Book Review | A review of David Granger’s The Rupununi Rebellion.

DAVID Granger’s The Rupununi Rebellion is an eye-opening account and analysis of an attempted secession which occurred in the Rupununi District in 1969. The book unravels the demographic, economic, geographic, strategic, political and sociological complexities of the Rebellion.

A group of rich ranchers, almost exclusively members of a single clan of relatives, executed an insurrection in the Rupununi – Guyana’s largest, remotest and southernmost district – on 2nd January 1969. The plan entailed the secession of the District and the declaration of a ‘Republic of the Rupununi’. The intended new state was to be aligned to Venezuela which, at the time, had resurrected its territorial claim to more than two thirds of the country, including the District in which the rebellion occurred.

The insurrectionists launched their main attack on the town of Lethem, the administrative centre. They began their assault on the Town’s police station, killing four policemen and arresting other government officials, including the District Commissioner, who were imprisoned in the abbatoir. The rebels held sway for almost two days until troops from the 2nd Battalion of the Guyana Defence Force were deployed from the military base at Atkinson Field to quell their rebellion.

The insurrectionists, although equipped with rifles, modern 50-caliber machine guns and anti-tank recoilless rocket-launchers, were outmaneuvered by the better armed and trained soldiers. Many rebels, including the masterminds and the presumptive ‘president’ of the ‘Republic of the Rupununi’, escaped and sought asylum across the borders.

Guyana, at the time of the Rebellion, had attained its Independence only thirty-one months earlier in May 1966. The Rupununi Rebellion represented, therefore, “…the single most serious threat to national security and territorial integrity… [and]… the sternest test of statehood and social solidarity.”

The Rupununi District is frontier territory. Bordering both Brazil and Venezuela, its most notable feature is its sprawling grasslands which, though not very fertile, allow for large-scale cattle-rearing. The District’s isolation and stunted development created conditions for fomenting the Rebellion.

The Rebellion occurred against the backdrop of strained relations with the country’s western neighbour, Venezuela which had repudiated the 1899 Arbitral Award which had definitively settled the territorial controversy just prior to Guyana’s Independence in 1966. The Geneva Agreement between the United Kingdom, Venezuela and British Guiana, the latter still a colony, provided for the establishment of a Mixed Commission which would examine the controversy which had developed as a result of Venezuela’s repudiation of the Arbitral Award.

Venezuela, despite the Geneva Agreement, resorted to forceful measures in the same Independence year, including the occupation of Guyana’s portion of Ankoko Island in the Cuyuni River which forms part of the border between the two countries.

Prime Minister Forbes Burnham addressed the nation two days after the Rupununi Rebellion. He accused the ranchers and Venezuela of complicity in the insurrection. It was revealed that the rebels had received training and support from Venezuela.

Prime Minister Burnham pointed, also, to the relationship between the conspirators and the United Force, a local political party which was once in a coalition with the People’s National Congress. He did not accuse the United Force out-rightly of complicity in the Rebellion, even though there were subtle suggestions to this effect. Certain officials of the United Force were prohibited from entering the District after the Rebellion.
The Rebellion is a riveting tale of conspiracy, intrigue and treason; it provides a captivating plot for an action-movie script. A book, however, can be just as entertaining and exciting as a movie. The task of narrating and analyzing the Rebellion has fallen to David Granger. He has not disappointed. Granger has produced a masterly and meticulously-researched work which dissects the complexities of the revolt. The Rupununi Rebellion is arranged, conveniently, into five main sections, namely:

* A new state – painting the broad historical, geographical and social canvas of the Rebellion;
* The remote frontier – exploring the economic, geographical and sociological factors of the District;
* A criminal conspiracy – detailing the secessionist plot and its execution;
* The defence of the district – examining the daring military counter-offensive to the Rebellion; and
* The aftermath of treason – examining the national reaction to the Rebellion.
Land access is an incendiary and emotive subject which can ignite insecurities and fears. This was less the case in the Rupununi in 1969 where ranchers had appropriated vast acreages and felt threatened when the Amerindian Lands Commission was established to examine the issue of the land rights of the Indigenous people throughout the country. The ranchers feared dispossession and displacement from their immense leases and ‘hacienda’ lifestyle and the granting of titles to the indigenous Makushi and Wapishana people many of whom they employed as ‘vaqueros.’
The book’s main shortcoming, perhaps, is that greater consideration was not given to the insecurities of the ranchers. Granger, notes, fairly and even-handedly, that one of the ranchers behind the Rebellion had expressed concerns about the Government’s refusal to renew their land leases. The relative isolation of the Rupununi from the rest of the country would have contributed to the rancher’s fears of being uprooted from lands which their families had controlled for decades.

David Granger brings a unique perspective to this recounting of the Rebellion. He was, at that time in 1969, a young officer in the country’s Defence Force and the Adjutant of the Battalion which was deployed to quell the Rebellion. He had eye-witness experience and first-hand knowledge of the military operation launched to counter the rebel offensive.
He has scrupulously mined a wealth of sources, backed by personal experience, in producing this book. Despite his own role in quelling the Rebellion, Granger has succeeded in producing a dispassionate analysis of the causes and consequence of the treason.
The Rupununi Rebellion is an outstanding work of scholarship. It is richly researched, citing Brazilian anthropological sources and the texts of statements by the Prime Minister, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Permanent Mission to the United Nations. It analyses the convergence of geography, ethnography, economics, politics and international relations in fomenting a bloody insurrection in a small, newly-independent state. The book’s text is complemented by illustrations, appendices and maps to help the reader gain a richer understanding of the Rebellion’s setting, its causes, execution and eventual suppression. The Rebellion is a cautionary lesson to those overlook these factors in pursuing development.

The Rupununi Rebellion is not a new book. It was first published in 2009 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Rebellion. It was republished ten years later in 2019 to mark the 50th anniversary of the event. The book remains the most comprehensive, yet concise, and authoritative record of the Rupununi Rebellion.
David Granger, with this book, has provided an invaluable service to the recording of the country’s history. His account and analysis preserve the memory of the Rebellion and, in so doing, ensures that it will not be relegated to historical obscurity.

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