SO, finally, the Government of South Africa has decided to also posthumously confer on Guyana’s former President, Forbes Burnham, its highest national honour designated for distinguished foreign nationals: The Oliver R Tambo Award (gold). Established in April 2002, the Award is named after Tambo, the celebrated longest serving leader of the African National Congress (ANC), a role that was later to be filled for years by Nelson Mandela, the indomitable internationally-renowned icon, until his retirement.
Among recipients so honoured in earlier years from the Caribbean and other regions of the world were, for instance, Jamaica’s former Prime Minister Michael Manley (2004) and months later, in 2005, Guyana’s Dr Cheddi Jagan.
Jagan was the first Guyanese Head of State to be elected on the basis of internationally supervised free and fair Presidential and Parliamentary elections. Both Manley and Jagan were to die on March 6, 1997.
Dr Jagan is widely recognised at home, regionally and internationally, as Guyana’s foremost consistent champion, in and out of government, in the struggle to end British colonialism. 
Objectively, as archival data would confirm, Burnham was not involved in ANY significant struggle for Guyana’s independence, though he never opposed it, during his long years as leader of the People’s National Congress. He, however, became identified with a calculated strategy involving then governments in London and Washington to frustrate Guyana’s political freedom under a Jagan-led administration.                                                

Historic embrace
Nevertheless, on the historic night when the Golden Arrowhead replaced  the Union Jack on May 26, 1966, an overjoyed Burnham, now ceremonially armed with the coveted “independence prize” for which Jagan had so bravely and tirelessly fought, chose to give a warm embrace to his longstanding political rival.
Done in the full glare of media cameras, and to thunderous applause by those in attendance, it was, for this columnist also, a good moment to have been there to cover the event for the then Guiana Graphic.
As the saying goes, it is better late than never. Therefore, it is good to learn that South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has now invited Roxanne Van West Charles, Burnham’s eldest daughter, to receive on behalf of her dad, the Oliver Tambo award at an official ceremony scheduled for this Saturday.
She will be accompanied by her husband, Dr Richard Van West Charles (a former Health Minister in Burnham’s Cabinet), and her sister, Dr Francesca Onu.
It would be recalled, by political friends and foes, that in the face of recurring valid critical assessments of Forbes Burnham’s some 21 years of absolute and controversial control of State power, he had varyingly responded to the challenges of the time, in word and deed, by embracing, along with Jamaica’s Manley, the international campaign to end the dehumanizing doctrine of apartheid in South Africa.
It is for the stand they had taken, at different regional and international fora, and during crucial political periods, to break the stranglehold of apartheid in South Africa.                                          

Trio of 2005 recipients
Consistent with South Africa’s appreciation of shared commitment to the wider struggles against colonialism and imperialism, the then government of President Thabo Mbeki had arranged for posthumous awards of 2005 to be made to representatives of Dr Jagan and two former icons of the Non-Aligned Movement — India’s first-ever Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indonesia’s founding President, Sukarno.
Following Guyana’s transformation as a constitutional republic, President Burnham had initiated a system of national awards, with the highest being the Order of Excellence (OE).
As otherwise recalled by this columnist, Mr Burnham favoured that both he, as first Executive President, and Dr Jagan, then parliamentary Opposition Leader, be simultaneously conferred with the OE award. Jagan declined, and let it be known that he could not accept such an honour from “a regime headed by Burnham, based on questionable legitimacy.”
Nevertheless, as Jagan stated, he would have “no problems” with Burnham being so conferred. Jagan had earlier also declined a national honour from the Cuban government of President Fidel Castro.
But he was to subsequently ensure as President, following the October 1992 general elections, that the OE award went to other outstanding Guyanese, among them his now late widow, Janet Jagan. 
On December 18, 2007, with then President Bharrat Jagdeo as  Head of State, Dr Jagan became Guyana’s first and only recipient of  a specially created honour—Order of Liberation, Guyana (OLG). As the citation explained, it was in recognition of his “struggles for independence from colonialism.” The OLG ranks above the Order of Excellence.
Last month, an analysis on “Guyana–Recalling Dr Cheddi Jagan”, written by Kevin Edmonds and published in the US-based North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) to mark the 15th Anniversary of the death  of the Guyanese President, noted that he would be recalled as “the hemisphere’s first democratically-elected Marxist leader, and also the first in the Americas to fall victim to Cold War military intervention…”                                                           

A relevant issue
The pity is that for all the quiet tentative initiatives taken by Burnham—as his illness kept increasing in the 1980s—and the equally quiet responses by Jagan, on possible modalities for shared or national government, or at least specific areas for bi-partisan cooperation, their respective PNC and PPP comrades could not enable delivery.
What is fairly well known is that once he assumed the Presidency, following the death of Burnham, Desmond Hoyte had to contend with an early intervention via Washington AGAINST any concept of shared governance involving Jagan’s PPP—if he (Hoyte) expected any financial bailout for an economy embedded in crisis.
Hoyte himself never behaved as if he personally had any serious political interest—as Burnham and Jagan latterly came to reflect—for at least a defined working relationship between the PNC and PPP. 
Consequently, in 2013 with Burnham gone; the Jagans (Cheddi and Janet) gone; Hoyte gone,  the Guyanese people—across the ethnic and political divide—are now faced with disgraceful parliamentary politicking that’s increasingly threatening  Guyana’s future social and economic development as well as its national security. 
Incidentally, I wonder what part, if ANY, today’s PNC, currently overtaken by systematic orchestrated APNU influences (though the leadership of both officially remains the same) may have played in awakening South Africa’s interest to posthumously honour Forbes Burnham with the prestigious Oliver Tambo Award? 
According to the press release announcement on the award, it all seems more like a Burnham family affair. Perhaps we may yet learn more in the future.