Post mortem on Burnham’s death

Mar 31, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The conflict between Ukraine and Russia has brought back memories of the once powerful Soviet empire. Guyana had enjoyed friendly relations with the Soviet Union (USSR), so much so that when the former President Forbes Burnham died, his body was shuttled to the USSR to be preserved for perpetuity.
The Russians are considered as experts in embalming. It was to them that the North Korea reverted to preserve the remains of both its Founder Leader Kim Il Sung and his son Leader, Kim Jong Il.
Burnham died at the age of 62. Had he been alive today he would have been 97 years old.
Mystery and intrigue surrounded the death and burial of Forbes Burnham. It has long been rumoured that the body which was returned was a dummy and not that of Burnham. It was said that what came back to Guyana was a wax model made in Madame Toussaint’s museum in England. However, no evidence whatsoever was ever provided to establish that this was indeed the case. One unconfirmed report had stated that Burnham’s body was so badly deteriorated en route to the Soviet Union that it had to be buried in England.
Forbes Burnham is perhaps the only leader in the world to have been buried twice. He was buried days after his death and again one year later when his body was returned from the Soviet Union where it was sent to be preserved.
The then ruling PNC government had shipped the body off to the Soviet Union to be embalmed.
The PNC wanted to make Burnham a political God. The party wanted him larger than life and in the same category as Mao Tse Tung of China and Lenin of the Soviet Union, whose bodies were embalmed and put on permanent display.
Burnham would have been proud of what the PNC government did. The party wanted to elevate him to the status of a God and so no sooner was he buried, the mourners were chased out of the Botanic Gardens where his body was laid to rest.
Burnham’s body was retrieved from his tomb and smuggled back to the funeral parlour. At the time Guyana had a great deal of power outages. There were reports circulating that the long funeral service which the PNC organised to eulogise Burnham had caused deterioration of the body. There were also suggestions that Burnham’s remains further deteriorated because of a power outage at the place where it was being held prior to it being shipped to the Soviet Union.
The theory about the deterioration of the body after the funeral must be examined in the context of the long time that the body was in the Soviet Union. Burnham died in August1985 but his alleged remains were not returned to Guyana until the following year. December 1986.
If the body had in fact deteriorated en route to the USSR, the Soviets would not have kept it so long. There is another view that body never reached the Soviet Union.
They question why having gone to so much trouble to preserve Burnham, why the government would bury him. One possible explanation was the changing ideological stance of Desmond Hoyte who, it was said, was not keen to have the presence of Burnham hanging over his presidency.
Burnham was buried a second time after it was said that his family agreed that he should be buried in keeping respect for the sensitivities of the Guyanese people.
If his burial was shrouded in controversy, so was his death. Burnham died on the operating table while undergoing surgery at the Georgetown Hospital. Burnham had gone for a throat operation. Cuba had flown in two specialists for the operation. Burnham never woke up from the anesthesia. It is said that his heart gave out.
This was in August of 1985. Did Burnham have a heart condition? The United States had received reports that in 1977, Burnham had suffered a heart attack. US embassy sources had reported that he missed a major address to the nation that year. When he was seen months later by an embassy official at his home in Belfield, he seemed far thinner.
Declassified documents also reveal that a Trinidadian doctor had told US embassy sources in Guyana that Burnham had throat cancer. Burnham was a known chain smoker.
The Guyana government has never revealed why throat surgery was necessary and if Burnham did suffer from cancer. What was said was that Burnham died a pauper and that the government had waived his estate duties.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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Post mortem on Burnham’s death

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