Latest update April 18th, 2025 8:12 AM
LONG LINE LEGACY!
Editor,
The editorial (Feb 25, 2018) seeks to portray former president Forbes Burnham as a leader of great vision and concern for Guyana. This is a ludicrous, deceptive and shameless article. Can the writer indicate which one of Burnham’s grandiose plans succeeded?
The ink had scarcely dried on the ballot when he kicked out the coalition UF Party some two years after he wrestled the reins of power. Prime Minister Burnham had revealed his true colors. The Tyrant was caught up in a struggle between personal power and progress he choose the former and we are all paying for it today.
The mass Exodus in the early eighties of one ethnic group (which continues today) is reminiscent of the Jews under Hitler in 1930s Germany. The terminals of the (then) Timehri Airport resembled those at the New Delhi Airport. Parallel to this the dictator militarized an impoverished Guyana with National Service, National Guard Service, Young Socialist Movement, People’s Militia, Tactical Services Unit and, of course, some we do not even know of.
The Mazaruni Hydro project, Kimbia cotton venture were colossal failures. The Sanata Textile Mill and Yarowkabra Glass Factory were nothing short of being technological white elephants. Feed Clothe and House, National Service, scrapping of the railway etc. were all tragic visions.
His quest for self-sufficiency in the late 1970’s precipitated gruesome conditions: children went to school hungry, and a mass exodus of skilled and wealthy people coupled with the flight of money to off shore banks.
Under the dictators’ rule the Public Service disintegrated; corruption replaced competence –a legacy that lives on to this day. Nationalization of sugar and bauxite in the late 70’s, supported by Jagan’s ill-fated Marxist ideology, was the stepping stone for destruction.
Excessive dipping into the country’s coffers became Burnham’s self-therapy for a failed state. His five vice-presidents silently acquiesced –the highest academic achievement of one of them being 1 subject GCE! The most bizarre incident was at the Melbourne, Australia, and Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference. Some 52 PNC honchos attended as Burnham ‘hired’ the National Airline for two weeks!!
Qualifications for University of Guyana entry were lowered and National Service incorporated into the curriculum. As a result I never graduated from that institution; as is the case with thousands of others.
Many persons were dispossessed of their properties during the early Burnham era. Among the properties lost by the Kissoon family was Takuba Lodge, a building that is today worth perhaps close to US$5M. Burnham paid one million Guyana dollars for it. Hope estate was also usurped from the same family.
As for being brutally honest as posited (first line, third paragraph) the power maniac was simply brutal. Massa days had not changed…only the color of Massa had changed!
The Kabaka skillfully played a grand political game of selling Jagan’s Communism to the West and Jagan’s coolness to his fellow CARICOM black leaders. He condemned Apartheid in South Africa yet practised the same in his own backyard. At home lines formed at Knowledge Sharing Institute (KSI) outlets. What a name for a place to buy cooking oil and soap!
Today, Guyana is better off without the reflections on the ashes of Jagan and the half-rotten corpse (which presently lies in a mausoleum in the Botanic Gardens in Georgetown) of Burnham. As for his legacy, one salient fact stands out. Guyana has the same population today as it had in the era of Burnham.
Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine
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