FROM AUTOCRACY to DEMOCRACY in Guyana Aspects of Post-Independence Guyanese History (1966-1992)
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ODEEN ISHMAEL FROM AUTOCRACY TO DEMOCRACY in guyana Aspects of Post-Independence Guyanese History (1966-1992) FROM AUTOCRACY TO DEMOCRACY IN GUYANA Aspects of Post-Independence Guyanese History (1966-1992) Odeen Ishmael GNI Publications Georgetown Boston Toronto 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Odeen Ishmael All rights reserved. Contents Contents Introduction vii 1. The Ankoko incursion 1 2. The political and economic situation in 1966-67 9 3. Aspects of Guyana’s foreign policy during 1966-1970 19 4. Economic aggression and new maritime claims by Venezuela (1967-1968) 30 5. How the American government helped Burnham to rig the 1968 elections 39 6. The 1968 electoral fraud 50 7. The Rupununi revolt 58 8. The fraudulent local government elections in 1970 82 9. The Protocol of Port of Spain 91 10. The rigged elections in 1973 99 11. The PNC regime’s shifting ideological positions in the 1970s 107 12. The PNC’s nationalisation policy in the 1970s 113 13. The failure of the “Feed, House and Clothe the Nation” plan 118 14. Guyana-Suriname border issue: From the 1960s to the 1990s 126 15. The offer of critical support by the PPP 132 16. The Arnold Rampersaud trials 141 17. The PPP proposal for a National Patriotic Front 149 18. The Upper Mazaruni hydro-electric project 156 19. The rigged referendum of 1978 167 20. Mass murder, secret plots and assassinations (1978-1980) 175 21. The elusive search for political unity (1975-1982) 182 22. The 135-day sugar industry strike 190 23. The pattern of political repression by the PNC regime 202 24. Guyana-Venezuela relations (1970-1980) 211 v From Autocracy to Democracy in Guyana 25. The rigged elections in 1980 219 26. The termination of the Protocol of Port of Spain 227 27. The rigged 1985 elections 239 28. The rush towards privatisation 249 29. Guyana-Venezuela economic cooperation (1985-1991) 258 30. Economic decline (1985-1991) 274 31. The formation of the PPP-Civic alliance 283 32. The intensified struggle for electoral reforms 290 33. The October 1992 elections: The restoration of democracy 298 Index 309 vi Introduction Introduction n 26 May 1966, Guyana became an independent nation after being a O European possession for three and a half centuries. Initially, the country, comprising three separate “colonies”, was colonised by the Dutch at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was seized briefly by the French during the late eighteenth century, restored to Dutch rule, then captured by the British at the beginning of the nineteenth century, handed back to the Dutch within a year, but then taken back in 1803 by the British who finally obtained full ownership by a treaty signed in 1814. From that time, the country—which became known as British Guiana in 1831 when the three original colonies were united—was ruled by a succession of British governors. On the attainment of independence, the British governor was re-designated “Governor-General” and remained as the representative of the Queen of England, the official Head of State of independent Guyana. The management of the internal and external affairs of the country was now totally in the hands of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Forbes Burnham which succeeded the government of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) after the December 1964 elections. Up to the time of independence, the country had internal self-government with no control over foreign affairs which were handled by the British government. But the government was still politically fragile since it was a coalition of Burnham’s party, the People’s National Congress (PNC) and the small right-wing United Force (UF), led by the Peter D’Aguiar, the Minister of Finance. From the early days of the coalition government in 1965, D’Aguiar expressed concerns over the manner in which Burnham handled economic and financial issues, but he was encouraged to remain in the coalition by the American government fearing that the opposition vii From Autocracy to Democracy in Guyana socialist PPP, led by Cheddi Jagan, could return to power should the coalition collapse. But Burnham maintained a heavy hand in ruling the country, and finally D’Aguiar, denouncing certain corrupt practices, resigned from the government in 1967. However, he did not withdraw his party from the coalition. By that time, Burnham was busy encouraging parliamentarians from both the opposition PPP (which was the largest party in the National Assembly) and the UF to resign from their respective parties and cross over to the PNC. By 1968, through this action, the PNC had acquired a slim majority in the National Assembly and did not even need the UF to pass legislation. Meanwhile, Burnham’s rule became more and more autocratic and by 1968 he began his plans to retain power by non-democratic