Dear Editor,
There is something surreal about Dr. Baytoram Ramharack’s piece in Stabroek News, 16th November, 2021: Rethinking Forbes Burnham. Part fantasy, part fable. Dr. Ramharack’s argument seems built around three statements. The First statement: “The 1961 and 1964 elections established the pre-conditions, as well as the pretext necessary for Burnham to put his nefarious plan into action.” The Second statement: “In hindsight, Burnham’s plan to rig the 1968 elections, the first in a series of rigged elections, was part of a grandiose plan to build his dictatorship”. The Third statement: “… released information from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) offers remarkable insights into the depth and scope of the interaction between Burnham and the US, revealing Burnham’s calculating and perfidious plans to construct Guyana’s dictatorship amidst growing American geopolitical concerns in the region.” In the last statement, the engagement with the US/CIA reveals “Burnham’s calculating and perfidious plans to construct Guyana’s dictatorship amidst growing American geopolitical concerns in the region.”
Everyone seems willing to play to Burnham’s gallery. The chess master at his best. Two book length studies, Rabe 2005 and Palmer 2010, on the US role in the Guyanese politics think otherwise with some acceptable complaints. Troubling, perhaps worse, is Dr. Ramharack’s double take on the matter; it is unfortunate that he did not find the name of his own hero, Balram Singh Rai, in the very FRUS documents he so nimbly unearthed against Burnham. He wrote a 450 page celebratory text on Balram Singh Rai (2005). David Rabe’s, US Intervention in British Guiana (2005) reported that “The CIA settled on Jai Narine Singh and Balram Singh Rai to lead the new Justice Party. Jai Narine Singh asked the US for $75,000 a month in campaign expenses to be deposited in the Royal Bank of Canada.” (p. 130). The footnote in Rabe’s text reads: “Memoran-dum of conversation between Jai Narine Singh and William B. Cobb of State Department, 25th June, 1964, POL 19 BR GU, DSR. NA; Minute of Colonial Office meeting with Sandys, on new political parties in British Guiana, 25th February, 1964, CO 1031/4411, PRO”.
What is worrying is the effort to demonise Burnham and allow Uncle Sam a free ride. Briefly, the history goes back some way and suggests, if only briefly, that the US involvement in the Latin Republics of the south has been a most unpleasant experience. There is still some memory of the Monroe Doctrine, 1823, when the US declared hands-off to Europeans, while, on the other, never wasted a moment or opportunity to invade and derange every Republic to the South, to ensure that none of them would have the capacity to defend itself against Uncle Sam. The US has a serious immigration problem at the moment, largely and precisely on account of the derangement it has caused in many of those Republics, whose citizens are now looking for shelter and safety at its border.
Another brief look at our own history would suggest that it was the imperialists who came seeking to subdue and pacify. Many will remember Winston Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri in 1946 that gave us the Iron Curtain and the Cold War Seven years later, the same Winston Churchill sent gun boats to British Guiana, under charges of a communist conspiracy against the first elected democratic government in the country. And despite a Royal commission on the matter, neither conspiracy nor communism was found, but it was sufficient to lock up the leaders and suspend the constitution. And that is what we came to know as democracy – the road that Uncle Sam took us on when he came to save us from ourselves. The only question now is, do we have it within ourselves to stare the monster in the face and disavow the demonization of each other? In the end I believe that is the true message of Dr. Ramharack’s piece in Stabroek News.
Sincerely,
Rishee Thakur
