ABOUT 15 years ago, I announced a monthly format to my column-writing. Because of the feedback with accompanying questions, I accept that I should answer some questions. Responding does two things: it compels you to show obligation to your readers and it allows you to find materials for your columns.

I started the format and never continued with it. Over the years, particularly since 2020, the emails are plenty and so are the questions. I will try to continue what I started 15 years ago. I got a request from a professor from City University of New York to meet with him to discuss Martin Carter, because he said he read where I had revealed that Carter was an informant of MI6 (the British foreign intelligence agency).

So, I turned up last month at Cara Lodge (formerly the Taitt residence, the home of the most recognised elitist Mulatto/Creole family in the history of Guyana) on Quamina Street. He introduced me to his lovely wife who operated the tape and took notes. He wanted my take on Carter’s politics because he was intrigued at my revisionist approach to Carter. What was scheduled to be an hour on Carter, turned out to be two hours because he wanted to know if there was also an informant in the WPA in the 1970s.
He indicated that our conversation will be part of a journal, the name of which I cannot remember. Here once more is my revisionist perspective on the politics of Carter.
Recently released British files on the PPP in the 1950s listed an informant inside the PPP whose code name was “Lascar.” To find out who was Lascar, you have to do some painstaking research. You have to meticulously examine each Central Committee member of the PPP in the early 1950s to see if any clue would stand out.

‘Lascar’ was the name given to sub-continent sailors. When you examine all, and I mean all the leaders in the PPP from 1950 onwards, none had a sailor’s background, even among their parents. I linked it to Carter for two reasons: one, is that the name, ‘Lascar’ was invented by the Portuguese. British intelligence gave Carter that code name because he was seen as the most-known Portuguese player in the PPP at the time.
Carter genetically is not purely Portuguese. The correct classification is Mulatto/Creole as his fellow Mulatto comrade in the PPP, Rory Westmaas. For a moment I thought it was Westmaas, but to ascertain who Lascar was, you have to juxtapose the overt political behaviour of every PPP leader at that time

with the name ‘Lascar.’ I came up with Carter for the second reason –his double life and contradictory politics
I will now elaborate. Before I do so, I am convinced that Martin Carter was ‘Lascar.’ Space would not allow for a detailed analysis, so from here I will be brief. Carter picketed Princess Ann, Queen Elizabeth’s sister in 1953 with an insulting placard to advise her to go home. He was the first Guyanese to officially declare himself a Stalinist.

Carter was then expelled from the PPP for ultra-communist activities. After Carter was expelled, guess where he turned up? Not in his own Stalinist party he was supposed to birth, but working for the British Colonial Office in Georgetown, the forerunner of the British High Commission.
In those days you didn’t have emails with passwords. All you had were paper documents and paper telegrams. So, the British Government was comfortable having an anti-monarchist, Stalinist wild man working in its office in Georgetown, where he would have access to confidential files. How do you like that — from ultra-communist to top British Government employee.

Carter’s next stop was a high-level office in the most enduring British plantocratic company in the entire world – Bookers. He wasn’t given a desk job but was made the public relations spokesperson for this giant British colonial business. Carter’s next port of entry was the government of Forbes Burnham. Burnham probably suspected Carter was working for British intelligence and kicked him out his government.
After leaving Burnham’s government, Carter acquired the status of the prodigal’s son. Guess where he went? Back to Bookers. British imperialism made sure that Carter was financially comfortable. All this time, Carter never said a word about his gargantuan ironic life – big and bad, extremist communist and at the same time, trusted lieutenant of British imperialism.

This contradictory life of Carter is only found in paperback novels. No one in the world in any British country was treated so royally by British colonialism as Martin Carter.
Unfortunately, Cheddi and Janet Jagan died long before the British files were released. Carter does not deserve a resting place at the Seven Ponds.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.