Informed by the first use of many British, U.S., and Guyanese archival sources, Palmer's work details Jagan's rise and fall, from his initial electoral victory in the spring of 1953 to the aftermath of the British-orchestrated coup d'etat that led to the suspension of the constitution and the removal of Jagan's independence-minded administration.
Colin Palmer, one of the foremost chroniclers of twentieth-century British and U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean, here tells the story of British Guiana's struggle for independence. At the center of the story is Cheddi Jagan, who was the colony's first premier following the institution of universal adult suffrage in 1953. Informed by the first use of many British, U.S., and Guyanese archival sources, Palmer's work details Jagan's rise and fall, from his initial electoral victory in the spring of 1953 to the aftermath of the British-orchestrated coup d'etat that led to the suspension of the constitution and the removal of Jagan's independence-minded administration. Jagan's political odyssey continued--he was reelected to the premiership in 1957--but in 1964 he fell out of power again under pressure from Guianese, British, and U.S. officials suspicious of Marxist influences on the People's Progressive Party, founded in 1950 by Jagan and his activist wife, Janet Rosenberg. But Jagan's political life was not over--after decades in the opposition, he became Guyana's president in 1992. Subtly analyzing the actual role of Marxism in Caribbean anticolonial struggles and bringing the larger story of Caribbean colonialism into view, Palmer examines the often malevolent roles played by leaders at home and abroad and shows how violence, police corruption, political chicanery, racial politics, and poor leadership delayed Guyana's independence until 1966, scarring the body politic in the process.
Hinds presents a useful guide at large for understanding the problem of governance, democracy, and society in ethnically divided countries and how to create a framework aimed at solving the problem.
In the first published account of the massive U.S. covert intervention in British Guiana between 1953 and 1969, Stephen G. Rabe uncovers a Cold War story of imperialism, gender bias, and racism. When the South American colony now known as Guyana was due to gain independence from Britain in the 1960s, U.S. officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations feared it would become a communist nation under the leadership of Cheddi Jagan, a Marxist who was very popular among the South Asian (mostly Indian) majority. Although to this day the CIA refuses to confirm or deny involvement, Rabe presents evidence that CIA funding, through a program run by the AFL-CIO, helped foment the labor unrest, race riots, and general chaos that led to Jagan's replacement in 1964. The political leader preferred by the United States, Forbes Burnham, went on to lead a twenty-year dictatorship in which he persecuted the majority Indian population. Considering race, gender, religion, and ethnicity along with traditional approaches to diplomatic history, Rabe's analysis of this Cold War tragedy serves as a needed corrective to interpretations that depict the Cold War as an unsullied U.S. triumph.
In 1950 Dr Cheddi Jagan began a movement to transform British Guiana into a Marxist state in South America and soon allied with the USSR in the Cold War then gaining steam. The failure of that dream and the flight of over 400,000 people to North America and Britain are almost forgotten tragedies even among the Diaspora. The Indelible Red Stain – this massive two-volume blockbuster--by Guyanese doctor and political insider Dr Mohan Ragbeer revives the story. His masterful opus will probably become the keystone to understanding the destruction of British Guiana, its bloody race war, and the massive exodus.Dr Mohan Ragbeer writes brilliantly in a style seldom seen from the Caribbean, with encyclopaedic knowledge of history, culture, medicine, forestry, sociology and more, coupled with an elephantine memory of events and discussions of the fifties and sixties. The background is a dangerous river trip in 1961 into remote forests by a multiracial forensic team to investigate a murder. The tales of witnesses to political events contribute to the grim story of the usurpation of another group's political agenda by Dr Jagan and Marxist comrades including Forbes Burnham, a future dictator. Their inept and stubborn pursuit of an unrealistic goal against sage advice, beguiled by an adoring and uninformed following, culminated in the fall of British Guiana, Dr Jagan's disgrace and the shattering of many dreams, hopes and lives. The historical facts and the roles of international agencies--MI5, CIA, KGB and others--are as well-known as the ending of Salvador Allende's socialist regime in Chile, but this book corrects errors and is a stunning insider exposé of Jagan's bungling of government and his role in the ruin of Guyana and the sad fate of its people when it fell to the firebrand Burnham.Ragbeer comes from a family of early and faithful Jagan backers. He gives us first-hand and witnessed accounts of new material, particularly discussions with businessmen and farmers—Jagan's major financiers—whose pragmatic development plans that would have realised a land of plenty. Jagan agreed privately but ignored and even lambasted them publicly as exploiters! He remained stuck in his Soviet rut and emerges like an emperor with no clothes, his body covered with an indelible red rash. Far from being a martyr betrayed by racists and imperialists, a view that has become an industry, Jagan is shown as a failure without original ideas, a poor judge of people who unwisely rejected Kennedy's hand and swallowed Moscow's fanciful promises, blindly believing in Soviet power and reach. His 1953 flaunting of Communism in the face of MI5 was reckless and against all advice. This book forces us to ask tough questions: what did Jagan really achieve? How does he compare with his contemporaries? The answers lie within will no doubt stain his hallowed reputation. The Indelible Red Stain is a brutally honest revaluation of Jagan's place in history, and a caution that aspiring nations must be ever vigilant and critical of those who promise heaven. While personally honest, unlike most politicians, Jagan's bungling of his was the tsunami that uprooted the lives of hundreds of thousands. The book will probably infuriate Jagan's emotional supporters, but they too must face the fact of his ineptitude and the neglect of his people that drenched Guyana with the stubborn stains of blood and fire.This book is long and full of anecdotes, facts and comments by those who placed so much faith in one man; it is a riveting read aimed to inform host nations, diasporal Guyanese, Caribbean peoples and all those who need to see how easy it is to destroy a nation while pretending the very best intentions. It is fascinating and painful to see how a land of promise can become a waste-land, how a tropical paradise can become paradise lost. Mohan Ragbeer has put 50 years of his life into creating this book; it is well worth the wait. (Jagessar)
The history of the Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, indentured Portuguese, Chinese, and Indian laborers provides an in-depth view of the evolution of the Guyanese people. It provides evidence of their strong cultural identity and reveals their ambitions, sense of direction, and perseverance to strive for well-being and happiness in the best possible life. A chain of events began in 1953 when British Guiana elected its first native-born leader, Dr. Cheddi Jagan. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, suspended British Guiana’s Constitution, ordered the dissolution of the Government, and imprisonment of the elected leader, his wife, and members of his cabinet as they were not compatible to Churchill’s taste. The United States of America had difficulty appreciating how different forms of government and economic systems are applied in different countries. In 1961, President John F Kennedy ordered his Central Intelligence Agency to subvert the elected leader of British Guiana. The leader fell and the CIA’s men, accomplishing their task, moved on to another. Thirty years later, the fallen leader was again democratically elected to lead his country. President Kennedy’s ruthless subversion of democracy became the policy for subsequent elections of using the divisive concept of racial and ethnic segregations. The racial and ethnic prejudices have affected the distribution of power, opportunity, and wealth and creating enduring social stratifications. The children became adults with a poor understanding of how imperialism, the ancestral slaves and indentured laborers influenced their lives and their country, and the powerful and lasting effects they have.
In small plural societies, cultural differences can be exaggerated, exploited and intensified during political contests. The survival of these societies as democracies - or even at all - hangs in the balance.
