Three postulates and an anniversary

Jan 05, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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By now readers would have discovered that the articles for this week’s columns are dedicated to the sixtieth anniversary of the People’s Progressive Party. This year will also mark the 25th anniversary of the abandonment of talks between the PNC and the PPP, over the formation of a national government.
In recent times, there have been many attempts at historical revisionism concerning the PPP and its former General Secretary and co-founder, Dr. Cheddi Jagan.
I wish, today, to devote myself to dealing with three postulates that have been made as part of the revisionist enterprise. The first of these is that the PPP signed a pact with the PNC in 1985 for a joint slate with the PNC.
The second contestable postulate is that after the 1985 election, Dr. Cheddi Jagan did not seek an accommodation with the other opposition parties. And the final postulate to be corrected is that Jagan promised the Americans that he had abandoned communism.
Both the PPP and the PNC leadership have been relatively silent over the years about the discussions that took place during the period just preceding the 1985 elections.
These discussions were conducted amidst the backdrop of the fallout between Burnham and the Americans following the latter’s invasion of Grenada.
Burnham anticipated a backlash, both politically and economically. And the manners did come through Guyana’s exclusion from the Caribbean Basin Initiative. With elections also looming in 1985, the deteriorating relations with the Reagan administration meant that Burnham had to seek an accommodation with the PPP in order to avoid holding elections under such unfavourable conditions. Thus the talks for a joint government. The PPP is on record as stating that it was not prepared to agree to any formula outside of free and fair elections.
These talks were from all accounts mainly concentrated between representatives of Burnham and representatives of the PPP, but there was never any formal agreement inked and the talks did not get very far because when Burnham died, Hoyte had no time for this engagement and abandoned the process.
On this the sixtieth anniversary of the PPP, there are two persons from within the PPP who were intimately familiar with these discussions that took place and who should clear the air as to what were the discussions within the PPP on these talks that did not consummate in any deal.
The 1985 elections held under Desmond Hoyte were the foulest elections ever held in Guyana. Those elections actually brought the opposition parties closer together and led to a sustained struggle for free and fair elections, a struggle that successfully culminated in free and fair elections in 1992.
It is therefore inaccurate to say that the PPP did not seek an accommodation with the other opposition parties after the 1985 election. After the 1985 election, the parties came together in what became known as the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy. When there was no accommodation between the PPP and the other opposition parties was after 1992 elections. But that too has its own history which has been dealt with extensively in these columns in the past.
In the run-up to the 1992 elections, Cheddi Jagan visited the Carter Centre in July 1990 and then went on to Washington where he lobbied members of Congress. Subsequently, the US State Department issued a statement calling for free and fair elections in Guyana.
It was a decisive and defining moment in the struggle for free and fair elections.
By this time the Cold War had ended. But despite the US being less concerned about a communist threat, it would be safe to assume from what was taking place on the ground that the Americans, with vested interests in the telecommunication and bauxite sectors, would have preferred Hoyte to have won those elections given their historical apprehension of the PPP and the direction he had taken the economy from 1989.
There is no evidence on record so far that Jagan told the Americans that he had abandoned communism. If he did, they would not have believed him. There were, however, influences working in Guyana, through some prominent businessmen who wanted to keep Jagan away from the WPA.
In order to appease the Americans and no doubt at the urging of these interests, just before the 1992 elections, Jagan issued a statement indicating that the building of socialism in Guyana at that time was out of the question. This was not an abandonment of communism.
That abandonment came later with Jagan’s death. With his passing, there is no longer any tension between structural adjustment and the need to defend and improve the lot of the working class. The PPP has become ideologically sterile and has been totally now co-opted by the capitalist class.
The Americans are fully aware that they no longer have to bother about a communist revival in Guyana. The Left throughout the world was undermined by the demise of the Soviet Union. But in Guyana, the Left died with Cheddi.

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