A short history from memory by Hamilton Green for Donald Ramotar

Jun 17, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I learnt of a letter written by Former President Donald Ramotar, a person I enjoy a cordial relationship with and regard as a friend.

I was somewhat disappointed at the vitriolic language impugning my character and the attempt to suggest my knowledge and calling into question the accuracy of my recollection of previous events and asseverating among other things that I am on a mission to, in his words, ‘misrepresent, distort, falsify and deliberately  mislead.’ The matter referred to I can attest to from personal knowledge and not as it appears to be the case of my friend Donald from writings and documents of doubtful authenticity.

First, is the use in our political environment of the word “ApanJaat,” a Hindu phrase saying vote for your own race. I noted the PPP did not coin this phrase but clearly did little to subdue it as it consumed and divided our Country and to suggest further that Burnham and the PNC used ApanJaat for their own purposes is absolutely ridiculous and an unfortunate distortion of that period I lived through. Let me set the records straight, I publicly said that from the best of my knowledge, neither Burnham nor Jagan were racist, but clearly others in the Party sought to use others with different ideas and today this demon is still with us.

I grew up in the south of the city, where my father owned the first drugstore in Albouystown and he also started the People’s Benefit Scheme, the first Indigenous Bank in the City. He was therefore a very popular figure. I recall Daniel Prahabudas Debidin invited him to chair a meeting at St. Thomas’ School in Ketley Street; opposite where my godmother and her husband (half white, half Indian) lived. He took me with him to the meeting, attended by a large number of Indo-Guyanese and Afro Guyanese. During the Meeting, Debidin and another man addressed the gathering in Hindi. My father took me by the hand, as he walked out of the meeting. Later, a Mr. Singh of School Street, Albouystown told my father that it was there “ApanJaat” gained currency. Fast track to the 1953 Elections, where as a teenager I helped the United PPP win the Elections of 1953.

After the PPP split, along with my parents, we came out on the side with Burnham. At that split, two prominent Indo-Guyanese supported Burnham; Medical Doctor, JP Latchmansingh and Lawyer Jai Narine Singh. My understanding is that this set off alarm bells within the ranks of certain PPP top-brass because of the demographics of the country, ApanJaat was allowed to flourish and the rest is history. Ramotar’s obsession, like others, to blame Burnham for everything that went wrong in Guyana is well known. His statement that Burnham and the PNC used ApanJaat to scare black people as a reverse racism is absurd and ludicrous.

The next issue was Guyana’s cold shoulder to the West Indies Federation. The real concern of certain political figures in Trinidad and Guyana was that these were the only two territories which had several Indian groupings and hence their concern that the Federation of Antigua, St. Kitts, Barbados, Jamaica, etc. would mean a preponderance of Manumitted Africans.The Old Folks used a term, which I now use, “Not what my friend may see written or rewritten but these are the true facts.

The question of the initiative to bring in thousands of Indians from Kerala. As is known, even before India’s Independence in 1947, prominent Indians traveled to Guyana to hold discussions and I recall that in 1964, in conjunction with the widening rift between China and the Soviet Union, a large leftist faction of the CPI Leadership, based predominantly in Kerala and West Bengal’s split from the Party to form the Communist Party in India.

Recall, after Sir Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech at Fulton in the presence of US President Harry S. Truman that the Cold War was red hot in the late 50s and 60s and members of the Government of India were willing to support this suggestion by elements within the PPP to bring Indians from Kerala because it was regarded as a Communist enclave.  Not New Delhi nor Bombay to Guyana because they were happy to get rid of these communist in India.This was, therefore, more an ideological issue than one of race or caste, but because of an already racially polarized society in Guyana, we viewed this as an effort to increase the Indian population and therefore Indian vote, The artful contention of a denial of the above by some officials in and from Trinidad is again an absurdity.

