JANET JAGAN, O.E. NATIONAL ASSEMBLY SPEECHES VOLUME 2 The Third - Seventh Parliaments of the Republic of Guyana 1976-1998 1 Janet Jagan, O.E. National Assembly Speeches Volume 2 With a Preface by President Donald Ramotar This edition © The Parliament of the Republic of Guyana, 2012. Preface © Donald Ramotar, 2012. Cover design by Peepal Tree Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission. This publication was made possible by the support of the Peepal Tree Press (Leeds), the University of Warwick Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Stud- ies, and the Government of Guyana. ISBN 978-1-907493-42-3 2 PREFACE Janet Jagan was an outstanding and remarkable woman, a great leader and played a central role in Guyanese and international affairs. She was born in Chicago on the 20th October 1920. It was there that she met the young Cheddi Jagan, a dental student from British Guiana. They married and Janet followed her husband to the then colony in 1943. What was significant is the fact that most people who migrated almost always go from a poor to a rich country. Janet moved from the richest country in the world to one of the poorest, and a colony at that. On arrival in British Guiana she, together with her husband, plunged into the social and political life in her new homeland. Early in 1946 she founded the Women’s Political and Economic Organi- sation (WPEO) together with Ms. Frances Stafford and Winifred Gaskin. This gave expression to Janet’s belief that women had to establish their equal- ity with men. Later that same year, on November 6th, 1946 she founded the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) together with Cheddi Jagan, Ashton Chase and Joslyn Hubbard. The PAC was the forerunner to the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), which was founded in January 1950. Janet was its first General Secretary and the first editor of its official organ, Thunder. Janet Jagan dedicated herself totally to promoting the welfare and inter- ests of the Guyanese people. In her long distinguished career she led from the front. She was the first woman to contest elections in Guyana. In 1947 she contested for a seat in the legislative council and narrowly lost. In 1951 she became the first woman to be elected a member of the Georgetown Town Council. In 1953, she was among the first women to be elected to Parliament; the other two were Jessie Burnham and Jane Phillips Gay. Janet became the Deputy Speaker of that Parliament. That made her the first female to hold that position. That was a challenging period in our history. Janet Jagan faced many difficulties. The colonial power tried slandering her and eventually sent her to prison for her political activities. Janet, however, was am extremely strong person. She faced those diffi- cult years and fought heroically for the unity of the Party as she fought to defend the people. In 1957, Janet became a Minister of the PPP Government. She held that position until 1961. Her stint as Minister of Labour, Health and Housing is still remembered to this day. She expanded health services to almost every part of our country. She began the housing drive and many schemes stands today as monuments to her labour of love. 3 In 1961 she stayed out of Government to concentrate on strengthening the Party. However, the struggle got very intense and after the death of Claude Christian, the then Minister of Home Affairs, Janet was put to replace him. She resigned in protest because the police failed to inform her of the massacre that took place at Wismar. It was all a part of an international conspiracy to remove the PPP from office. Much of this has been docu- mented and is now open due to the partial release of documents from the US State Department and the UK Foreign Office. In the period 1964 to 1992 Janet worked hard to develop the Party’s press. She edited the Mirror and Thunder. She did a lot in administration and headed the Party’s International Committee. She was a great humanitarian. She loved children greatly and wrote many books for them. She was an extraordinary kind person and very gen- erous. Having had the good fortune of working closely with her, I can testify to her great kindness and concern for her comrades. In 1997 after the passing of Cheddi Jagan, Janet was again thrown into the centre of things. She became Guyana’s first female Prime Minister hav- ing replacing Cde. Samuel Hinds who was elevated to the Presidency. She was our Party’s Presidential Candidate for the 1997 elections and won our biggest victory in history. Her stint as President, however, did not last long. She demitted office on August 11, 1999 due to ill health. However, in the period that she was President she withstood great pres- sures from an opposition that descended into the use of the most vile rac- ism to attack her personally. She