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June is significant on Guyana’s political calendar

Jun 15, 2013 Letters

 

Dear Editor,
The month of June is significant on the political calendar of Guyana. It is the month in which five sugar workers were brutally shot to death by colonial police for having dared to stand up for their rights. It is also the month in which Walter Rodney was assassinated for having stood up for a free and democratic Guyana.
Much has changed since those sordid years. Guyana is today a free and democratic country, quite unlike what it was during the days of the Enmore shootings and the death of Walter Rodney.
At the time of the shooting to death of the sugar workers, there was no mass-based political party. Indeed, it was the shooting to death of the five sugar workers that acted as a catalyst to the formation of the PPP. At the graveside of the slain sugar workers, Dr. Cheddi Jagan made a silent pledge that he would dedicate his entire life to struggle for the liberation of the Guyanese people from the yoke of colonial rule and oppression. He was later instrumental in the formation of the People’s Progressive Party which until today remains the true voice of the working people and the vanguard of the liberation struggle for a better and united Guyana.
Walter Rodney fought valiantly for a democratic Guyana. Unlike the period of the slain sugar workers who later became known as the Enmore Martyrs, Guyana during the time of Rodney’s death had freed itself from colonial rule, but there was a new kind of oppression that resulted from the destruction of the democratic fabric of the society following the removal of the PPP from government in the elections of 1964 and the installation of the PNC-UF coalition government.
One of the first indications of the rise of authoritarian rule was in 1967, one year after the attainment of political independence, when the PNC booted out its junior coalition partner the United Force from government and hastily called fresh elections, but only after it had taken full control of the elections machinery.
From a minority party in all elections prior to 1968, the PNC dramatically arrogated to itself, through force and fraud, the status as the ‘paramount’ party.
It was against this background that the struggle for a democratic Guyana has meaning and significance. While the country was independent from British colonial rule, the dark shadows of authoritarian rule became a limiting factor in the country’s quest for genuine freedom and statehood.
To a large extent, freedom from colonialism was overshadowed by a new oppression which saw the systematic erosion of civil and constitutional rights of the Guyanese people. The high expectations of a prosperous and united Guyana following the attainment of political independence were shattered by the insatiable greed for power by the PNC regime which shamelessly rigged all elections since 1968 until democracy was finally restored to Guyana on October 5, 1992.
Hydar Ally

 

 

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