Never their own freedom

Oct 08, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Do you realize that we have had in this country, three presidents who sought to lecture to the rich states what should be their obligations to poorer territories; how much of their wealth should be shared with the former colonies; and the respect that should be shown to the sovereignty of the newly independent lands of the former colonial empires?

That obligation was also demanded of Canada and the US who were not imperial empires that subjugated the New World.

Interestingly, while advocating shared wealth and shared governance on a global scale, these three presidents presided over sharply divided societies where half of the population cried out that no respect was shown to them and that their share of the national cake was denied them.

In other words, while they were fighting for freedom on the international stage, these presidents showed not an ounce of the same attitude while they ruled at home. We can start with President Burnham.

He was actively engaged in building the North-South Dialogue in the seventies. This was a time when the Third World was inflexibly tempestuous about unfair world trade that favoured the advanced industrial countries. The Non-Aligned Movement even got the UN to proclaim a bench mark of 0.7 percent of GNP as aid to the developing world. Only Sweden complied.

The last meeting of the North-South Dialogue was held in Cancun, Mexico. President Ronald Reagan represented the industrial economies. President Burnham was one of the Third World’s representatives.

At home, Burnham ruled as a tyrant. If you criticized him, you were dismissed from your public sector job. If you worked in the private sphere, you would still be visited with a victimizing hand. He showed contempt for constitutional, judicial and trade unions principles. If you produce a membership card from his party, privilege was bestowed on you.

Ironically, the fair distribution of resources that Burnham was pressing the West for, he didn’t practise at home. Freedom was to be given by the West to the people of the former colonies. But the dictators in the post-colonial oligarchies showed no interest in anything that even resemble democracy at home.

The little Third World dictators wanted freedom from the West alright but the freedom they had, they never shared with their own subjects. When I came home from serving the Maurice Bishop Government in Grenada, I heard Burnham speaking about his rejection of the IMF formula for Guyana at a Labour Day rally.

The IMF was called all sorts of names and was painted as a monster. But that very President declared me unemployable in my own country and I had to wait for his untimely death before the University could have accepted me. The IMF was a bad wolf to want to treat Guyana with bully gloves but it was alright for Burnham to bully me. Freedom for his own people never came when Burnham was alive.

Next there is Cheddi Jagan. When he became President, he founded a concept he called the New Global Humanitarian Order (NGHO). From 1993 until he died in 1997, he never failed to publicise his NGHO in the regional and international forums he spoke at (see David Dabydeen, “Cheddi Jagan: Selected Speeches, 1992-1997, Hansib).

At home, Jagan invented a fictional coalition partner called the Civic Component, dumped his priceless revolutionary friends, the WPA that fought with him in the trenches, and in an inhuman manner dismissed by the dozens, strategically placed public servants that worked with the former PNC Government.

Most of these dismissals were illegal. Jagan set about demolishing some of the crucial state institutions that existed for decades just because they were born under the PNC Government.

Before he died, he presided over a government and ruling party that had become incestuously kleptocratic. There was no National Humanitarian Order at home. But Jagan wanted that humanitarian kindness to come from the global community.

Finally, there is Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo and his anti-imperialist denunciation of the tentacles of the European Union. These will work their way through the soon to be signed EPA. Mr. Jagdeo threatened the EU with court action after it unilaterally refashioned the Sugar Protocol without consulting the Guyana Government.

Now, the EU is set to impose its will on Guyana and the rest of Caricom. If we talk about imposition of will, then there seems to be a lot about that from Mr. Jagdeo’s office. All readers of my column know about what I have accused the President of at UG. 

From where I sit, I don’t see Mr. Jagdeo consulting the Guyanese stakeholders on the things these stakeholders are impatiently waiting for. Bob Marley has a truly wonderful melody titled, “Waiting in Vain.”

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