That union often becomes embroiled in allegations, from detractors and critics, that it is government friendly and very “political” in a partisan sense. This is partly because GAWU’s majority membership is drawn from the sugar belt whose workers are known, or suspected, to be generations-long supporters and members of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
The above paragraph is to put in context the reason that GAWU uses the month of March every year to reflect and to observe some significant, pioneering but melancholy events in its history. Especially two of them. And being in my periodic “lazy” mode today, I’ll cling to the GAWU-inspired reminiscences to regale you with today.
Cheddi Jagan…
Any public official, any political leader of the stature of Cheddi Jagan who, though assuming a folk-hero, legendary and lasting aura, is subject to normal human frailty, is bound to attract both adulation and rabid criticism. These days Cheddi Jagan is the subject of both paranoid character assassins and the more objective analysts and detractors.
I have no inclination to join either the Cheddi-bashing or the overdone saviour worship today. Rather, because March marks both the birth and death anniversaries of Cheddi Jagan, I allow him to speak, once again, from wherever his soul reposes.
Cheddi said: “I won over the workers on the sugar estates by an overwhelming majority. One of my protégés, school-teacher Sidney King of Buxton was of great help to me in the (East Coast Demerara) Villages…
“My service in the Legislative Council from 1947 to 1953 was rewarding and stimulating. I looked forward to the debates. On one occasion in January, 1949, much to the exasperation of my wife, I cut short our holiday in St Vincent to return for a budget debate.
“At first I was rather naïve as a parliamentarian and a debater. I spoke with tremendous enthusiasm and force, thinking that the logic of my arguments would convince my colleagues. My opponents, particularly Frederick J. Seaford and Frank Mc David (Colonial Treasurer) both of whom were later knighted, were not, however; convinced by mere logic.
“Politics, it is said, is the science of ‘who gets what, when and how’. My task was to find out how, in a multitude of ways, overtly and covertly, the sugar ‘gods’ ruled. Mine was the role of ‘politics of protest’ with weapons of exposure and struggle. If the legislature was my forum, the waterfront, the factories, plantations, mines and quarries were my battleground.
“I brought a new dimension to the politics of protest, a continuity between the legislature and the street corner; the legislature was brought to the ‘streets’ and the ‘streets’ to the legislature. The Legislative Council was no longer hallowed Chamber where “gentlemen” debated at leisure and had their words recorded in Hansard for posterity. The legislature at last became part and parcel of the struggle of the people”.
Not all journalistic laziness, I used the above quotes to remind the Jagan – haters that even he was noble at one time.
Hugh Desmond Hoyte….
Politically-minded or not, you should remember the late president of the republic, Hugh Desmond Hoyte. If you don’t, let me state a few known and not-so-public facts about Mr Hoyte.
He’s the attorney-at-law who defended many East Coast Demerarra supporters of the People’s National Congress (PNC) accused of violent crimes during the racial clashes of the early sixties. (One of them became Desmond’s driver later my driver and family-friend from whom I learnt so much about the Hoyte household – but that is for the lower political gossips.) And yes, Desmond Hoyte was the reluctant politician, like Ptolemy Reid, whom the craftsman Burnham made into minister, prime minister and quiet powerhouse, much to the chagrim of an expectant Hammie Green.)
Before all that Desmond Hoyte was a teacher in Grenada who loved singing and story-telling and was a friend of the PM Erskine Sandiford. Hoyte had, what I would deem, many “Guyanese Portuguese connections” but would later ‘buse out some suspected local Guyanese – Portuguese Mafia!”
Most of all we must remember Hoyte for the following, after he succeeded the departed Forbes: Dessie resumed the importation of wheat flour and many consumer items longed for, but were restricted or banned. Dessie supported David de Caires in establishing a non-state, independent daily newspaper (now in your hands); he allowed the formal return of the choice to wear jackets and ties (“respect for other people’s standards,” he once said); he introduced a “radical “Economic Recovery Programme” (ERP) whatever judgment is passed upon it.
For these events alone Hoyte must be remembered. I know, first-hand of many of his misjudgments but even that would be subjective I suppose. He insisted on speaking at a Labour Day Rally as his wife lay seriously wounded in hospital and dead daughters and others were in the mortuary and the Treasury was reportedly worst off in 1992 when he engineered his party’s demise from office.
All that could be taken into account when the Desmond Hoyte biography is written. The trouble is PNC people don’t seem to like writing!
Alice?
GAWU’s people recognize Kowsilla, called “Alice” as their genuine workers heroine. Every March (6th) they commemorate her brutal passing during her protest at a strike by sugar-workers partly in the union’s recognition struggle. There is a bust and a little park in her honour. I regard this as just one way to herald the annual International Women’s Day every 8th of March. Do you? Alice was, after all, crushed to death in 1964 by a scab-driven tractor breaking the strike!
“Guyana’s cocaine” comes from?
Since this subject scares me, just a fundamental question: Just where do the Guyanese cocaine barons and cartels get their supplies from, to make my once-innocent country a major transshipment/exporter facility? Colombia? Jamaica? Brazil? Venezuela? Suriname, Cayenna? Trinidad?
There must be sources since it is never said we manufacture right here. Home Affairs Minister Rohee (who would be Guyana’s President) recently gave up (?): “They (residents of the communities) are there all the time… they know the geography, they know the local conditions, so we have to develop as we have done – and as we have to do better – relationships and cooperation with communities that live on the borders of these countries where we suspect drugs are penetrating from.
“The residents are ‘very important sources of information gathering’ but the challenge they have is the fact that law enforcement at present does not exist in all of the communities…
“This challenges all for innovation and improvisation as the reality is that the country cannot afford a “military presence at each kilometer of the borders between Guyana and Brazil these are very extensive borders…”
So the scared hinterland residents, needy and susceptible, have to be a kind of front line in this war on drugs entering here? We must delve into this later.
Until, Ponder….
*1) Dr Bharrat, Dr Yesu, Dr Ian – measure the men – then the status!
*2) Great Psychology PPP! In discussing the possible PPP Presidential Candidates, it seems that many take for granted that that eventual candidate will later become President of Guyana! Do the PNC and AFC see it that way?
*3) Finally Mashramani 2010 ends this afternoon. Is it in our culture to start planning Mash 2011 tomorrow?
‘Til next week!
Commnets? allanafenty@yahoo.com
