Dear Editor,
There is a vast gap between pre and post-Independence leaders/policies that accounted for the failures of nationalized industries generally. .
Mr Tarron Khemraj wrote: “As a result Bookers, by the 1950s, had a four-pronged corporate strategy that involved a responsibility to the following: (i) the shareholders; (ii) the sugar workers; (iii) the customers or consumers of sugar; and (iv) the wider community. It is my opinion there was little that was fundamentally wrong with the new Bookers corporate strategy. It reflected to a large extent the Fabian Socialist views of Jock Campbell.”
The four-pronged pre-Independence proposals by Bookers to revitalize the sugar industry and the living conditions of the poor sugar workers was not the original idea of Bookers. The concern for the workers was not because of mere benevolence and empathy on the part of exploiting colonials masters. They were all decades overdue with over six incidents of agitation and bloodletting from Devonshire Castle onwards, that virtually came to a head in the 1948 killing of the 5 Enmore Martyrs. The Venn Commission of 1949 and CF Andrews condemned the housing condition on the estates.
Dr Jagan played the crucial role with his resolve to champion the cause of the sugar workers and not the exploitative class of Bookers. We must remember that the various churches/emissaries who were sent to Guyana had already set the stage for the much needed improvement of the lot of the miserable sugar workers living under slave conditions. The colonials were already late on their four pronged programme.
From the inception, the opposition to the Jagans by the colonials, was most counterproductive to the economic wellbeing of the colony. The effects of that opposition (ever since 1953 legislative victory and the suspension of the constitution) were omitted. While policy decisions were not so precise to engender production and productivity, opposition to the man’s governance did more damage than good to the emerging nation state. Policies were one thing but personalities meant everything.
Seeking to attribute blame to the communist Cheddi Jagan for Burnham’s foul-up after the nationalization of sugar in 1976, does not hold water. Yes! There was the nationalizing of the bauxite industry also with PPP critical support. However, that support for nationalization did not engender the shared running of either the sugar or the bauxite industries. Among the debilitating effects of Burnham’s rule in the sugar industry, was the siphoning off of the sugar levy to prop up the failing bauxite industry.
Has Mr Khemraj factored into the equation the mismanagement of the PNC for 28 years in all of his analyses? This has virtually nothing to do with the policy of the acclaimed communist against the other self-proclaimed socialist-turned dictator. So while it was noted that Jagan set the stage for the nationalization of the two industries, Burnham set the stage for their ruin. As a contrast today we see the rice industry despite three major floods (1996, 2005, 2006) flourishing once more, while the colonials through the EPA set the stage for the ruin of the sugar industry by protectionism for the beet farmers in Europe, something which could not be blamed on the government’s faulty policy.
The stage was also already set also for the ruination of the bauxite industry before the PPP took over in 1992. We are dealing with two independent regimes with different management styles, and obviously one’s capacity to develop as opposed to the other’s capacity to destroy. One must not forget the devastation wrought by the PNC, aided by the colonial powers to wrest power from the PPP during the sixties.
As an example, between 1953-64 Jagan was just emerging as a leader and the entire colonial world was arrayed against him; they jailed him and suspended the constitution. Yet he made strides beyond all expectations in the rice industry, while Burnham with all the colonial backing (pre and post-Independence,) ruined the rice industry, not to mention the many failed schemes he accrued to his discredit, including the MMA which was hastily implemented to gain political mileage.
Despite the attack on the communist philosophy, no one could have adequately assessed the development strides which could have been made under Jagan as opposed to Burnham. China vindicates this. Up until the 1964 constricted governance of Dr Jagan, Guyana was the breadbasket of the West Indies. After that we very swiftly drifted to becoming the basket case of the Caribbean under the PNC. The migration of the petit bourgeoisie begun in earnest from the time the destabilization of the Jagans was perpetrated by the opposition aided by the colonial powers.
Yours faithfully,
Seopaul Singh
