The price of nostalgia

Jan 29, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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It is an idiosyncrasy of most persons to harbour a longing for the past and to believe that the era in which they were young was a better time than the present. This is why elderly politicians try to recreate the past by resurrecting old ideas which have little relevance today.
We are seeing this happening today with the decision of the President to increase the size of Guyana’s military by restoring the Guyana People’s Militia. This decision is not based on any sound military rationale. It is being justified on the need to have a militia in every region but it is based purely on nostalgia, a return to a practice when during the time the President was a soldier.
We are also seeing a return of National Service. The Guyana National Service had its roots in the National Cadet Corps and this is now once again been restarted.
Incidentally, it was the PPPC which the PNCR blamed for the demise of both the Guyana People’s Militia and the Guyana National Service. If the truth be known, it will be found that the PPPC merely administered the final rites to these institutions. They were effectively the victims of Budget cuts which began under Desmond Hoyte. They could not be sustained and were miniaturised under Hoyte. The PPPC merely completed their inevitable end.
Both the Guyana People’s Militia and the Guyana National Service represented a tremendous drain on the resources of the State. Both were part of the militarisation of the society. Both were established in the context of serious economic problems a mere ten years after Guyana would have attained Independence.
The Office of the Historian of the United States of America has released its foreign policy series dealing with the Carter Administration and among the declassified documents released are those which examine the US Embassy in Guyana’s analysis of the Burnham administration in 1976.
The US view was that the decision by Burnham to radicalise the PNC directly affected the Guyanese economy. The US Embassy in Guyana found the political decisions taken by the PNC government had exacerbated the economic problems of the country in 1977. The Embassy found that while bad weather and low sugar prices had hurt the Guyanese economy, it was the pouring of the funds into the Guyana People’s Militia, the Guyana National Service and the Upper Mazaruni Road project and other non-productive areas at the expense of capital investments in agriculture and other productive sectors, which had deepened the economic crisis. In other words, it was poor political decisions and economic mismanagement which worsened the economic problems.
This is what one of the declassified documents had to say, “Plain mismanagement and some corruption have helped. Also in this connection, it is interesting to note that Burnham refused to reveal total defense expenditures for 1976–77 in the Parliamentary budget debate.”
The APNU+AFC Administration is not hiding the present levels of military expenditure. In less than three years, it has increased military expenditure by 50% or an additional four billion dollars over 2014 levels. Yet, it claims that it cannot sustain the short-term support which the Guyana Sugar Corporation is asking for until 2020.
The PPPC has pointed to the fact that the 30 billion dollars which the APNU claims to have doled out to the sugar corporation since 2015 is multiple times higher than what the PPP gave to the same company in 2013 and 2014.
The PPPC is asking for an investigation into how this huge sum which was given to the sugar corporation was used. It is a reasonable request since it may identify some of the corruption which is known to exist within the sugar corporation or it may point to the improper use of other sources of revenue thereby burdening the treasury unnecessarily. In their talks with the government, the sugar unions should press for this investigation.
The economic, social and political crises which is presently taking place in Guyana is not dissimilar to what was taking place in Guyana in 1976 when the Guyana People’s Militia was established. And one of the dangers of establishing the militia is that it will become an unnecessary financial burden to the country’s military and cost taxpayers a few billion dollars each year.
The militia can again become part of the militarised state which existed between 1976 and 1985. During this period, the Guyana People’s Militia was used as a political weapon against the working class. The militia was used as scab labour during the sugar strike of 1977. It was also deployed in the bauxite industry during the industrial action which the workers took in 1976. Camps were established along the coast to keep an eye on communities which supported the PPPC.
So it is not just a return to nostalgia and irrelevant institutions which Guyanese have to be fearful about. It is a return to an era in which the state was militarised and militarised units were placed in direct confrontation with workers. It is a return to a time when military spending was supported by retrenching workers.  These are the dangers which Guyana faces as Granger brings back the militia and the Guyana National Service.

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