Other issues, such as CARIFESTA, require no debunking since the 70s should be within the memory bank of this generation of Guyanese. If we are to unite this country, we must put an end to old myths and propaganda, share with this generation the truth of our history, the enormous influence of the Cold War and how as a nation we were caught, and we still are in the middle of two warring elephants.We must remember that when President John F. Kennedy had the famous Rocking Chair Meeting with Dr. Jagan, Dr. Jagan failed to give an outright reply then Kennedy asked him are you a Communist? We must not ignore the relationship between these issues in the all-consuming Cold War.

Unless we put an end to this back-hand or should I say, this bacchanal of our history, we deny this generation an opportunity to profit from the mistakes of the past, disallowing them the opportunity to remove the blanket of darkness and more than that to recognize that even during slavery to now the tricks of the foreign and local Massa.It is that lack of understanding of our history and the need for authentic unity that has allowed Massa and the new oligarchy who has replaced Massa to prevail.

If National Service was allowed to flourish, it would have been effectively diminished if not destroyed existing fears, suspicion and distrust.On the Berbice River Bridge, I stand by every word in my statement, that is, that the initial study showed that the best location would have been a point between Stanleytown and Rotterdam on the East to Ithaca on the west.The PPP, when they got into office, made a political decision post 1992, to locate the bridge further north, where the river was wider and that is the reason my dear Donald, why the IDB did not provide the promised funds for the construction of the Berbice Bridge.

The PPP Government, no matter what Jagdeo is now saying, could not offer a satisfactory explanation for the decision and subsequent Engineer’s study to shift the Bridge from Palmyra on the East and D’Edward Village on the west, and with the seed-money taken from the NIS, weakening this initiative of the PNC and Burnham in the interest of workers.This report should be in the Ministry of Works’ file, that is, if it was not destroyed in the many bonfires of records, documents after 1992. The biggest of these bonfires was outside of NCN; courageously Ave Brewster who is alive was able to save a few tapes before they were consumed.

You see Dear Donald; I speak from personal knowledge and not the figment of the imagination of certain folks. Additionally, I was Minister of Works, Hydraulics and Supply when the idea of bridging the Berbice and Demerara Rivers was conceived and ordered by Forbes Burnham.I suppose since we’re in West Berbice, someone can tell us why the billion dollar hospital announced recently could not be cited at Fort Wellington but will now be built at Bath Settlement?

On the question of his oft time repeated slogan of Indians being beaten etc., between 1992 and 2015, more Afro-Guyanese were beaten and murdered than any other group in this country and similarly 1960 and 1964. So let us stop this charade about one ethnic group being victims of communal strife in our country.I noticed he has ignored a point I had made earlier, that it is unfair to demand ethnic balance in one sector, and where he got this nancy-story, that the test for recruitment in security forces differed, is beyond belief and certainly not during my public life of seven decades. Where is the evidence? This is another nancy story.

On the security forces, the PPP had twenty-three years to correct all the wrong doings but nowhere in the world can you in just a few generations change the proclivities and preferences of people.I close on a light note, as you noticed how, with few recent exceptions, Indian boys and girls shied away from playing steel pans, playing football and track and field events and even singing calypsos.

Finally, I appeal to my friend Donald and others to emerge from this belief that their side consists of the saints and angels and the other side consists of the devil and demons. Incidentally, this week marks the anniversary of Former Permanent Secretary, Arthur Abraham of the fire that killed himself and seven children in Hadfield Street. Maybe Donald’s research can tell us who is responsible for this horrible fire/arson. I expect the Chronicle, which published Ramotar’s letter, would uphold the lofty principles of journalism and publish this response.

I agree with him that I have a role to play to heal this country. I am prepared to discuss this and other matters anywhere, anytime on the condition that we be allowed equal time to share our experience with young people and offer them an opportunity to acquire that moral and spiritual strength so that we can benefit from the bounty that beckons.

Hamilton Green

Elder

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• ApanJaat, country, Donald Ramotar, Hamilton Green, PNC

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