in the sugar industry.
British fears of a communist takeover, however, caused the British
governor to hold Jagan's more radical policy initiatives in check.
Guyana - PPP Reelection and Debacle
The 1961 elections were a bitter contest between the PPP, the PNC,
and the United Force (UF), a conservative party representing big
business, the Roman Catholic Church, and Amerindian, Chinese, and
Portuguese voters. These elections were held under yet another new
constitution that marked a return to the degree of self-government that
existed briefly in 1953. It introduced a bicameral system boasting a
wholly elected thirty-five-member Legislative Assembly and a
thirteen-member Senate to be appointed by the governor. The post of
prime minister was created and was to be filled by the majority party in
the Legislative Assembly. With the strong support of the Indo-Guyanese
population, the PPP again won by a substantial margin, gaining twenty
seats in the Legislative Assembly, compared to eleven seats for the PNC
and four for the UF. Jagan was named prime minister.
Jagan's administration became increasingly friendly with communist
and leftist regimes; for instance, Jagan refused to observe the United
States embargo on communist Cuba. After discussions between Jagan and
Cuban revolutionary Ernesto ""Che"" Guevara in 1960
and 1961, Cuba offered British Guiana loans and equipment. In addition,
the Jagan administration signed trade agreements with Hungary and the
German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
From 1961 to 1964, Jagan was confronted with a destabilization
campaign conducted by the PNC and UF. Riots and demonstrations against
the PPP administration were frequent, and during disturbances in 1962
and 1963 mobs destroyed part of Georgetown.
Labor violence also increased during the early 1960s. To counter the
MPCA with its link to Burnham, the PPP formed the Guianese Agricultural
Workers Union. This new union's political mandate was to organize the
Indo-Guyanese sugarcane field-workers. The MPCA immediately responded
with a one-day strike to emphasize its continued control over the sugar
workers.
The PPP government responded to the strike in March 1964 by
publishing a new Labour Relations Bill almost identical to the 1953
legislation that had resulted in British intervention. Regarded as a
power play for control over a key labor sector, introduction of the
proposed law prompted protests and rallies throughout the capital. Riots
broke out on April 5; they were followed on April 18 by a general
strike. By May 9, the governor was compelled to declare a state of
emergency. Nevertheless, the strike and violence continued until July 7,
when the Labour Relations Bill was allowed to lapse without being
enacted. To bring an end to the disorder, the government agreed to
consult with union representatives before introducing similar bills.
These disturbances exacerbated tension and animosity between the two
major ethnic communities and made a reconciliation between Jagan and
Burnham an impossibility.
Jagan's term had not yet ended when another round of labor unrest
rocked the colony. The pro-PPP GIWU, which had become an umbrella group
of all labor organizations, called on sugar workers to strike in January
1964. To dramatize their case, Jagan led a march by sugar workers from
the interior to Georgetown. This demonstration ignited outbursts of
violence that soon escalated beyond the control of the authorities. On
May 22, the governor finally declared another state of emergency. The
situation continued to worsen, and in June the governor assumed full
powers, rushed in British troops to restore order, and proclaimed a
moratorium on all political activity. By the end of the turmoil, 160
people were dead and more than 1,000 homes had been destroyed.
In an effort to quell the turmoil, the country's political parties
asked the British goverment to modify the constitution to provide for
more proportional representation. The colonial secretary proposed a
fifty-three member unicameral legislature. Despite opposition from the
ruling PPP, all reforms were implemented and new elections set for
October 1964.
As Jagan feared, the PPP lost the general elections of 1964. The
politics of apan jhaat, Hindi for ""vote for your own
kind,"" were becoming entrenched in Guyana. The PPP won 46
percent of the vote and twenty-four seats, which made it the majority
party. However, the PNC, which won 40 percent of the vote and twenty-two
seats, and the UF, which won 11 percent of the vote and seven seats,
formed a coalition. The socialist PNC and unabashedly capitalist UF had
joined forces to keep the PPP out of office for another term. Jagan
called the election fraudulent and refused to resign as prime minister.
The constitution was amended to allow the governor to remove Jagan from
office. Burnham became prime minister on December 14, 1964.
Guyana - INDEPENDENCE AND THE BURNHAM ERA
The 1968 elections allowed the PNC to rule without the UF. The PNC
won thirty seats, the PPP nineteen seats, and the UF four seats.
However, many observers claimed the elections were marred by
manipulation and coercion by the PNC. The PPP and UF were part of
Guyana's political landscape but were ignored as Burnham began to
convert the machinery of state into an instrument of the PNC.
