Four tragic mistakes since Independence

Sep 06, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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I will outline four tragic mistakes since Guyana became a sovereign state that have deeply affected this country and have dented its capacity to overcome crisis-situations and take us to higher levels of socio-economic development. There is a fifth one, but that existed since the 1950s.
Perhaps that one is the worst of the lot. It has to do with the abolition of the neutral civil servant creed and the creation of party ubiquity. It started with Premier Jagan when he took a party supporter and made him his Permanent Secretary and another one became the head of the nationalized electricity company. From thereon, Guyana’s administrative culture became degenerative. It boggles the mind to know why Guyanese cannot see how destructive Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, the PPP and the PNC were.
We can date the first of the four to Prime Minister Burnham agreeing to open the border claim of Venezuela. This is not a clear cut story because a well written book by Cedric Joseph exonerates Burnham from any conspiracy. Still the controversy lingers on. The second one was the decision by Opposition Leader Cheddi Jagan in 1975 to follow an advisory on Guyanese politics issued at a meeting of the international communist parties. There the Cuban Communist Party insisted that the PPP should develop a fraternal relation with the Burnham Government because the world communist movement had interpreted the Guyana Government to be an anti-imperialist ally.
Jagan never consulted his party supporters, his political allies like the WPA and other human rights entities. It was a terrible mistake because the Cubans and Soviets were acting out of their own interests and not Guyana’s. Even if Burnham was anti-imperialist he was tyrannically authoritarian with huge insensitive sentiments about the hurt he had caused the Guyanese people.
Jagan’s embrace provided Burnham with an expanding mandate to be more dictatorial. After Jagan offered “Critical Support” to Burnham, compulsory National Service was introduced and Walter Rodney was still banned from teaching at UG. Rodney was anti-imperialist just like the Cubans and the Soviets but they could not have been bothered with Guyana’s internal problems. This was an equally egregious policy of Jagan as any you can find of Burnham. It still amazes me to think that East Indians saw Jagan as their saviour when his record was so sordid.
Thirdly, there is the assassination of Walter Rodney. I lay the blame squarely at the doorstep of Forbes Burnham. It is an act for which no decent Guyanese should ever forgive Forbes Burnham. This was the mistake that permanently destroyed the legacy of Forbes Burnham.
We come now to the fourth great tragedy of Guyana – the alliance between the government and Roger Khan. A former PPP official told me he was in Natoo’s bar last month, and inside was a lone PPP leader (current member of the PPP hierarchy) having his liquor. The topic of conversation was the Simels trial. This PPP leader blurted out that Khan was a hero that saved Guyana.
This is the message PPP cadres have taken across the country to their supporters since Khan confronted the Buxton conspiracy. But they left out and continue to leave out the other half of the story. Many democratic governments in the past have used mercenaries and other sordid characters to do things for them. The Guyana context with Roger Khan is different. Khan was a drug trafficker who had his use for the government. He was a willing partner in the fight against the Buxton conspiracy but he used that leverage to create a hegemonic industry in Guyana that overlapped with state power. It was an act of madness on the part of a government to facilitate a drug trafficker in the way Khan was treated in this country.
Khan became a Leviathan in his own right. He used policemen, civil servants, soldiers ruling politicians to expand his empire. Gratitude had to be shown to him because of what he did for the government in Buxton. And gratitude was shown. Armed with parallel power, Khan used that power to fight his own battles and remained above the law. The result was a total breakdown in law and order in Guyana, in which high ranking policemen took orders from Khan.
The chickens have come to roost. When a drug lord fights alongside policemen, and policemen are given a blank cheque to shoot and kill first then ask questions, there is no way you can rein them in. What happened when the three coast guard sailors killed the gold dealer at Parika is a large indication that Khan has destroyed the morality of the security services in this country.

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