Part 1: Dr Jagan Yesteryear, Today and Tomorrow…

CHEDDI and Janet Jagan met in the United States and married there in 1943. Janet moved to then British Guiana with him one year later – and after two years, they joined Forbes Burnham and Ashton Chase to form the Political Affairs Committee (PAC), from which bosom both the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the People’s National Congress (PNC) emerged.

With the distinct and distinguished fortune of having known and worked with both Cheddi and Janet at international conferences in the Caribbean and Guyana for three decades, I attended Cheddi’s funeral at Babu Jaan in Berbice in 1997, but was unable to attend Janet’s send-off in 2009.

Both died in March – Cheddi on the 6th and Janet on the 28th — but though 13 years apart, they left living memories that will last forever, like with all who met either, even if only once.

Reimagining the inseparable couple whose lives and contributions straddled the 20th and 21st Centuries is no easy task, but with memories and forever-living documented testimonies to go by, those who knew them well-enough will have no problems imaging their respective positions through thoughts shaped by one’s memory and (hopefully still fertile) imagination.

Since we spoke for the last time on February 14, 1996, I’ve often asked myself how Dr Cheddi Jagan would’ve acted in different current circumstances – like, how he would’ve handled Guyana’s new oil wealth today, or assessed the political opposition in 2023.

I felt (and still do) that his typical analysis of the recent call-to-arms and mutiny by a member of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) would have included all his PPP-Civic administration had done between 1992 and 1996 to offer government support to Walter Rodney’s family; and to pursue repatriation of the alleged killer — an ex-Guyana Defense Force (GDF) soldier — from across the border in Cayenne (French Guiana).

Protected even in exile as a wanted suspect in a murder of a prominent Guyana citizen, Sgt. Gregory Smith would die before facing justice — and (possibly) exposing who might have ordered Rodney’s death.

Dr Jagan would also have traced the WPA’s origins – where it came from and where it went to after Rodney’s death – and later, after two more of Walter’s former co-leaders joined the APNU+AFC coalition government in 2015.

He would have spent less time on what was actually said than on what it meant, not only for the PPP-Civic and its supporters, but all Guyanese who may decide to openly support the current administration, for whatever reasons.

Dr Jagan would also have, most likely, tapped on historical examples to show that such behaviour is not secluded to Guyana, but is often resorted to be elements with high levels of desperation driven by their inability to win state power through peaceful means.

He may have likened the externally-generated division between himself and then PPP Chair Forbes Burnham in the early 1960s to that two decades later between Zimbabwe’s post-revolution leaders, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, which negatively affected the ZANU-Patriotic Front (PF) government.

He would also have pointed to the appointment by the then President of someone other than the AFC Leader as the coalition’s prime minister on the AFC’s leadership and how they sidelined the Prime Minister in response, eventually leading to the AFC’s divorce from the partnership with the APNU ahead of the upcoming June Local Government Elections.

He held on to principled positions and shared them with fellow PPP leaders, eventually winning-over those with doubt by addressing their concerns until they understood.

For example, not all PPP party members supported its entering into a Patriotic Coalition For Democracy (PCD) in the 1980s that included the WPA — many because of elements in its leadership who consciously likened the PPP with the PNC (and Jagan with Burnham) and arguing instead for establishment of dictatorship of the working people by other than peaceful electoral alliances.

But as PPP General Secretary — from its birth to his death – like he’d been able, over decades, convinced the majority that a coalition against dictatorship was better than going it alone just because the PPP could, as the biggest and best-organized of the opposition parties.

Dr Jagan left Planet Earth just as the internet arrived in Guyana and while the major concern was about whether children would now have easy access to pornography on the free World Wide Web (www), people and governments elsewhere were preparing to welcome the 21st Century with calls for a ‘new global order’ — to which the Guyana leader replied in 1996, by proposing a ‘New Global Human Order’.

With Local Government Elections approaching and the PPP-Civic administration at mid-term before the 2025 elections are due, Dr Jagan would undoubtedly have endorsed the way the party he co-founded and nurtured had been able to win four national elections and only lose twice since his departure along the River of No Return.

He would have highlighted the commonalities and distinct specificities between Presidents Jagdeo, Ramotar and Ali.

And he’d also have explained the differences between the PPP’s boycotts in opposition against dictatorship and electoral fraud, vis-à-vis the current boycotts by parties that might realistically choose to opt out of a costly race they have concluded they just can’t win, especially with no Second Prize.

The comrade would most certainly have recommended that Guyanese voters to keep a good thing going opening their eyes and minds and ‘Do the Maths’ independently — and then conclude on the basis of how much better they feel since the last general elections.

Yes, Dr Jagan would have found convincing ways to urge voters to opt for regime change in regions where they have not been happy with performance of incumbents, no matter which party they represent.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that tapping my creative imagination to answer my same old question in new and changed circumstance is a skewed approach to determine how a dear friend who’s no longer around would think.

But those who knew and worked closely with Dr Jagan will dare to conclude today, 27 years after he took that final flight into the unknown, what his positions might most likely have been on most issues, based on historical or otherwise empirical evidence, including positions adumbrated in an out of office, and collections of his speeches or his books ‘The West On Trial’ and ‘Forbidden Freedom’.

Indeed, Dr Cheddi Jagan epitomized the ultimate leader who led from in front and never compromised just for the sake of convenience.

I can never forget attending a PPP Conference in August 1985 when Forbes Burnham died at 62 after leading Guyana for 21 years as Premier, Prime Minister and its first Executive President.

Word around (at the time) was that Dr Roger Luncheon — by then already a ranking PPP Central Committee member — was on hand to offer assistance to the president, but the family opted for “a family doctor” nearer to home.

Flour had been banned for unhealthy reasons and upon the news of Burnham’s death, someone hung a chain of flour products around the neck of the president’s statue in a prominent place in Georgetown.

Many PPP members were not in a mourning mood, but Comrade Cheddi insisted the party had to pay its respects to the death of a former Founding Chairman who had just died as President – and he ordered that the PPP flag above Freedom House be flown at half-mast.
That was the classic Comrade Dr Cheddi Jagan.

But it’s not only me reimagining Dr Jagan today. Hear what his nephew, Dr Clive Jagan had to say recently at this year’s 27th anniversary of his uncle’s death at Babu Jaan last month:

“He (Dr Jagan) struggled all his life to crush these distances and for all human beings to be recognised as equals, and not to be judged by the colour of their skin. Racism for him was repulsive.

“Thanks to Uncle Cheddi’s efforts and the efforts of a large number of others, we [PPP/C] have closed the distances separating one group from another, but there is still more to be done.

“He never wavered from his dedication to the struggle for freedom and the upliftment of all. And in this struggle, he remains committed, and through the peaceful and democratic methods.”

Unwavering in his dedication to the struggle for freedom and upliftment for all – that was classic Comrade Cheddi all his life, which remained the basic same yesteryear, as it would be today and tomorrow, subject only to the changes forced by the forces of change.

Yet, if you thought humility and the power of leadership were only wrapped-up in Comrade Cheddi, you’d be very wrong, as his wife, the ex-Janet Rosenburg of Chicago, USA, was no-less unwavering and committed to change for the better than her comradely husband over the 53 years they spent together.