THE Cooperative Republic of Guyana celebrates its Independence Day on May 26 every year. This day commemorates the date, in 1966, when this country attained freedom from the British Empire.Sovereign Guyana’s first Constitution came into existence on the day of freedom itself, and at present, the people of the country observe their Independence Day in their homeland and nations across the world that house hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of Guyanese descent.

On March 22, 1918, in a rural village in Guyana, the remarkable life of an ordinary sugar worker’s son began. His name was Cheddi Jagan, and before his time was over, he would change the course of his country’s history by first struggling to liberate it from British colonial domination, then by waging a 28-year-long struggle for the restoration of freedom and democracy, and finally by ascending to the Presidency as Guyana’s first democratically-elected Head of State.
Alongside Dr. Jagan, in all these struggles, was his American-born wife, lifelong friend and political partner, Janet, who left the USA for life in Guyana, where she remained until her death on March 28, 2009. She was a woman of a number of firsts in her long history of involvement in her adopted country’s politics. She was to reach the pinnacle as first woman Head of State in December 1997, following the death in office of her husband on March 6, after first serving as Prime Minister.
They were the founders of the country’s first mass political movement, and unquestionably the leading political figures in the history of Guyana.
As international figures, they are well known for their fight for peace and freedom around the globe. Dr. Jagan’s ideas on debt relief, as well as his proposals for a New Global Human Order, were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 14, 2002. As such, he deserves credit as a major figure in modern history.
However, despite the fact that the world knows that it was Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s dreams and efforts that forced the granting of independence to Guyana, because of Burnham’s allegation that the existing electoral system unduly favoured the Indian community, the British government introduced, for the elections of December 1964, a new system of Proportional Representation.
Thereafter, the PNC and the small United Force, under Peter D’Aguiar, formed a coalition government, led by Burnham, under which the British eventually granted this country independence under its new name, Guyana, on May 26, 1966.
The PNC gained full power in the general election of 1968, which was characterised by questionable rolls of overseas voters, and widespread claims of electoral impropriety.
But Guyana’s liberator, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, continued his relentless struggle for real freedom in Guyana, even after the instruments of Independence were handed over by the British Government to a triumphant dictator.
The oppression of the newly sovereign Guyanese nation escalated to unbearable proportions under the dictatorship of the PNC administration, and it was not until October of 1992 that, thanks largely to former US President Jimmy Carter and the Carter Centre, that free and fair polls were returned to Guyana, consequencing a PPP victory, and Dr. Jagan’s assumption to his rightful place in this nation; and thereafter the struggle to restore democratic norms and real freedoms began.