Indeed, they were brought down to Georgetown, TI.

At previous references of this topic, I mentioned that of the individuals who were killed and referenced in the official reports on the incidents at Wismar/MacKenzie, one was my godfather and one was my cousin.

My godfather was the father of the then Senator Janice Ramjattan.

heroic effort by D_G to rehabilitate the egregious TI

'arguing' over and 'verifying' facts not in dispute

lame

I told you already. Ad Homini arguments do not detract from the truths. It is merely a distraction and reflection of poor scholarship.

There is enough documentation on the Wismar ethnic cleansing available. You don't have to take my word.

I guess those in denial will claim no such thing happened. 

Typo.. Ad hominem.

A highly charged society after the Burnham Jagan split and the Jagans insistence of making BG a Russian sattelite. What was the CIA to do? The Americans had already neutralized Abenz. And the PPP was in cohots with the communists of British Honduras. The way the Americans dealt with Patrice Lumumba-some ppl had to die or hurt badly. Who else but the Indians in this case, isolated in the jungle with the blacks in rage.

Black ppl would tell me, how the indoes got beaten up that day. They say, there was groaning all over-from licks, from rape, from foreign object shoved up vaginas. Young and old, there was no preference. Satan smiled that day, he was estatic-for his demons knew, as a nation our groaning will NEVER CEASE. We were doomed.

The igorance and arrogance of the Jagans, I placed the blame. Stupid ppl failed to read the trends that the colony approaching.

Perhaps, those who were injured, criminalized and killed paved many of our destiny. The American pact with Forbes and his PNC intended to halt communism in BG. And it worked. And we all had the opportunity to seek out new countries to escape the curse the Jagans bequeath to the nation. There was need for a Burnham leadership or a CORRUPT PPP that we have today. The curse upon a nation. We are not too far from Haiti.

The Jagans failed indoes and placed their lives in jeopardy every day since.    

Those in denial do not accept responsibility for the terrorist act of murdering 43 passengers on the Son Chapman. Wismar did not happen in a vacuum.

There are those in denial of the facts plus those who constantly "spout" nonsense.

NO ONE on this thread is disputing the ethnic cleansing that took place @ Wismar!

nice try u LIARD lil man . . . no rehabilitation for u

Yu sure about this?

seignet,you are a deeply racist primitive in a 12th Century sense, and truly a fake Christian. You are on record here declaring that the generations of blackman in Linden have not "suffered enough" . . . bai, credibility is something u do not have

indeed, i doubt that any "black ppl" told you anything . . . the vile stuff about the rapes and degradation @ Wismar is in the Commission Report, and part of the larger public record (newspapers, etc.) for those inclined to get deep background on that period

now, as to "narratives" . . . surely you understand that every time you dredge up the 1/2 century old gory details of violent rape and murder at Wismar perpetrated against Indians in 1964, the Black people @ Linden and elsewhere will remember also the unborn babies ripped from wombs as Black mothers were blown to bits on that boat traveling from Georgetown . . . 43 dead dude - those are people too

I don't know what your motivation is here on this particular thread, but I know what D_G, Nehru, TI, and the rest of the PPP bigots are up to  . . . and "IGNOBLE" is to put it mildly

PPP power protection racket - divide and RULE . . . alyuh carry on smartly

This is hearsay at best. Anecdotal and simplistic. 

THE OUTBREAK OF RACIAL DISTURBANCES IN 1964

Close this window to return to the main menu

Previous Chapter     Next Chapter

On 17 February 1964, the Guiana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) called a country-wide strike to demand recognition as the bargaining agent for the country's sugar workers. The union, backed by the PPP, was the successor of the GIWU of the early 1950s, and when it was resuscitated in 1960, it was known as the Sugar Workers' Union before its name was officially changed. The established recognised union was the MPCA which was strongly anti-Government, but which had very little support among the sugar workers who were fiercely supportive of the PPP.