means. Systematically, he put plans into operation to rig the December 1968 general elections for which he obtained tacit support from the American government. The rigging was so crude that it received total condemnation locally and internationally, but not by western governments which maintained their support of the Burnham regime. With his party, the PNC, now having a rigged majority in the National Assembly, Burnham’s autocratic rule became more and more dictatorial, and this became even more evident in the rigged local government elections of 1970, and later for the July 1973 general elections when he utilised the Guyana Defence Force to seize ballot boxes and spirit them away to secret locations where they were switched for other boxes containing heavily padded PNC votes. This electoral fraud in 1973, to which the western governments, in particular, again turned a blind eye, resulted in the PNC “winning” a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. The rule of the PNC was highlighted by a total lack of democracy. The rigged 1973 elections were followed in 1978 by a rigged referendum allowing the PNC to introduce a new constitution which created an executive presidency for which Burnham became the first holder. Then came the rigged 1980 elections through which the PNC further expanded its majority in the National Assembly. Burnham died in August 1985 and was succeeded by Desmond Hoyte as President of Guyana. But, despite first expectation that he would reverse the autocratic and dictatorial nature of the PNC, the election of December 1985 were even more heavily rigged than before. During all this time, the PPP waged a campaign locally and internationally for the return of democracy but made little headway since the western countries, notably the United States, continued to support the PNC which they saw as a bulwark against the “communist” PPP. viii Introduction These countries were fully aware of the undemocratic nature of the PNC, but they did not want the PPP to ever return to power. But after 1985, even these western powers began to have second thoughts since the undemocratic nature of the government was stifling economic development and forcing Guyanese to emigrate in larger numbers. Further, the congressional and parliamentary representatives in those countries had begun to pressure those governments to press the PNC government in Guyana to hold free and fair elections. And in Guyana itself, the PPP was joined by other opposition parties and civil society groups in the campaign locally and internationally for free and fair elections. This campaign eventually resulted in the involvement of ex-US President Jimmy Carter who succeeded in urging Hoyte to concede to these demands. The October 1992 elections, internationally supervised and especially with the votes counted at the polling places immediately after voting concluded, saw the defeat of the PNC and a resounding victory for the PPP, with its leader, Cheddi Jagan, being elected as President. This volume comprises a collection of articles describing aspects of Guyanese history from 1966 to 1992, the period of the PNC-led governments. All of these articles originally appeared between September 2005 and November 2008 in the Guyana Journal, a monthly magazine published in New York. They have been re-edited for this volume, but there is very little change in their original content. They give the reader a general picture of the historical transition of Guyana from the time it became an independent nation and set out the political and economic problems that the Guyanese people had to confront during more than two and a half decades of PNC rule. At the same time, they show the nature of autocratic and dictatorial government and the efforts and related problems in the political struggle to move the country away from that type of “governance” to freedom and democracy. ix From Autocracy to Democracy in Guyana x The Ankoko Incursion Chapter 1 The Ankoko Incursion Venezuelan intrusion on Guyanese territory n February 1966, the Governments of Venezuela, the United Kingdom I and Guyana signed the Geneva Agreement aimed at resolving the controversy over the Venezuelan claim that the arbitral award of 1899, which settled the border between Venezuela and Guyana, was null and void. The Agreement provided that “no new claim or enlargement of an existing claim to territorial sovereignty in these territories (of Venezuela and British Guiana) shall be asserted while this Agreement is in force, nor shall any claim whatsoever be asserted otherwise than in the Mixed Commission while that Commission is in being.” Despite this declaration, a few months later a well-armed group of Venezuelan soldiers, along with civilians, encroached upon and occupied territory on the Guyana side of the border. This encroachment occurred, unknowing to Guyana Government, on the Guyana half of the island of Ankoko at the confluence of the boundary rivers, Cuyuni and Wenamu (Wenamo).