took it all and continued to work for the Guyanese people. After leaving office she did a lot of work to promote culture. The collec- tion now housed at Castellani House benefited greatly from her labour. She chaired the board until her passing. Throughout her life she displayed great courage, determination and a powerful intellect. Those are the qualities she left us in the People’s Progres- sive Party, the Party she served at its very leadership until March 28th, 2009. She had to overcome a lot in her political life. In her personal life too she confronted many challenges. The fact that she was denied the right to re- turn to the country of her birth, the US, to visit her sick father and could not go to attend his funeral must have been personally very painful to her. Despite all of that she held no bitterness for all that she had to endure. At the time of her untimely passing she remained one of the most loved and respected personalities of our country. It is not surprising that recently she was recognized by Time Magazine (March 2011) as one of the sixteen most rebellious women in human history. Janet Jagan will always be remembered for her outstanding contribution to Guyana. These volumes of her speeches in Parliament are a very small part of her voluminous works as a journalist, a political activist and just a wonderful personality. President Donald Ramotar 4 Biographical Summary of Janet Jagan Name: Janet Jagan, nee Rosenberg Date of Birth: October 20, 1920. Chicago, Illinois, USA. Died March 28, 2009 Personal : Married August 5, 1943, to Dr Cheddi Jagan, has two children: Cheddi (Joey) and Nadira Education: University of Detroit; Wayne University; Michigan State College; Cook County School of Nursing Political Career: 1950: Co-founder and General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party. 1953: Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly. 1957: Minister of Labour, Health and Housing. 1963-4: Minister of Home Affairs and Senator. 1973, 1980, 1985, 1992: Re-elected to Parliament. October 1992: First Lady and Ambassador to the United Nations. March 1997: First female Prime Minister and Vice-President. December 1997: President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. 5 Editor’s Note on Janet Jagan Janet Jagan was an outstanding and remarkable figure in both Guyanese and postwar anti-imperialist politics, who played a central role in the po- litical life of her adopted country for more than sixty years. Born in Chicago in 1920, Janet Jagan met and married her husband Dr. Cheddi Jagan whilst he was studying dentistry in the USA. Both were pas- sionately committed to politics, and upon returning to British Guiana in the 1940s they became co-founders of the Political Affairs Committee which, in 1950, turned into the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). Janet Jagan was appointed as both its first General Secretary and the editor of its journal Thunder. She also became the first woman to be elected to the Georgetown City Council, Guyana’s first female Deputy Speaker, the first female Cabi- net Minister under self-government, the first female Prime Minister and finally the nation’s first female President after the PPP won the elections in December 1997. She resigned in 1999 due to ill health, and died in Georgetown Public Hospital on 28th March 2009. These two volumes contain Janet Jagan’s speeches made in the Legisla- tive Assembly and Parliament during her lengthy political career. Although they have been compiled in chronological order, they do not contain a com- plete record of her extensive contribution to Guyanese politics as both the 1953 Official Reports and those for sittings held between 1975 and 1997 are currently unavailable. Nevertheless, the speeches that are reproduced here clearly demonstrate Janet Jagan’s unswerving support and continuous fight for the rights of the nation’s underprivileged people, whether it be in terms of housing, health, pensions, working conditions or the ongoing need for economic, social and political reform and development. Janet Jagan entered the House of Assembly for the first time in 1953, when she was appointed Deputy Speaker. Together with her husband Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the poet Martin Carter and a number of other ministers and PPP members she became a political prisoner following the suspension of the Constitution by the British Government later that same year. When fresh elections were held in 1957 and the PPP returned to office, she was ap- pointed Minister of Labour, Health and Housing. During 1963-64 she served as Minister of Home Affairs and Senator, but resigned her role as Home Affairs Minister when she was unable to control the police force that had not intervened when extreme acts of violence were committed by opposi- tion henchmen.