TODAY marks 67 years since the Constitution of Guyana (then British Guiana) was suspended and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government, headed by Dr. Cheddi Jagan, which was freely elected under Universal Adult Suffrage in the historic 1953 election, was removed by force by the British after being in office for only 133 days. This unfortunate incident arguably was the greatest influence on the subsequent political development and course of this country because it was the precursor to the rupture of political and racial unity which has been and still is a major hindrance to socio-economic development, albeit in recent times there have been encouraging signs that we may be returning to the spirit of 1953.
It was also the beginning of the era of rank political deceit and opportunism and lust for political power among some within the national political movement.
However, what took place on October 9, 1953, has to be viewed in the context of the global arena at the time. It was the height of the Cold War and simultaneously the intensification of the anti-colonial struggles, particularly within the British colonial empire. And anything that was not “black” was “red”. The western powers viewed any politician or political movement which took an anti-colonial/anti-imperialist stand as being communist and used the “communist bogeyman” as the excuse to destabilise/remove/smash governments in the developing world which they considered to be a threat to their political and economic interests.
The PPP government led by Dr. Jagan, because of its working class leaning, was perceived to be communist and a threat to the western powers and therefore had to be removed. As a result, the British concocted all sorts of stories to create hysteria and to claim that there was political instability as the launching pad to intervene and remove a freely-elected government.
So the British sent their troops to quell the non-existent “communist uprising”, but to their surprise as Dr. Jagan recalled in his famous book ‘Forbidden Freedom’, the soldiers on landing were asking where the war was because they encountered a country of peace and serenity. And instead, not being aware of the country’s history and culture, they harassed Hindus, whom they took for communists because of the traditional red jhandi flags which they had in their yards.
Eventually, after they learnt of the religious significance of the flags, they stopped harassing those citizens.
But the communist bogeyman was only being used as a springboard by the western powers because in the same year that the PPP government was removed, the Mossadegh government in Iran was overthrown and the western puppet Shah of Iran installed. Mossadegh was by no stretch of the imagination a communist because he was a devout Muslim but he was a nationalist and sought to protect his country’s national resources which were dominated by western monopolies.
The same pattern of events also took place in Indonesia where Sukarno was overthrown as was Jacob Arbenz in Guatemala and later on Goulart in Brazil being replaced by the brutal pro-west Caetano dictatorship.
The PPP, Dr. Jagan and the Guyanese were victims of the global political conditions at the time coupled with local opportunism and the lust for power on the part of some who betrayed the national political movement which set as one of its goals independence for Guyana.
In view of what took place on this date in 1953, it was logical that Dr. Jagan chose that date to be sworn in as the first freely-elected Executive President of this country following the historic October 5, 1992 elections.
These are national milestones worthy of remembering so that the lessons are not lost.