Throughout 1961, 1962 and 1963, GAWU demanded that a poll should be taken among sugar workers to determine which union should represent them, but the employers' organisation, the Sugar Producers' Association (SPA), in close alliance with the MPCA, firmly opposed any such action. The MPCA leadership was part and parcel of the leadership of the TUC which naturally opposed a poll among sugar workers.

The strike actually started after cane-cutters at Leonora were told on 6 February by the management of the estate that there was work for only half of them. The workers begged for work to be provided for all of them, but the management refused their request. As a result, all the workers called a strike on the following day, and by the 17 February cane cutters on all the estates decided to join the strike in solidarity. They called on GAWU to act on their behalf saying that they had no confidence in the MPCA.

The strike received overwhelming support from sugar workers and all the sugar estates were seriously affected. The workers showed their total disdain for the MPCA and bluntly refused the pleas of the leaders of that union to return to work. Dr. Jagan, the Premier, requested the Governor, Sir Ralph Grey, to order a poll among sugar workers, but he refused to do so. However, on further advice from Dr. Jagan, he appointed a commission of enquiry headed by a respected Supreme Court judge, Guya Persaud, to determine which union should represent the sugar workers. Immediately, the MPCA filed an injunction in the Supreme Court to block this enquiry. As a result, the chairman of the commission decided that the enquiry could not begin until the Supreme Court made a ruling. The enquiry was thus suspended and was finally abandoned when the PPP Government was removed from power.

Faced with the serious problem of no production of sugar, the SPA began to hire scabs in the effort to break the strike. In doing so, the employers' organisation disregarded the existing political and racial sensitivities in the sugar estates. At that period, the overwhelming majority of sugar workers were Indians, and were supporters of the PPP. What the SPA did was to hire mainly inexperienced African cane-cutters who were generally supporters of the PNC. In strike situations, it was natural for workers on strike to try to prevent strike-breakers to get to the workplace; in the case of this strike, Indian workers attempted to block the entry of African and also some regular Indian cane-cutters (who refused to strike) from reaching the fields or factories.

Many of the African recruited to break the strike were also employed by the management of the sugar estates as "vigilantes" to protect the property of the estates from sabotage. Inevitably, violent racial clashes took place between these "vigilantes" and the Indian population residing on or near to the sugar estates. Soon after, these clashes extended to other areas as well. On 4 March, at Tain on the Corentyne, a bomb was thrown at a bus transporting scabs to Albion estate and two persons Gunraj, an Indian, and Edgar Munroe, an African, died.

Violent attacks involving beatings and murders occurred mainly on the East Coast Demerara, Mahaicony, West Demerara, Wismar-Mackenzie and Georgetown, and the entire country was in a state of tension. In Georgetown, Indians were brutally beaten on the streets, and some business places were looted and set on fire.

Reprisal beatings, destruction of property and killings occurred with great frequency.Indians attacked Africans and Africans attacked Indians in some communities, houses and business places were looted were burnt down and Government and privately owned buildings were bombed. In some villages, where Indians or Africans formed the minority, they abandoned their homes and resettled in villages where their respective group had dominance. A dusk to dawn curfew in the affected communities did little to prevent the violence.

But despite the violent attacks and killings, most of the country remained relatively peaceful even though Africans and Indians regarded each other with suspicion. And even in the areas where racial violence occurred almost daily, there were numerous cases where Indians were protected by Africans, and where Africans were protected by Indians. In many instances, Indians and Africans, on abandoning their home communities, obtained the assistance of friends from the opposite race group to temporarily occupy their homes in order to prevent them from being destroyed by arsonists.

In most communities, residents organized "vigilante groups" and "home guards" to patrol in groups during the night. Some of these communities also set up imaginative alarm systems to warn of suspicious intruders. While these groups provided some protection, in the absence of regular police patrols, there occurred some incidents in which they attacked and killed innocent persons passing through some areas on foot or in motor vehicles.

