Ten years on…
AS WE celebrate the life and work of Michael Shree Chand, who passed away ten years ago on January 12, 2000, the time is most opportune for us to recognize this great party activist and leader for the valuable contribution he made as a responsible Party Leader.

Besides being an Executive Member and Organising Secretary of the Progressive Youth Organization, Shree Chand was a member of the People’s Progressive Party Central and Executive Committee, and held the position of Secretary for Finance for the PPP at the time of his death.

He was also an executive member of the Guyana Cuba Friendship Society, as well as the Guyana Friendship Society; a member of the Guyana Peace Council and the Guyana Union of Journalist; and treasurer of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union.

Michael Shree Chand was born on the East Coast of Demerara at Plantation Non Pariel. He had a sound primary and secondary education, and was undoubtedly one of those activists who grew up in the People’s Progressive Party, and was given an opportunity to further his studies overseas.

He not only excelled as the General Manager at the New Guyana Company, printers and publishers of the Mirror Newspaper, but was also appointed by President Cheddi Jagan himself as Minister of Trade and Tourism, during which tenure he resuscitated the Guyexpo and initiated the Main Street Big Lime, which latter achievement was to become his legacy.

A militant party activist, he had a passion to get Party work done, and dedicated his evenings and weekends to visiting with PYO and Party groups.

He died as a veteran PYO Member. He was committed to the Party’s cadre-building process, and he took on the responsibility of building the young cadres in the Party. Shree Chand, in his own disciplined upbringing, chose to take care of the then passionate and outspoken cadre, Neil Kumar. Today, Party cadres look back and remember how he cajoled and nurtured us during our youthful years.

Shree Chand travelled every Saturday to Linden with the Mirror newspaper and literature sales brigade, where we sold seven hundred copies of the Mirror in the mining town along with Thunder, The West on Trial and other literature. He developed a strong inter-personal relationship with the grassroots supporters of the Party, and was always prepared to first of all listen and represent them in their time of need.

When Michael Shree Chand died, he left behind his wife, Merlin, and sons Andre and Rene Chand. He left us a legacy to be regular and punctual at all times. Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Narbada Persaud and Shree Chand are people to emulate in respect to their punctuality and regularity at work and meetings.

Shree Chand was indeed a man of high moral values. He had tremendous respect for Party life. How can I forget the man who visited me for six months while I was a patient at the Galixo Garcia Hospital in Havana. He traveled approximately twenty miles from his University to offer words of encouragement when I was lonely and unable to move after a serious accident. Shree Chand was a senior comrade who could talk well to the young to address their concerns and desperation. The most secretive of things you could have confided in him, for he was a person that was noble, kind and reliable. While Shree Chand is not with us in the flesh today, he is certainly with his comrades in heart and spirit at this time of our Party life.