MAYOR Hamilton Green recently queried (letter in SN) the need for a newly built specialty hospital and its proposed association with India. Green said such an association raises troubling questions and linked the association with an attempt by the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan to solicit farm assistance from India during the 1960s. People I have spoken with find Mr. Green’s comments troubling as he harped back to the period of the early 1960s, making reference to India hinting (at a myth) that the PPP somehow wanted to make Guyana a colony of India.
Green penned: “What is now troubling, is this hospital will be staffed entirely by nationals from India, so what is going on?”
The hospital will not be staffed exclusively by Indian nationals.  Economic sense would dictate that the support and ancillary staff for the hospital be Guyanese. Furthermore, there is no way the government can refuse to consider employing Guyanese with relevant skills/experience if they do apply for relevant positions.
Green penned: “We obtained independence in 1966. Is this a move (having Indian nationals running the hospital) some sort of re-colonisation?”  No form of logic can lead to such a conclusion.  India built the Providence Stadium.  Has it led to re-colonisation?  India is Guyana’s largest donor of aid and has been for years.  Has this led to re-colonisation.   Green has forgotten that India gave the PNC government tens of millions of dollars in aid (Has he forgotten the Tata buses and the hundreds of tractors, and other equipment and technical assistance etc) – did this lead to re-colonisation? History is replete with examples of entire structures being built by foreign nations but in not a single case has such led to re-colonisation. For example, China built the cricket stadium in Grenada and may also end up building a new track and field stadium as well. There is no re-colonisation.
Greene added: “Those of us old enough will remember the effort by the PPP in the early 1960s to bring in a large number of persons from … India. Is this a retooling of that plan?”
People are concerned about the motive behind asking this question?
The proposed specialty hospital can in no way bring large numbers of people from India to Guyana but only those required to manage the hospital and to perform the high-tech surgeries. Besides, large numbers of Caribbean people did enter Guyana in the 1950s and early 1960s but no one saw any preconceived plan to colonise Guyana by people of a certain ethnicity.
India has given so much aid to Guyana since the 1950s and some people don’t have thanks and appreciation for the assistance.  All they see is conspiracy instead of the nobility behind the moves of the Indian government to help us. We need a specialty hospital so our people don’t have to go overseas for medical help. Thank you India!
Had technical expertise from India been allowed during the 1960s, Guyana would have made a lot more agricultural progress. Green’s comments about assistance from India remind those old enough of what happened in the nation during the 1960s and his role in those activities, a role that is not only well documented, but that can be read about on documents released by the CIA and the British intelligence and available on the Internet.