After the 1968 elections, Burnham's policies became more leftist as
he announced he would lead Guyana to socialism. He consolidated his
dominance of domestic policies through gerrymandering, manipulation of
the balloting process, and politicalization of the civil service. A few
Indo-Guyanese were coopted into the PNC, but the ruling party was
unquestionably the embodiment of the Afro-Guyanese political will.
Although the Afro-Guyanese middle class was uneasy with Burnham's
leftist leanings, the PNC remained a shield against Indo-Guyanese
dominance. The support of the Afro-Guyanese community allowed the PNC to
bring the economy under control and to begin organizing the country into
cooperatives.
On February 23, 1970, Guyana declared itself a
""cooperative republic"" and cut all ties to the
British monarchy. The governor general was replaced as head of state by
a ceremonial president. Relations with Cuba were improved, and Guyana
became a force in the Nonaligned Movement. In August 1972, Burnham
hosted the Conference of Foreign Ministers of Nonaligned Countries in
Georgetown. He used this opportunity to address the evils of imperialism
and the need to support African liberation movements in southern Africa.
Burnham also let Cuban troops use Guyana as a transit point on their way
to the war in Angola in the mid- 1970s.
In the early 1970s, electoral fraud became blatant in Guyana. PNC
victories always included overseas voters, who consistently and
overwhelmingly voted for the ruling party. The police and military
intimidated the Indo-Guyanese. The army was accused of tampering with
ballot boxes.
Considered a low point in the democratic process, the 1973 elections
were followed by an amendment to the constitution that abolished legal
appeals to the Privy Council in London. After consolidating power on the
legal and electoral fronts, Burnham turned to mobilizing the masses for
what was to be Guyana's cultural revolution. A program of national
service was introduced that placed an emphasis on self-reliance, loosely
defined as Guyana's population feeding, clothing, and housing itself
without outside help.
Government authoritarianism increased in 1974 when Burnham advanced
the ""paramountcy of the party."" All organs of the
state would be considered agencies of the ruling PNC and subject to its
control. The state and the PNC became interchangeable; PNC objectives
were now public policy.
Burnham's consolidation of power in Guyana was not total; opposition
groups were tolerated within limits. For instance, in 1973 the Working
People's Alliance (WPA) was founded. Opposed to Burnham's
authoritarianism, the WPA was a multiethnic combination of politicians
and intellectuals that advocated racial harmony, free elections, and
democratic socialism. Although the WPA did not become an official
political party until 1979, it evolved as an alternative to Burnham's
PNC and Jagan's PPP.
Jagan's political career continued to decline in the 1970s.
Outmaneuvered on the parliamentary front, the PPP leader tried another
tactic. In April 1975, the PPP ended its boycott of parliament with
Jagan stating that the PPP's policy would change from noncooperation and
civil resistance to critical support of the Burnham regime. Soon after,
Jagan appeared on the same platform with Prime Minister Burnham at the
celebration of ten years of Guyanese independence, on May 26, 1976.
Despite Jagan's conciliatory move, Burnham had no intention of
sharing powers and continued to secure his position. When overtures
intended to bring about new elections and PPP participation in the
government were brushed aside, the largely Indo-Guyanese sugar work
force went on a bitter strike. The strike was broken, and sugar
production declined steeply from 1976 to 1977. The PNC postponed the
1978 elections, opting instead for a referendum to be held in July 1978,
proposing to keep the incumbent assembly in power.
The July 1978 national referendum was poorly received. Although the
PNC government proudly proclaimed that 71 percent of eligible voters
participated and that 97 percent approved the referendum, other
estimates put turnout at 10 to 14 percent. The low turnout was caused in
large part by a boycott led by the PPP, WPA, and other opposition
forces.
Burnham's control over Guyana began to weaken when the Jonestown
massacre brought unwanted international attention. In the 1970s, Jim
Jones, leader of the People's Temple of Christ, moved more than 1,000 of
his followers from San Francisco to form Jonestown, a utopian
agricultural community near Port Kaituma in western Guyana. The People's
Temple of Christ was regarded by members of the Guyanese government as a
model agricultural community that shared its vision of settling the
hinterland and its view of cooperative socialism. The fact that the
People's Temple was well-equipped with openly flaunted weapons hinted
that the community had the approval of members of the PNC's inner
circle. Complaints of abuse by leaders of the cult prompted United
States congressman Leo Ryan to fly to Guyana to investigate. The San
Francisco-area representative was shot and killed by members of the
People's Temple as he was boarding or airplane at Port Kaituma to return
to Georgetown. Fearing further publicity, Jones and more than 900 of his
followers died in a massive communal murder and suicide. The November
1978 Jonestown massacre suddenly put the Burnham government under
intense foreign scrutiny, especially from the United States.
