Dear Editor,
The decision by the 32nd congress of the PPP to remove references to Marxism-Leninism and socialism in its constitution has, expectedly, triggered debates in editorials, by columnists, in letter columns of mainstream media and to some extent, in social media. Much of what has been published is not anti-Marxist, they were more political, if not ideological viewpoints. In my view, one can be ideological without being anti-Marxist. All those at home and abroad, who consistently hammered the PPP on ideological grounds and pushed the Party to abandon Marxism-Leninism and socialism must be now considering what next to attack the PPP for.
SN’s editorial ‘32nd PPP Congress’ in its May 11, 2024 edition and KN’s May 13, 2024 Peeping Tom column ‘Ideological pluralism within political parties is a myth’ must have evoked the interest of readers. SN is correct in stating that ‘disputation will no doubt continue on the historical facts,’ but the ‘historical facts’ mentioned in its editorial are incomplete, it is only fair therefore that readers be provided with the other portion of SN’s historical facts. I leave Peeping Tom’s column for another day. Referring to the PPP, SN editorial claimed; ‘Nothing in its history up to 1992 could eclipse the repercussions from its doctrinaire slavish adherence to the tenets of Marxism under the Jagans…’ On the basis of the following, I express my disagreement with SN’s categorization of the ‘repercussions’ which it claimed emerged as a result of the PPP’s ‘slavish’ and ‘doctrinaire’ adherence to the tenets of Marxism’:
1.’The slavish and doctrinaire adherence to Marxism’ – Here’s some food for thought; ‘Letter from Premier Jagan to President Kennedy; Georgetown April 16, 1963 published in volume X11 1961-1963 pp 292, Foreign Relations of the United States;’ “Again as recently as March this year, Sir Jock Campbell, Chairman of Bookers Bros. McConnell and Company Limited, a group of companies which represent one of the large investments of private capital in this country, while on a visit stated that he saw no danger of a communist dictatorship being established in British Guiana. He was confident that the Premier, Dr Jagan had no intention of setting up such a dictatorship and further, that the conditions were not present in British Guiana to make a communist dictatorship viable…”
2. ‘The suspension of the constitution in 1953 and the dispatch of British troops to the colony’ – This notion suggests that Jagan was responsible for the ideological differences that emerged at the leadership level of the then PPP. The editorial totally overlooked the fact that the colonial powers exploited the ideological differences between Jagan and Burnham and used it as leverage to justify the suspension of the constitution and the dispatch of troops to the colony;
3. ‘The Kaldor budget and the racial disturbances of 1962’ – Writing in a KN column of March 30, 2014; ‘From the Diaspora…Kaldor Budget and Black Friday February 16, 1962’ and using as his main source ‘The Report of The Wynn Parry Commission of Inquiry into Black Friday,’ Ralph Seeram stated, “At Dr. Jagan’s invitation, Mr. Kaldor, a well-known economist of considerable experience who had served on the United Kingdom Tax Commission and had advised the Governments of India, Ceylon, Mexico and Ghana, was invited to consider the problem and suggest ways and means of raising additional revenue.” The budget for 1962 was prepared upon the basis of his recommendations on January 31, 1962. The budget certainly had no communist or Marxist leanings; in fact it was praised by the New York Times and The London Times.
4. ‘Anglo-American interference and destabilisation of political life in that period’ – The editorial failed to hold responsible the McMillan and Kennedy Administrations in the UK and America respectively, as well as the CIA who, collectively, fomented the disturbances in BG within the meaning of their policy of ‘containment of communism.’ In fulfillment of that policy, they orchestrated the removal of the Jagan administration primarily because the Truman/McCarthy anti-communist frenzy of a ‘Red Scare’ had become an extension of America’s domestic policy.
5. ‘The slowing of progress towards independence’ – The editorial failed to accept that it was Anglo-American imperialism that blocked much needed financial/development aid to the Jagan administration. The staunchly anti-Jagan USAID, buttressed by the Kennedy administration’s broken promises that weighed heavily on the ideologization and politicization of US foreign policy at that time, are facts that should not be overlooked.
6. ‘The imposition of proportional representation for the 1964 elections’ – The editorial failed to mention that it was in the light of British capitulation to American diktat that a new electoral system of proportional representation was designed and implemented in British Guiana to facilitate Jagan’s removal from office and the installation of a pro-imperialist PNC/UF coalition.
7. ‘The non-invitation to the PPP to form a government that year’ – The editorial failed to mention that in 1962, Jagan made a number of approaches to Burnham with a view to establishing a PPP-PNC coalition government. He was rebuffed by Burnham. Similar attempts by Duncan Sandys, a former Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the then British Governor, Sir Richard Luyt also favoured a PPP-PNC coalition government. The Nkrumah government in Ghana and the Eric Williams government in T&T also pushed for a coalition government. They were also rebuffed by Burnham. Interestingly, the then US government did not favour a PPP-PNC coalition government.
8. ‘Rigged elections kept the PPP out of office from 1968 to 1992 until the end of the Cold War’ – Implicit in this conclusion is the notion that it was Jagan’s ideology and not Burnham’s rigged elections that was anathema to Anglo-America’s interests. And, as if doubling down on this anti-Jagan view point, some CARICOM leaders, prior to 1992, declared; ‘better rigged elections than no elections at all.’
9. ‘The PPP’s Marxism-Leninism fed deeply into the Western view that another Cuba could not be tolerated in this hemisphere’ – So it was the PPP’s Marxism-Leninism that ‘fed deeply into the western view that could not be tolerated,’ not the Monroe Doctrine that fed deeply into the domestic politics of countries of this hemisphere resulting in the removal of the Bustamante government in Peru in 1948; the Gallegos government in Venezuela in 1948; the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954; the Goulart government in Brazil in 1964; the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961; US military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, the Allende government of Chile in 1973 and the Bishop administration in Grenada in 1983.
10. ‘Dr. Cheddi Jagan had to be kept out of office at all cost’ – What the editorial did not say was why Jagan ‘had to be kept out of office at all cost’ and by whom and who was favoured to replace him. SN should know that the young generation in Guyana today has little or no knowledge of that period in our country’s political history. The editorial resisted from answering these important questions. Whether it was a matter of space or editorial reluctance to do so I do not know.
11. ‘Sunday therefore marks another momentous development – the demarcation of the party’s history between the Jagan PPP and the Jagdeo PPP’ – To say there was a ‘Jagan PPP’ and now a ‘Jagdeo PPP’ is a misnomer that suits the journalists’ habit of caricaturing political leaders. The editorial sought to cast both Jagan and Jagdeo in the role of the typical Latin American caudillo, a type of personalist leader who wields political power in total violation of the rule of law and extant Constitutional authorities. Eighteen months from now the electorate will establish fact from fiction.
Sincerely,
Clement J. Rohee