While the violence was escalating, the sugar industry strike continued. One very notable incident occurred at Leonora Estate on 6 March when a female sugar worker, Kowsilia, was run over and her body severed in two by a tractor driven by an African strike breaker. She and other women workers on strike were squatting on a bridge near to the factory to prevent strike breakers from crossing when the incident occurred. Fourteen other women were seriously injured. In the ensuing fracas, the police arrived on the scene and used tear gas to break up the demonstration. Kowsilia became an immediate martyr for the cause of sugar workers in their struggle for democracy in the trade union movement in Guyana.

Meanwhile, a new Governor, Sir Richard Luyt, arrived in Guyana to succeed Sir Ralph Grey and he was sworn in on 7 March. The PPP Government objected to his appointment, saying that Grey's successor should be a Guyanese and the PPP Ministers refused to attend the swearing-in ceremony. No doubt, this objection to Luyt's appointment was one of the reasons the new Governor was to display a bias against the PPP Government for the remainder of 1964.

THE ESCALATION OF THE RACIAL DISTURBANCES

Close this window to return to the main menu

Previous Chapter     Next Chapter

After the death of Kowsilia, the situation worsened in all the sugar estates with those on strike even shooting at strike breakers. As violence and terror continued, the new Governor, Sir Richard Luyt, declared a state of emergency on 23 May and British troops were brought in to assist in security. By this time, the Government had continuously expressed its concerns to the Governor that the Police Force and the Volunteer Force were acting in a partisan way and were showing open loyalty to the political opposition and doing very little to protect Indians from being attacked. The Government also accused the opposition PNC of supporting the violence through a central organisation which conducted operations though central planning and execution with military precision.

Critics of the PPP Government saw the strike as being used by the PPP to protest the imposition of proportional representation as the new electoral system for Guyana. They felt that the leadership and members of GAWU were essentially PPP members and supporters, and by prolonging the strike, the PPP, through the union, was flexing its muscles against the British Government. However, this argument could not be sustained, for it was obvious that the PPP could not gain political benefit from any violence in the country since such violence was destabilising the Government itself.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Janet Jagan, openly accused the police of not taking action to prevent the racial attacks, and even the Commissioner of Police, Peter Owen, failed to keep the Minister informed. This was clearly shown when the Commissioner refused to take the advice of the Minister in requesting the early assistance of British troops and police reinforcement on 24 May to prevent the attacks on Indians at Mackenzie and Wismar. Beatings, rapes, looting and arson were being committed in broad daylight and it was not until late in the afternoon that the Commissioner agreed to ask for a contingent of British troops to go to the area. In the aftermath of the attacks on Indians there, five persons were killed, hundreds were injured, many females were raped and brutalised, and over 200 houses and business places owned by Indians were burnt to the ground. The British troops from the following day assisted with the evacuation to Georgetown of Indians in the area. In all, 744 families comprising 3,399 persons (1,249 adults and 2,150 children) were evacuated.

In protest against the partiality displayed by the Police and the Volunteer Force, Janet Jagan resigned as Minister of Home Affairs on 1 June 1964.

On 6 July, a passenger launch, the "Sun Chapman", was blown up in an explosion on the Demerara River not far from the Wismar-Mackenzie area. The launch was returning from Georgetown and at least 38 persons, all African residents of the Wismar-Mackenzie area, died in the mishap. When the news of the explosion reached the community, Indians who had returned to work at Mackenzie were brutally attacked with the result that five of them died.

There were counter accusations as to what caused the explosion. PNC supporters claimed that a bomb was placed by PPP agents on the launch when it was in Georgetown; while PPP supporters claimed that the launch was transporting explosives to make bombs to attack Indians and their property.A subsequent police investigation could not determine what device caused the explosion and who was to blame.

