In defence of President Forbes Burnham

Aug 14, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Editor’s note; this is the conclusion of Mr. Talbot’s letter as carried in our edition yesterday. His missive was a response to Mr. GHK Lall. Mr. Lall’s reply follows.
My final examination of Mr. Lall’s emotional diatribe is to look briefly at several points he made .
· He claimed that Mr. Burnham was a maximum leader and the political nemesis of Indians. But he failed to mention that Mr. Burnham and Dr. Jagan were very cordial and respectful to each other. He failed to tell us that it was the modus operandi of the PYO and other organs to celebrate the Black man as the Indian’s nemesis and not the policy of the government.
· In his “fairness” he failed to demonstrate the evil of LFSB. If this man was so anti-Indian and such a political nemesis to them why did he see to it that all religious holidays important to that population are national celebrations. Why did he usher in Enmore Martyrs’ Day as a national holiday? These are items towards “social cohesion” that Mr. Lall just flew by at break neck speed, to keep that bias narrative of evil Forbes Burnham alive.
· It would be nice for Mr. Lall to tell us which school of thought that allowed him to rate Mr. Burnham a mere 20 out of a 100. Burnham partook in the formation of CARICOM and helped steer the forming of the Non-aligned Movement.
He is still the only Guyanese Head of State to be invited to the White House on an official state visit; Guest of Her Highness Queen Elizabeth II; and in his reign it was the only time in our history that saw world leaders visiting our shores. If Mr. Burnham was ranked so low on the world stage then why was he so sought after by leaders such Indira Gandhi, her dad Mr. Nehru, Fidel Castro, and others? Before President Nixon visited China, Guyana was the first Western State to ink diplomatic relations with China. I recalled as a small boy in Primary Four when President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, visited our nation to show appreciation for Burnham’s support for his nation’s independence and the fight against Apartheid.
· On the issue of elections fraud, the jury is still out of that and while I have access to lots of information this particular subject evades full exposure. However, Burnham was not the only rigger of elections; if we are to accept he did. This was done in 2011 and 1997. It was almost pulled off in 2015 so lecturing us about Burnham rigging elections is yet another weak analysis of Burnham displayed by Mr. Lall.
Mr. Editor, I have taken much of your precious column space refuting a gentleman I hold in esteem. It is this respect that forced me to decide to take on his bias and revisionist narrative. Even as he spoke of voting for the first time last year, he managed to make it about Mr. Burnham and not about the generation behind his (mine) and the one behind mine.
We wanted change (jury is still out on that) and his vote for that ticket has afforded us a chance to dream. Mr. Burnham had many flaws; chief among them was his monarchical constitution of 1980 which no succeeding government wants to truly bury. H
e was wrong when he pulled up the railroads and shipped them to India for Tata buses and not realizing that he could have opened up Guyana’s interior for faster development. Burnham’s nationalization of many key industries hurt our economic development; it scared potential investors away. These, along with his government’s failure to insure some fundamental rights such as freedoms of press are spots on his legacy sheets.
As examiners and recorders of history it is incumbent on us to be objective in such analysis of Mr. Burnham and sadly Mr. Lall did not do exercise this. His review/analysis is at best very callous and can be seen (to use his word) as an “odious” rebuke of Guyana’s first Prime Minister’s tenure.
Mr. Burnham and all our leaders deserve to be looked at in totality and not have parts of his legacy picked apart to propagate a false narrative. If we continue down this road of emotive analysis of our past leaders we will never arrived at the healing point. If we continue to tell our next generation that somehow one ethnicity bears the lion’s share for peace and bridge building, peace will be hard to achieve and not bridges will be built.
While I am not a grand celebrant of Mr. Burnham, he did do much towards social cohesion and national unity. He had ideas others did not support and he had no partner in the opposition to help build a nation. His adversaries smiled in his face and behind his back set about sabotaging his efforts. We cannot blame him for others not wanting to sit at the table and nation build. Any analysis of our leaders must be holistic and not pigeon holed to suit any negative propaganda.
Tyrone L. Talbot

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