PNC historically suppressed Amerindians in Guyana

AT the beginning of January 1969, just three weeks after the December 1968 rigged elections in Guyana, a group of large ranch owners in the Rupununi Region, supported by a number of Amerindians, broke out in open rebellion against the oppressive PNC Government in the savannah area near the border with Brazil. It is reported that they were United Force (UF) supporters who were angry at the expulsion of their party from Government, and the PNC leadership’s move to wrest land away from Amerindians and ranchers to distribute among themselves and friends, and police ranks’ excessively brutal treatment to Amerindians. This is according to a report in Guyana.org, which states, inter alia:

“In determining the causes of this insurrection, some analysts subsequently have pointed to various factors, including frustrations over the recent rigged elections which returned the PNC to power, and opposition to the proposed demarcation of Amerindian lands as set out by the Amerindian Lands Commission.”
Whatever role these factors played cannot be fully determined, but it was clear that the rebels expressed their non-allegiance to the State (under the PNC Burnham illegal dictatorial regime).
The repercussions were brutal, as Burnham crushed the Amerindians beneath the might of the thuggish ranks of the GPF and the GDF that then were enforcers of the regime’s atrocities against the citizenry.
Reports of terrible atrocities being committed against Amerindians in reprisal actions by GDF and GPF ranks, with hundreds of Amerindian women being raped; a 12-year-old being gang-raped so brutally that she subsequently died; and elderly men and young boys being brutally beaten and even killed.
Most of the victims were Roman Catholics, but the PNC Government, although it was denying these reports, refused to allow the priests to travel to the hinterland communities to look after the welfare of their church members.
The PNC Government also rejected the request of then Opposition leader, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, to travel to the Amerindian locations where the atrocities were reported to have been committed; and even PPP Amerindian members were refused entry into their own villages.
According to Guyana.org, “After the uprising was crushed, claims were made by numerous Guyanese, including some Rupununi Amerindians, that, particularly in the northern savannahs, the security forces had harassed and even killed a large number of Amerindians in putting down the revolt and in their subsequent “mopping up” operations which continued weeks after the revolt ended.
“Actually, many Amerindians were so fearful of the security forces that they fled over the border to seek refuge in Brazil. The allegation of harassment and killings was subsequently denied by the Guyana Government and the administration of the Guyana Defence Force, both of which claimed that no one was killed in the suppression of the rebels.
“The Roman Catholic Bishop of Georgetown, the Reverend R. Lester Guilly, was allowed by the Ministry of Home Affairs to make a four-day observation tour of the southern Rupununi Savannahs to see the condition of the Amerindians, most of whom were Roman Catholics. However, he was not allowed to visit the northern Rupununi, where the rebellion actually took place and where the atrocities were being reported to have been committed.”
The report continued: “However, the Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who had applied to the Government to visit the Rupununi District, which was now designated a restricted area to non-Amerindians, was refused permission by the Ministry of Home Affairs to visit the area to examine the situation.
“As a result of this refusal, the PPP sent two of its leading Amerindian members, Eugene Stoby, a Member of Parliament, and Basil James to the Rupununi by the Guyana Airways passenger flight to make on-the-spot observations. But on landing at the Lethem airfield, they were detained by the GDF authorities and sent back on the return flight to Georgetown where they were rigorously questioned by the police before being released.”
The PPP felt that the Government’s statement that no Amerindian was killed in the crushing of the rebellion was untrue, since it was apparent that the army met resistance which caused it to burn down a number of buildings in which mainly Amerindian rebels had entrenched themselves. It would be unique, the PPP stated, for an army to crush an armed rebellion without inflicting any loss of life on the rebel forces.
Observers had posited that the revolt had its origin in a combination of factors: Resentment by the people of the Rupununi against the PNC Government for the electoral fraud and the eviction of the United Force from the coalition; dissatisfaction with the Government’s high-handed action in connection with their leased lands; and police brutality against Amerindians, including the wanton rape of their women.
During early February 1969, the PNC Government rushed a National Security Act through the National Assembly in the face of strong opposition from the PPP. The Government claimed that the Act was aimed at curbing subversion in the country. During the debate in Parliament (on the National Security Act of 1969 to restrict the movement of persons within Guyana and to prevent Guyanese leaving the country), PPP opposition members pointed out that in the vast Rupununi area (following the short-lived uprising), the Government imposed, administratively, a complete ban on persons entering the area. The charge was made that the Government had something to hide; it was not telling the whole truth about the situation in the Rupununi, particularly with respect to the treatment of the Amerindians.
There was much speculation as to the number of deaths. The PPP sent two of its Amerindian members — one an organiser, the other a Member of Parliament — to investigate. They bought airplane tickets from the Guyana Airways Corporation and duly boarded the plane. Shortly after they landed, however, they were rounded up by police and sent back to Georgetown. Even priests who had served in the area were hustled out and prevented from returning. The Government had actually sealed off the entire area, long after there could be any military justification for this. Only Government officials and certain PNC activists were allowed in.
This, then, is the PNC’s history of treating with Amerindians: Isolating them from the rest of the citizenry, and battering them physically, socially and financially, through stangling their economic enterprises.
Their latest act, then, should come as no surprise to those who have followed their history of treating with ordinary Guyanese in general, and Amerindians in particular. This latest malicious strangulation of their communities merely replicates their historical suppression of Guyana’s First Peoples.

extracted from the Guyana Chronicle