From early in 1964, the British Government began a process to reduce the powers of the Guyana Government. In the first instance, on 26 February, by a special order signed by the Queen, a military force styled the Special Service Unit, under direct control of the Governor, was established. Then on 26 March, an Order in Council signed by the Queen gave the Governor full powers to make regulations for registration of voters for the elections under proportional representation. The Government was relieved of any authority on this matter. Then on 29 May, the British Government vastly extended the emergency powers of the Governor. The constitution was also amended by the British Government to prevent the Council of Ministers to have any control over the Governor's new powers. The constitution was further amended by the British Government on 23 June to allow for the new electoral system of proportional representation and for the election of a unicameral House of Assembly comprising of 53 members.

In effect, these acts reduced the constitutional authority of the Guyana Government since they removed the powers held by the Ministers and placed them in the hands of the Governor, who by mid-1964 had become a virtual dictator.

Armed with these dictatorial powers, Luyt on 13 June ordered the detention of 32 members of the PPP, including some legislators and Deputy Premier Brindley Benn, after accusing them of instigating the racial disturbances. Only two PNC members were put into detention, even though there was clear evidence of PNC involvement in the reign of terror, as was clearly indicated in the secret police report on the PNC Terrorist Organisation which Luyt had in his possession.

The detention of the PPP legislators caused the PPP to become a "minority" in the legislature. According to Dr. Jagan, this "amounted to a suspension of the constitution".

The Governor also ordered the seizure of all shotguns and rifles, but not automatic pistols and revolvers. This was evidently aimed at disarming PPP supporters (mainly rural dwellers) and while allowing dangerous weapons to be retained by the PNC and UF supporters who lived mainly in the urban areas.

The British troops were also involved in acts of repression against the PPP supporters in rural communities. The soldiers uprooted the red "jhandi" flags planted in the yards of homes owned by Hindus who displayed these flags as part of a religious rite. The soldiers, being ignorant of the Hindu culture, believed these were "communist" flags, and they proceeded to ransack the homes in the search for guns, and the occupants were assaulted and arrested. The Governor, no doubt aware of this situation, issued a special order granting legal immunity to the British troops, and this immediately drew a strong protest from the Premier, Dr. Jagan.

The GAWU finally called off the strike on 25 July without the recognition issue being resolved. Nevertheless, the terror and violence continued. In Georgetown, a senior civil servant, Arthur Abraham, and his seven children were killed when their home was set on fire. A cinema in the city was bombed and persons killed. Earlier in the month, the Guiana Import-Export Ltd. (GIMPEX) building on Regent Street and Freedom House, the PPP headquarters, on Robb Street were simultaneously bombed on 17 July. In the Freedom House bombing, aimed at assassinating the Party leadership, Michael Forde, an employee of the PPP bookshop on the ground floor, was killed.

The terror and violence in most of the affected areas came to a sudden end when the police in Georgetown on 9 August 1964 accidentally raided the hotel room of Emmanuel Fairbain, a PNC activist, and discovered a large collection of arms, ammunition and explosives. Fairbain was charged for being in possession of illegal weapons and explosives and was detained in prison where he died shortly after under mysterious circumstances.

According to the police records, the disturbances resulted in 176 persons killed and more than 900 persons seriously injured. More than 1,425 buildings were destroyed by arson, and about 15,000 persons (from 2,600 families) were displaced and they subsequently re-settled in areas where their race group was in the majority. The long-term result of these disturbances was that they increased racial polarisation in the country.

Ever since the violence, killings and terror escalated, the Commissioner of Police announced that investigations were going on to find those responsible for these deeds. Finally on 17 August 1964, he stated that the police were in the process of conducting enquiries into more than 100 murders including 22 in Georgetown. He declared: "Enquiries so far have revealed that there exists an organised thuggery which is centrally directed. A great effort is being made to bring those responsible for the deaths to justice but it is in the public interest that law abiding citizens should know now what they and the police are faced with in this country today."

On the same day, the Commissioner also swore to an affidavit in which he mentioned "the subversive and criminal activities of a criminal gang attached to a political party known as the People's National Congress."

After this revelation, more violence broke out during late August in the Mahaicony area where a number of Indian homes were attacked by gunmen and more than 13 persons, including children, shot dead. Eye witnesses named the killers, who included a policeman, but no charges were brought against them.

