A 1973 US diplomatic cable recounts how then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham summoned the US Ambassador to his Belfield, East Coast Demerara residence for a chat during which he defended plans to journey to a non-aligned conference with Cuban President Fidel Castro and argued that this would also help him to undercut opposition leader Dr Cheddi Jagan.
In the September 4 cable to Washington by then Ambassador Spencer Matthews King, among a batch released by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Burnham was also reported as siding with the Arabs over the seizure of lands by Israel in the context of concerns that Venezuela could be encouraged in the same direction.
According to King’s cable, Burnham also disparaged several East European countries as tools of the Soviets. Both the US and the Soviet Union had jockeyed during this period of the Cold War for influence in Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean.
Much of the discussion centred around Castro’s planned visit to Guyana after which he and Burnham would travel together to Algiers, Algeria for a Non-Aligned Conference. Based on the text of an earlier cable, Burnham had apparently told the US in confidence of Castro’s visit to Guyana and the US agonized on whether it should pass on this information to Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley and risk having Burnham know that his confidence had been violated.
In the Belfield chat, the US Ambassador related that Burnham stated that his flying to Algiers with Castro would serve both of their interests: “Castro would gain respectability and he (Burnham) would put another nail in Cheddi Jagan’s coffin”.
The cable also hinted at the tussle between the PNC and the PPP for influence with Cuba. Burnham and three other Caribbean Prime Ministers: Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, Michael Manley of Jamaica and Errol Barrow of Barbados had made the ground-breaking decision to establish diplomatic ties with Cuba and this was done on December 8th, 1972.
The cable related that an advance party to prepare for Castro’s visit had asked to see Cheddi Jagan and the Guyana Government had agreed and arrangements were made via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Cubans apparently only saw Janet Jagan who the Ambassador said had argued unsuccessfully that Castro should not come to Guyana and “thus betray his true friends here”.
With the meeting coming in the aftermath of the controversy-ridden 1973 general elections, the Ambassador also related that he asked Burnham if he was worried about leaving the country “having in mind Jagan’s various efforts to promote civil strife and strangle the economy”. Burnham’s reply was that it was nothing that then Prime Minister Ptolemy Reid couldn’t take care of.
The full text of the cable follows:
