Forbes Burnham and the making of modern Guyana

Aug 10, 2014 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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Forbes Burnham became the last Premier of British Guiana at the head of a People’s National Congress-United Force coalition administration fifty years ago on 14th December 1964. He then became the first Prime Minister of Guyana at Independence 18 months later, on 26th May 1966. He started the transformation of colonial Guyana into modern statehood.
The colony’s finances were in a mess after People’s Progressive Party administration’s inglorious, seven-year regime from 1957 to 1964.  The British government declared that, under Cheddi Jagan, the colony had become ‘insolvent.’ Forbes Burnham, however, was able to report to the people a remarkable recovery just six months later.  His administration had established peace in a country that had been torn apart by civil violence. The economy started to show signs of buoyancy.  With this effort at home, he was able to secure foreign-aid grants, low-interest loans, machinery and technical assistance.
Forbes Burnham fulfilled an election promise to raise the minimum wage of government employees. His administration successfully rehabilitated the thousands of persons who had become displaced as a result of the ‘Disturbances’ which had been fomented by a toxic combination of PPP political action, in the form of what Cheddi Jagan called a ‘Hurricane of Protest’ and a Guiana Agricultural Workers Union – GAWU – strike in the sugar industry. 176 persons were killed as a result of that campaign of terror. Thousands became ‘internal’ refugees.
Forbes Burnham, nevertheless, pressed ahead with his plan to modernize Guyana. He reconstructed the coastal road network and sea defences; constructed the Soesdyke-Linden highway; bridges on the Canje and Demerara Rivers; the international airport at Timehri; the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary agricultural development scheme and completed the Black Bush Polder and Tapakuma agricultural schemes started by the colonial government. Infrastructural works – pure water supply, sea defence, drainage and irrigation, and electricity generation – were undertaken. He pioneered huge working people’s housing schemes.
He introduced significant educational, social and cultural changes. He provided free education as a constitutional entitlement. He constructed the University of Guyana and Cyril Potter College of Education, the New Amsterdam Technical Institute, Guyana Industrial Training Centre, several multilateral schools and hinterland schools for indigenous students. The Caribbean Festival of Arts and the Guyana Festival of Arts were initiated. The State Paper on the Equality of Women was presented and adopted in the National Assembly.
Burnham placed special emphasis on the welfare of the indigenous peoples. This was signalled by the passage of the Amerindian (Amendment) Act and the process of vesting land titles in Amerindian communities began. Guyana’s religious, ethnic and cultural diversity received special consideration. The Islamic festivals of Eid-Ul-Adha and Youman Nabi, and the Hindu festivals of Holi and Deepavali became national holidays under the Public Holidays (Amendment) Act approved by the National Assembly in 1967.
Burnham introduced major political changes. Political independence, for him, was just the first step to true nationhood. He articulated the view, therefore,   that the next objective should be for the country to become a republic. He observed, in proposing the motion in the National Assembly to declare Guyana a Republic: “moving to the status of a republic represents, to my mind, a further step in the direction of self-reliance and self-confidence…we have decided that the monarchy should go.”
He saw becoming a republic “as cutting us loose from a syndrome of dependency – political, economic, cultural, and psychological” and as bolstering  “our sense of self-worth and foster a nationalistic fervor that would make us confident in our ability and capacity to work at a level of sustained excellence, to convert our country into a modern, developed, prosperous State.”
Forbes Burnham initiated transformational changes in foreign and regional relations. At the regional level, he played a key role – with the active support of two other Caribbean prime ministers Vere Bird of Antigua and Barbuda, and Errol Barrow of Barbados – to pioneer the Caribbean Free Trade Association, the forerunner of the Caribbean Community. Burnham was one of the four founding fathers who were the original signatories to the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas which established the Caribbean Community and Common Market. He also led the Caribbean in opposing apartheid in South Africa and became a formidable ally of the liberation movements of Africa.
Forbes Burnham started the process of national unification by eliminating the human vulnerabilities and by erasing the disparities and inequalities associated with demographic, economic, geographic and gender differences and discrimination. These inequities had divided this country into two – one privileged, the other poor and dispossessed. His mission was to make Guyana ‘One Nation.’
Fifty years ago, Burnham laid the foundation which has been largely responsible for the growth of Guyana as an independent nation – policies aimed at securing the good life for the greatest number.

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