There IS a REASON why I does say LIMEY DOGS!!!

There those who know the facts and then ..... there are those who spew nonsense.

The man is a born again christian, he had to make things right with the Lord. He confessed it or you can say, he told me so. He said, the blacks run through the place. There was fire everywhere. Indians pleading for help but none was offered. He could hear the groaning as they were chopped and brutalized and thrown into parapits. Many could not run to safety. There no safe place. 

Three of my cousins were brutally attacked. The girls were never the same after that massacre.

I remembered the day, my uncle cameby to tell my mom, he was going to work at MacKenzie. The excitement of the amount of money he was going to make. He lived there for several years. He lost everything in the fire.

You try too hard to sound intelligent when you are clearly one of the most intellectually deficient posters on the BB. 

Suh now, ur all knowing all cing cannot fathom that a black person could tell me what he saw going on at MacKenzie. He never admitted he took part in the atrocities. I have no motives another than to say, Jagan destroyed a once peaceful country in which I had a wonderful time growing up. 

What I have stated about my cousins, I had stated the same things in more detailed. This topic was on the BB, I think about 6 or more years ago. Maybe, it is archived somewhere.  

The genocide of Mc Kenzie was real, the victims are for real, the mindset which perpetuated it is there today...for real.  The GoG is all too cognizant of the fact that there are "dark" forces lurking behind the bushes.  Evil does not die, it awaits resurrection, just need the right conditions.

How about being judge by your own belief...your ancestors were also once a shit cleaning dalit from behir...does that means the dalit inside of you does not die, does it means it awaits resurrection? is the conditions right for it raise its ugly head... 

The conditions are always in Afros Guyanese heads, give them the opportunity, the excuse and the means, a repeat of the 60's and the dark days of the PNC rule is ready to rear it's ugly head.

Just in 2011, chanting "enough of the c00l1es", shouts of we will feed c00l1es to dogs is the ugly truth Indians live with on a daily basis.

Ok dalit boy, come over this weekend by buxton line dam dem bais gat some wok fuh yuh....

Correct Baseman.

There are those who know the issues at MacKenzie/Wismar, there are others who gather the facts to understand the issues and then ... there are those who wander aimlessly bellowing and making eerie grunts.

Those who deny and try to change history and the shameless katahars who would pawn their mothers and sisters for a shilling.

dude, the suffering of YOUR cousins was real, palpable even now, and horrific; but it does NOT give YOU the right to PIMP their tragedy and BLASPHEME with Bible in hand about blackman demon in order to make some ridiculous political? point about Burnham and Jagan

you are a Hollywood performer; the bit about some blackman Christian (formerly "black ppl") "confessing" to u about the "groaning" and throwing bodies into Biblical sounding "parapits" (what the hell is that?) speaks to nothing but the twisted self-importance of driven LIARS like u and TI (remember him? . . . of 'cars and trucks driving up to Mackenzie in 1964 to evacuate' fame).

baseman is a masturbating purveyor of "carrion" with a "blackman" fetish . . . what's your motivation? 

one HAS to wonder about the morality of "those who know the issues at Mackenzie/Wismar" WHO proceed to co-sign this Goebbelsian 'document' vomited up by GNI's masturbating purveyor of "carrion"

The win the election by winning the MAJORITY of the electoral college.

In almost every country when no party wins the majority of the seats POST election alliances occur.  One need only look at next door Suriname and also the UK.

The paranoid PPP kept every aspect of the Burnham constitution, except introducing a ban on post election coalitions.  But for this most likely the APNU and the AFC, together having 51% of the votes, would be the govt.

The PPP needs to respect the will of Guyanese voters most of whom voted AGAINST them.   And as such the PPP is a MINORITY govt, no matter what criteria you use.

The constitution of the USA basis the vote on the ELECTORAL COLLEGE.  Nixon and every subsequent president won this.

