The PNC grew out of Burnham’s quest for personal power

Nov 14, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
This letter is in response to Barrington Braithwaite’s missive titled “Saying there’s nothing great about the PNC’s role in Guyana’s history is ignorance or orchestrated dishonesty” (KN, November 11, 2012) and Mike Persaud’s letter titled “Burnham and Jagan bequeathed to us ethnic parties and ethnic voting” (KN, Nov 12, 2012).
Persaud gets it wrong when he claims that I am blaming the PNC alone for ethnic politics. I have always blamed both the PPP and the PNC for racial politics.
What I stated in my letter is that the PNC was the only major political party in Guyana’s history formed specifically to pursue a racially destructive agenda to obtain political power.
The PPP was formed as a multiracial party and became a racial party. The PNC was formed directly out of Burnham’s failed quest to seize power in the PPP.
While both PPP and the PNC fought it with equal ferocity, the PPP did not start the race war.
From even before Burnham joined the PPP, Cheddi Jagan commanded Indian support. The PPP was assured of Indian support because of Cheddi Jagan. The PPP did not need to seek racial support.
It was guaranteed. Burnham did not have the support of the majority of Africans when the PNC was formed. Many Africans were distrustful of Burnham.
Africans had a strong presence in the educated and middle class. They were not easily convinced. Burnham had to convince them. He appealed to the basest of tactics; race and ethnicity. Mike Persaud is absolutely correct when he talks about Jagan and Burnham as the two most destructive leaders this country has known.
Barrington Braithwaite should stop distorting history. No matter how hard and how tirelessly he tries to distort history and undermine truth, there is nothing historic or great about the role of the PNC or the PPP in Guyana’s history.
Look around Guyana and we are witnessing the devastation the PNC and PPP have heaped upon Guyana. It assaults us everywhere we turn. When I state that Forbes Burnham was a divisive, power-crazed individual with an inflated sense of entitlement, history backs me up. Braithwaite blinds himself to Burnham’s power drunk ways and his raging thirst for power which, in addition to Jagan’s rabid addiction to communism, caused the rupture in the PPP and the descent into racial politics.
The PNC was created for Burnham’s power egotism and opportunism. It was not created as an alternative. It became, in many ways, as communist as the PPP wanted, look at nationalization for a sound example.
M. Maxwell

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The PNC grew out of Burnham’s quest for personal power

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