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Burnham, South Africa and the Lear jet offer
Dear Editor,
I read your article of 30th April captioned ‘Amidst protests, South Africa defers posthumous award to Burnham-reports’ with deep interest.
It is well known that Burnham, despite his faults, was a conviction politician and a man of principle. This can easily be exemplified by his attitude to Apartheid in South Africa. To him it was not a cause célèbre or a fashionable stance articulated and acted out to demonstrate African Third World solidarity. It was much more than the sum total of all these—it was a moral imperative and a crusade.
In the early seventies after our bauxite industry was nationalized, several foreign companies were vying for the contract to market Guyana’s precious bauxite ore internationally. One such company was a British mining multinational. This global player sent one of its top directors, an African friend of mine, to negotiate an international marketing contract with Burnham.
The African director came to Guyana several times within a few months to persuade Burnham to sign this marketing contract. Some of the initial meetings I helped to arrange. Before too long my African friend realized that Burnham had no intention of signing any such contract with the British mining giant. Obviously the African executive reported this to his boss, the Chairman and CEO of the company.
The chairman’s response, based on decades of highly successful business dealings in India and Africa, was chronic disbelief that Burnham was not impressed with the deal, so he ordered his African director to find Burnham’s Achilles heel and his greatest acquired psychological need.
A study was done and the director reported the findings to his boss in the City of London. His boss then instructed him to leave the Lear jet with Burnham on his next visit to Guyana while he, the chairman and CEO, would see that the paperwork to transfer ownership was started. However, Burnham flatly turned down the Lear jet gift.
Subsequently, I was told by persons close to the transaction and close to Burnham (all deceased) that
when they enquired of Burnham if he was mad (my words not theirs), Burnham’s memorable response was that, as long as he was Guyana’s Head of State, he could never approve such an important contract with a company which has such close ties to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
My African friend took his Lear jet back to London and reported that Guyana has a highly principled leader at its helm and that the company should not waste any more time and money pursuing the bauxite contract with Guyana.
F. Hamley Case
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