Restoration of the dignity of the Guyanese people

Feb 24, 2012 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Agriculture is the backbone of our economy. This has been so since the colonial days and is likely to remain so for quite some time despite the fact that a fair measure of diversification of our economic activities has taken place over the past few decades.
Notwithstanding this acknowledged fact, both the colonial administration and the former PNC regime sought to downplay the role and importance of agriculture to our economic life, the former out of purely commercial interests and the latter for political reasons. Today, thanks to the PPP/C administration, agriculture is now given the right kind of emphasis, in particular, sugar and rice production.
Actually there was in the past a total imbalance in the weight given to agriculture by the then colonial administration as pointed out by Dr. Daniel Newmark, agricultural economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who visited British Guiana and the West Indies during the late 1950s. In a Report on his visit he had this to say:
“ One of the main characteristics of the territorial export trade in the Caribbean is its dependence on a small number of products, a dependence typical of economically underdeveloped areas, while the import requirements of each territory are characterized  by a very wide range of foodstuffs, raw materials and manufactured goods.”
In other words we have had a paradoxical situation where we were producing what we do not consume and consuming what we are not producing. With the exception of the extractive bauxite industry, there was no attempt at industrialization by the colonial authorities. In a country with unlimited fertile land, there was no real attempt to encourage the growth of agricultural crops except for sugar. The Banks and other lending institutions were advancing very little credit to farmers in particular the small farmers to enable them to capitalize and increase production and productivity.
Only land devoted to sugar was given priority by the colonial administration. This was borne out by a Royal Commission Report when it stated:
“……practically all well drained land is in sugar. …The areas devoted to rice and pasture were badly drained and abound in large swampy areas where almost amphibious cattle, sheep and pigs eke out an unusual existence.”
As mentioned before, due to colonial neglect, little or nothing was done to improve the living and working condition of the poor and oppressed. The Guyanese people suffered tremendously as a result of exploitation, backwardness and poverty.
In his 1946 Annual Report, Dr. Giglioli, famous for his role in the fight against malaria in the colony wrote:
“Approximately 60% of school children between 1938 and 1945 showed evidence of chronic malaria; the birth rate was low and the death rate high.”
Continuing, he wrote:
“In most years the number of deaths exceeded the number of births. Infant mortality in malaria years ranged from 235 to 255 per thousand live births (1938-1944).”
The Annual Report of British Guiana for 1949 stated:
“Between 1838 when slavery was abolished and 1917 when the last batch of immigrants arrived, British Guiana had obtained more than 430,000 colonists from India, Africa, Madeira, China and other places. Even making allowances for immigrants returning to their native lands, it might be assumed that they would have maintained their numbers. Yet, the population of 309,000 in 1911 had become 307,000 in 1921.”
More significantly, the ordinary people were denied their fundamental right to elect a government of their choice due to a limited franchise in which only a small proportion of the Guyanese society were allowed to cast their ballots in general elections. The franchise was limited only to the rich and powerful and those with influence and power. The Legislative Council was in the main an exclusive charmed circle of planters, businessmen, and professionals. No wonder Professor Arthur Lewis in his publication “Labour in the Caribbean” had this to say:
“The impression is now widespread among the people that the Governor and officials are little more than the tools of a white oligarchy of planters, merchants and bankers in whose society they spent most of their time and whose will it is that the policy of the government is the policy of the local club decided on perhaps over a round of golf or a whisky and soda.
It was not until the formation of the PPP, under the dynamic and charismatic leadership of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and his wife Janet Jagan, that some measure of respect and dignity was restored to the Guyanese people.
Hydar Ally

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