Investigations into the massacre led to allegations that the Guyanese
government had links to the fanatical cult.
Although the bloody memory of Jonestown faded, Guyanese politics
experienced a violent year in 1979. Some of this violence was directed
against the WPA, which had emerged as a vocal critic of the state and of
Burnham in particular. One of the party's leaders, Walter Rodney, and
several professors at the University of Guyana were arrested on arson
charges. The professors were soon released, and Rodney was granted bail.
WPA leaders then organized the alliance into Guyana's most vocal
opposition party.
As 1979 wore on, the level of violence continued to escalate. In
October Minister of Education Vincent Teekah was mysteriously shot to
death. The following year, Rodney was killed by a car bomb. The PNC
government quickly accused Rodney of being a terrorist who had died at
the hands of his own bomb and charged his brother Donald with being an
accomplice. Later investigation implicated the Guyanese government,
however. Rodney was a well- known leftist, and the circumstances of his
death damaged Burnham's image with many leaders and intellectuals in
less- developed countries who earlier had been willing to overlook the
authoritarian nature of his government.
A new constitution was promulgated in 1980. The old ceremonial post of president was
abolished, and the head of government became the executive president,
chosen, as the former position of prime minister had been, by the
majority party in the National Assembly. Burnham automatically became
Guyana's first executive president and promised elections later in the
year. In elections held on December 15, 1980, the PNC claimed 77 percent
of the vote and forty-one seats of the popularly elected seats, plus the
ten chosen by the regional councils. The PPP and UF won ten and two
seats, respectively. The WPA refused to participate in an electoral
contest it regarded as fraudulent. Opposition claims of electoral fraud
were upheld by a team of international observers headed by Britain's
Lord Avebury.
The economic crisis facing Guyana in the early 1980s deepened
considerably, accompanied by the rapid deterioration of public services,
infrastructure, and overall quality of life. Blackouts occurred almost
daily, and water services were increasingly unsatisfactory. The litany
of Guyana's decline included shortages of rice and sugar (both produced
in the country), cooking oil, and kerosene. While the formal economy
sank, the black market economy in Guyana thrived.
In the midst of this turbulent period, Burnham underwent surgery for
a throat ailment. On August 6, 1985, while in the care of Cuban doctors,
Guyana's first and only leader since independence unexpectedly died. An
epoch had abruptly ended. Guyana was suddenly in the post-Burnham era.
Guyana - From Burnham to Hoyte
Despite concerns that the country was about to fall into a period of
political instability, the transfer of power went smoothly. Vice
President Desmond Hoyte became the new executive president and leader of
the PNC. His initial tasks were threefold: to secure authority within
the PNC and national government, to take the PNC through the December
1985 elections, and to revitalize the stagnant economy.
Hoyte's first two goals were easily accomplished. The new leader took
advantage of factionalism within the PNC to quietly consolidate his
authority. The December 1985 elections gave the PNC 79 percent of the
vote and forty-two of the fifty-three directly elected seats. Eight of
the remaining eleven seats went to the PPP, two went to the UF, and one
to the WPA. Charging fraud, the opposition boycotted the December 1986
municipal elections. With no opponents, the PNC won all ninety-one seats
in local government.
Revitalizing the economy proved more difficult. As a first step,
Hoyte gradually moved to embrace the private sector, recognizing that
state control of the economy had failed. Hoyte's administration lifted
all curbs on foreign activity and ownership in 1988.
Although the Hoyte government did not completely abandon the
authoritarianism of the Burnham regime, it did make certain political
reforms. Hoyte abolished overseas voting and the provisions for
widespread proxy and postal voting. Independent newspapers were given
greater freedom, and political harassment abated considerably.
In September 1988, Hoyte visited the United States and became the
first Guyanese head of state to meet with his United States counterpart.
By October 1988, Hoyte felt strong enough to make public his break with
the policies of the Burnham administration. In a nationally televised
address on October 11, he focused Guyana's economic and foreign policies
on the West, linking Guyana's future economic development to regional
economies and noting that the strengthening of Guyana's relations with
the United States was ""imperative."" While these
objectives were in contrast to the policies of the past two decades, it
was unclear what the long-term political and economic results would be.