In Guyana seats are allocated based on a PR formula.  Using this formula the PPP is a MINORITY party.  The combined opposition parties control parliament. ACCEPT THAT FACT.

A train on West Coast demerara was stopped and the blacks on board were attacked by Indians brandishing cutlasses.  This among mnahy instances of blacks being attacked by PYO hooligans, some who were armed by Fidel Castro.

Why do you PPP frauds never speak of this and other attacks by Indians on blacks.  What about the ship from Cuba which was off loading cargo, and a crate fell off, broke open and automatic weapons poured out.

No mention of this.

Only your racist, bigoted and ignorant pretense of the "poor Indian marauded by these subhuman black savages".

BOTH groups committed violence and BOTH groups suffered.  Only a racist like you will deny this fact.

SO TRUE. THE WORD SHAMELESS IS TOO MILD FOR THEM. THEY ARE THE LOWEST OF THE LOW. WHO ON EARTH WILL TRUST SUCH A BUNCH OF IMMORAL, INHUMAN AND POWER HUNGRY IDIOTS???

Yes I agree.  People like you who talk about Wismar, pretend that the PYO never attacked and killed black women and children, and invented nonsense that the Sun Chapman incident was due to the PNC,  when if any bomb was planted on that vessel, it was by PYO hooligans.

Yea, like the CIA flew planes into the WTC, right!!

 The minority status does not arise from a percentage of the electorate but the percentage of the electorate that voted. The electrical system here will only on rare occasion allow a president to be elected to by a minority of the popular vote. It can happen but the president is elected via the electoral college.

In Guyana, the minority status of the PPP is on account of the way votes are translated to seats. They are a minority government because despite losing the popular vote count and having fewer seats, they win the government. The lack of capacity fo form a  majority government is a constitutional flaw. It will truly put us in a bad place if the PPP were to get 34% of the popular vote and still demand an autocratic administration.

No that is not the reason he is a confirmed racist. It is because he massages our dark legacy which is the burden of all ( note no one ever mention the race violence escalated because Indian cane cutters decide to chop up black people in tain!) The celebration of victim hood to posit character deficiency by race is the crime here that Ricky commits. The majority of our people, though poor and awfully imperiled by their poverty are honest and peaceful people. You and others rely on the exceptions  to make the rule.

The effort of Ricky and those of your persuasion is to posit a quality of unfitness in a black identified party when the plague of the Indian identified party reeks in the midday sun in front of your faces. This constantly massaging the PNC is an accursed party without mentioning the existing morally dessicated PPP is the "dark curse" on writers like Ricky and Indians like yourselves.

Great thread. My father did say the PYO bombed the sun chapman. The PYO terrorists matured and became ministers of government. Lacking a moral anchor, the terrorists enriched themselves and the expense of the people. 

Since the specific law came into force during Forbes Burnham's period, the PNC cum AFC should focus on amending the legislation.

The changes require the support of, at least, two-thirds of the MPs.

For practical purposes, the PPP/C has fifty percent of the MPs.

In 1961 (BEFORE the violence) PPP supporters drove through black villages on the ECD, celebrating their victory.

They screamed all sorts of threats to blacks, threatening to send them back to slavery.  A black man was killed by PPP supporters in Berbice.  A black woman who supported the PPP ran out on the road to cheer on the motorcade, but was met by vollies of insults by the PPP supporters, who seeing her, assumed that she was PNC.  I bet you in 1964 she voted PNC.

So bad it was that Cheddi Jagan had to apologize as he realized that a new era of DIRECT inter ethnic conflict had begun.

I know that the truth is an alien subject to you but you must try it some times.

BOTH Africans and Indians were victims of and perpetrators of violence.  It takes a racist like you to blame blacks only when Indians were equally guilty as they attempted to create conditions of instability in 1964 in a vain attempt to have the elections canceled.

baseman screams "so what dem black man dead" and p[rocedes to pretend as if this incident never happened.

The Wismar blood bath was evil, but then so was the Sun Chapman.