February 6, 1984, Section A, Page 6Buy Reprints
President Forbes Burnham of Guyana says his Government is determined to remain leftist and nonaligned despite what he says are efforts by the United States to undermine his country's socialist system.
Mr. Burnham, speaking in a recent interview, said relations with the United States were at a low point and asked, ''If they can invade Grenada, why can't they invade us?''
Mr. Burnham, who has governed this nation on the northeast shoulder of South America for 20 years, charged that the United States was trying to force Guyana to dismantle its socialist structure.
He accused the United States of using ''economic pressure'' to force his Government into submission and cited as evidence a United States veto of a $42 million International Development Bank loan for an irrigation and drainage project, cancellation of aid loans and what he said was American provocation of strikes last May and June by 7,000 bauxite workers.
The bauxite industry, including a United States subsidiary, was nationalized in 1975. Burnham Denies Hostility
Mr. Burnham said the poor relations with the United States did not ''arise from any hositility on our part.''
''They don't like our economic policies,'' Mr. Burnham said of United States officials. ''They feel, for instance, that we should denationalize and therefore privatize bauxite. We should therefore do the same with the rice industry.
''We quite clearly say we are not going to do that,'' he said. ''Every country has a right to choose its own road, and what worked for the United States in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries won't necessarily work here.
''Guyana has a straightforward policy,'' he said. ''We are leftists, but we are nonaligned. And the United States establishment knows that. They know that we refuse to take dictation from the Soviet Union, Cuba or anybody.
''Reagan is a conservative,'' he said. ''Reagan believes that the way to spur the development of an economy is through private enterprise. That is his business. It is his country's business. His country elected him. On that basis we have no quarrel. We don't attempt to lecture him. Why should they lecture us? Just because we are smaller?'' Sees Parallel in Grenada
Mr. Burnham said the United States invasion of Grenada in October was preceded by similar economic pressure against the leftist Government of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who was overthrown and slain by military officers, also leftists, a few days before the invasion.
Mr. Burnham said Guyana was prepared militarily for any invasion. ''We have sought to prepare our defenses, to mobilize our people,'' he said.
''But of course when you are big and you are powerful, you are above the law,'' he added.
''The Soviet Union has no right in Afghanistan, but she's there,'' Mr. Burnham said. ''The United States has no right in Grenada, but she's there. The important thing is to galvanize world public opinion. We're not anti-American. The Americans cannot say that we've provided a haven for any enemy of the United States.''
