A brief history of instabilities in Guyana, 1953-2019

Mar 07, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The year 2019 has come at an uncertain time. Guyana is facing an egregious Constitutional monster that is making every citizen in and out of the land nervous. There are more than a million Guyanese in foreign lands and they have loved ones living right here, so they too will not want to see ugly crises engulf the land.
Guyana drifts from one explosive imbroglio to another. This has been long before Independence. Guyana became independent in 1966. Yet way back in 1953, problems, troubles, confusion, terrible tensions, instability visited the land, and since then the runaway train is still in runaway mode.
In 1953, the Constitution was suspended, its elected government disbanded and several of its leaders including Dr. and Mrs. Jagan were jailed by the colonial government. Then came the cataclysmic split between Jagan and Burnham, and thus the birth of the PNC. From thereon, the zero sum battle between these giants has exacted a humongous toll on Guyana’s social health.
I grew up seeing the permanency of instability in Guyana. The beginning of the sixties witnessed horrible ethnic and political violence. This still remains the worst period of mayhem in Guyana. I would rate it as the worst, because the violence in Buxton between 2002 and 2006 did not engulf Guyana, the way the conflicts from 1960 to 1964 did.
The three saddest incidents of political violence in Guyana’s history outside of the torture and execution of slave rebellion survivors remain in the following order; the bombing of the Son Chapman ferry on its way to MacKenzie in which 38 African Guyanese lost their lives; violent attacks on Indians, also in Mackenzie, in which rapes, murders and displacements took place; the unspeakable Abraham family incident in which Arthur Abraham, former PS in the Office of Premier Cheddi Jagan had his home bombed . He lost his life and six of his children perished in the inferno.
We got Independence in 1966, yet soon after, political conflicts dominated the landscape. That period, one could say, culminated in the death of Walter Rodney. In 1979, Guyana braced for the Rodney Revolution when it was anticipated that there would be a huge showdown between supporters of Walter Rodney and the WPA and the State under Forbes Burnham. It wasn’t to be. The next year, 1980, Walter Rodney was murdered.
President Burnham died in 1985 and a scandalously rigged election followed. More crises arose. Elections were due in 1990, but weren’t held, precipitating another national moment of unnerving anxiety. The long rule of the PNC ended in 1992, but Guyana saw an exchange not a change. The cries of ethnic discrimination that echoed in the sixties African people when the Indianized PPP ruled and that echoed in the seventies when the Africanized PNC ruled, returned after 1992.
The period 1997 onwards saw tragic moments of discrimination from the ruling side and unruly and violent political ethics from the opposition. Those writing on this period will no doubt devote some attention to the catch phrase of that time – “mo fyaah, slo fyaah.” Our neighbouring CARICOM countries came in and settled things in a covenant that has gone down in the history books as “The Herdmanston Accord.” Moreover, once more, the people of the Caribbean wondered who or what was this country named Guyana.
The period 2002-2006 was traumatic, violent and internecine. The heinousness of this section of the evolution of Guyana has only one parallel as mentioned above – the violence from 1960 -1964. Guyana was virtually paralyzed by violent gunmen operating with impunity from Buxton. Guyana dug one hole to fill another. To confront and defeat the Buxton conspiracy, ruling politicians gave extra-judicial latitude to a notorious drug lord.
Instability is the permanent friend of this country. We saw a unique situation develop on December 21, when a majority government lost a no-confidence vote (NCV). We are currently swimming in the consequences of that process in the Guyana Parliament. We are in the middle of a crisis that, any minute now can precipitate more rounds of instabilities. Yesterday, the nation held its hope high, so high, that as Barry Manilow sang, in one of his songs, “the stallion could touch the sun.”
An anti-climax occurred yesterday. There was no agreement between the Opposition leader and the President on the implication arising from the NCV way back on December 21, 2018. What happens to Guyana if the Court of Appeal rules that the NCV was valid and the Caribbean Court of Justice upholds that ruling? It would mean that the APNU+AFC government cannot remain in office. So what happens then? Simply – another round of the instabilities generation after generation have grown up with.

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