Guyanese need to always remember the evil of this man

Jun 04, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – This analysis here centres on the priceless value of free and fair elections in deciding the future of a country. On March 3, 2020 about midday in the studio of Kaieteur Radio sitting alongside Leonard Gildarie, my mind was made up.
I was not going to stay silent on election rigging that would bring back the permanency of power and the evil such permanency brings. I, my parents, siblings, wife and her parents and siblings too lived under the evil empire of President Forbes Burnham. I know how rigged elections can destroy the entire contents of a nation.
Here is an enumeration of dastardly edicts by Mr. Burnham that had there been the possibility of contenders losing election after Independence in 1966, Burnham would have been an ephemeral footnote in Guyanese history. These two words “ephemeral footnote” is so reverberating in their presence because after August 2020 many of those who held power are gone and reside in obscurity. We will ask today and for many years to come; where are Granger, Harmon, Nagamootoo, Simona Broomes, among others?
Before we come to the enumeration, a powerful scholarly reflection on what I will call “the Burnham dilemma” is in order. Given the demographic shape of Guyana from the 1950s onwards, Burnham’s dilemma was that his African-oriented PNC outfit could not win a general election.
Burnham decided that he will not allow his fate to be sealed in such a tragic way so he invented rigged elections. But the possession of power through tampering with elections does not have to result in evil. The holder can use power to reach out, to placate his/her detractors, to seek accommodation. Burnham did nothing of the sort. He used power to expand his ego and his personal empire.
Here is a brief enumeration and as you read, think of if Burnham could have lost national elections if he would have gone in those directions.
1 – The 1974 rejection by government of UG’s decision to employ Walter Rodney.
2 – The 1975 enunciation of the paramountcy of the party doctrine whereby the private organisation named the People’s National Congress (PNC) became legally superior to the public sector sphere and had to accept prescriptions from the PNC leaders. To make the functionalism of the paramountcy effective, a ministry named National Development was founded but it was not staffed by professional public servants but PNC apparatchiks.
What this ministry did was to place a branch in all important public sector corporations and other vital public sector institutions. So at the University of Guyana, there was an office of the Ministry of National Development. For how powerful these apparatchiks were, see the autobiography of Yesu Persaud – pages 211-113.
3 – The 1976 introduction of compulsory National Service at UG. Without consultation with anyone at UG, and I emphasise, anyone, Burnham scrapped fees and instead implemented compulsory National Service (NS) in the interior. Those who went to UG on a fee-paying basis had no alternative but to do NS. I refused and I remember very vividly so did Vanda Radzik who later became a women’s rights activist.
4 – The creation of the External Trade Bureau (ETB) to regulate all import and export business in Guyana. To bring in anything from a toothbrush to a brush-cutter into Guyana, the businessman had to achieve the impossible – get an import licence from the ETB.
5 – The 1984 Labour Amendment Act. This was one of the most heinous assaults on trade union rights in the entire Commonwealth. It did two undemocratic things. One – It altered the fundamental rights clause of the constitution. This occurred because the PNC had a two/third majority in parliament. This meant that wages were no longer recognised as property rights. Two – It removed bargaining rights of individual trade unions. The Act made the TUC bargaining agent for all trade unions.
6 – The 1982 ban on the importation of a wide range of imported products including wheaten flour and dozens of essential items. Father Andrew Morrison in his book, “Justice: The Struggle for democracy in Guyana, 1952-1992,” wrote that the ban ranked as the biggest blunder of the PNC in its entire history in government.
These are just a sample of policy directions that resulted in extensive alienation of the population. But the maximum leader of the day piled on more questionable policies that brought about deeper alienation. He could not be stopped, only in death. In 1985 Burnham died.
So we end with the question – what if Guyana had free and fair elections, would there have been all these items mentioned above. Was it possible that Burnham would have lost the 1978 referendum and 1980 elections because of all these hateful policies? The answer is yes.
(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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