Race in Guyana and Trinidad politics should be eliminated

May 02, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
The English Caribbean is a multi-racial region, with descendants from Africa and India taking up the majority of the population, but there are sizeable numbers of Chinese, Portuguese, Syrian, Lebanese, and other ethnicity not to mention the mixed race, the Mayas in Belize, the Caribs of St. Vincent and Amerindians in Guyana and Dominica.
There are descendants from India in Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada, but the bulk of the Indians maybe more than a million in the Caribbean live in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.
The population in Trinidad and Tobago is almost equally divided between Indos and Afros and it is the same in Guyana hence the reason why the racial tension is sometimes high in these two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries especially during elections time.
Prior to independence there was no tension between the two major races, but with the advent of party politics there is a racial divide.
In Guyana the rift between the Indos and Afros started in 1955 after Forbes Burnham who was the Chairman of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) parted company with Cheddi Jagan, the leader of the party, and taking with him nearly all the Afro Guyanese, and 95% of the Indos remained with Cheddi. This was the beginning of the racial split which it is said that was initiated by the British and the Americans to put a wedge between the two races to prevent domination by the local force.
In Trinidad and Tobago after a Indo Trinidadian Basdeo Panday became the leader of a political party, the movement attracted more Indians, while the Afros remained with the People’s National Movement (PNM) which was headed by Dr. Eric Williams, who led the country to independence in 1962, and was known as the father of the nation.
Although Williams had Kamaldeen Mohammed and a few other prominent Indians in his PNM the Indos followed Panday.
After Burnham’s breakaway he appointed Neville Bissember, an Indo as his deputy instead of the powerful and well known John Carter, who later became Guyana’s High Commissioner in London as his deputy, while Cheddi ensured that Brindley Benn, an Afro was his No. 2 rather than the charismatic lawyer, Balram Singh Rai.
The moves by these leaders were merely a front to portray the image that the parties were not being administered on racial lines, but the trend continues.
The race talk intensified in the twin island republic a few months ago when the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Nizam Mohammed spoke of imbalance of the hierarchy in the police force which he vowed to correct. Instead he was fired.
The “imbalance” statement reminded me of the recommendation by the International Commission of Jurist (ICJ) which was made in the mid 1960s following racial rights. The ICJ said that the police force in Guyana was dominated by Afro Guyanese and the imbalance should be corrected, but this was never done.
After Mohammed’s controversial statement, comments were made by PNM members that there were racial imbalance in government’s boards and corporations which prompted Jack Warner, chairman of the UNC, and a minister of the Kamla Persad Bissessar administration, to point out that there is no imbalance under the People’s Partnership (PP)
Administration, but it was glaring under the Patrick Manning’s tenure.
The man who started a revolution in the 1970s for racial equality Makandal Daaga who was a black power advocate at the time, last week issued a plea for Trinidadians to stop the race talk.
Daaga who is the leader of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) one of the five partners of the PP administration said that following his revolution “equality and unity have been achieved and today race debates can only lead to division.
Over in Guyana, campaign for this year-end general election has begun and race talk has once again emerged.
Politicians should stop this nonsense about race and work towards improving living conditions for the electorates.
Oscar Ramjeet

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