British Guiana: Husband & Wife Team

The most controversial woman in South American politics since Evita Peron is Janet Jagan, 42, the American-born wife of British Guiana's Premier Cheddi Jagan. Not only is she a white woman in a volatile land of East Indians and Negroes; she is also a strident Marxist and believed by many to be the brains and backbone behind her husband's Castro-lining government. Violent enemies call her "the devil."

Anti-Jagan dock workers recently stoned and burned her car; luckily for Janet Ja gan, she was not inside at the time. Even the regime's moderate opponents blame her for much of what Cheddi does. "It's all Janet's fault that Cheddi's the way he is," says one adversary.

Like a Tiger. Dowdy and bespectacled, her greying hair askew, Janet Rosenberg Jagan looks more like a suburban matron than an impassioned leftist in a disturbed colony of 600,000 people on South America's northeast coast. But she was a fire brand Young Communist Leaguer in Chicago long before Cheddi came on the scene to study dentistry at Northwestern in the late 19305. She hit it off with the ever-smiling East Indian, and when they returned as a married couple to British Guiana, Cheddi was making angry speeches condemning foreign "oppressors" and spouting the Marxist line. Wherever Cheddi went, Janet went too, making her own fiery speeches. She campaigned even when she was pregnant and ignored the rotten eggs thrown at her. "She was like a tiger in those days," remembers a Jagan admirer. "She would tell people how they were exploited and how the imperialists were sucking their blood."

With her Young Communist training, Janet conducted cell meetings on Communist ideology. She helped organize Cheddi's following into his People's Progressive Party, now runs it as secretary-general and edits the party's Red-lining paper called Thunder. Associates are called "comrade," and last year she spent three weeks in East Berlin, Moscow and Peking talking trade and spreading the word about what was going on in British Guiana.

"I'm an activist," says Janet Jagan. "People either hate me to infinity or love me to death. I get caught in extremes." She denies that she has "the influence I'm supposed to have." Whether she does or not, British Guiana's husband and wife team has brought little besides economic stagnation and political upheaval to the country.

In February 1962, after the Jagan government proposed enforced savings and higher taxes, mobs surged through the Georgetown capital in riots that left six dead and a charred shopping district in the center of town that has not been rebuilt to this day. Jagan had to call in British tommies airflown from London to restore order. An investigating committee sent from London to look into the riots put the major blame on Jagan's government, and noted that in testifying Jagan refused a straight answer to questions about whether he was a Communist.

No Aid, No Work. Under the circumstances, the U.S. has refused all Alliance for Progress aid to British Guiana. And Britain, which last year was ready to discuss complete freedom for the self-governing colony, has now postponed independence indefinitely.

Jagan continues to stir up antagonism inside the country, and last week his regime was challenged by a paralyzing general strike. The walkout was called to protest labor legislation that would require government-directed union elections in all industries. The powerful Trades Union Council suspected Cheddi of trying to grab control of the unions, insisted on elections regulated by an independent agency.

Sugar mills, bauxite mines, docks, railroads and airports shut down. Store owners covered their windows with strong wire mesh, British tommies went on alert, a British warship stood offshore, and police armed with bayonets patrolled the streets of Georgetown. At week's end Cheddi was desperately trying to negotiate a solution to the strike. It was doubtful whether he could get away for a trip to the U.S., where he was scheduled to appear before a United Nations committee studying British Guiana's case for full independence, and he was forced to send his regrets to the Winnipeg Press Club in Canada, where he was supposed to make a speech. As a substitute, Cheddi wired the Canadians that he would send his wife Janet to do the talking for him.

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BRITISH GUIANA: Jagan's Comeback

History was coming full circle in the poverty-ridden crown colony of British Guiana last week. Four years ago, in the country's first general election, Communism-spouting Cheddi B. Jagan, a suave, U.S.-educated East Indian dentist (Northwestern University, '43), startled the complacent British by sweeping into office. The followers of his People's Progressive Party shouted, "We guv'ment!", and Jagan boasted that they would shoot their "oppressors." Six months later, 700 British troops and three warships deposed Chief Minister Jagan, suspended the colony's constitution. Next week, under a cautiously revised constitution, the colony's 200,000 voters will again go to the polls. The overwhelming favorite to win from six to eight of the 14 Legislative Council seats: Jagan and his P.P.P.

Jagan's P.P.P. is favored in the battle of four leftish parties largely because the British gave him two major assists. First, they booted him out of office in 1953 before the people could be disillusioned at his lack of an overall program and his patent lack of administrative ability. Says one rival politician: "He should have been allowed enough rope to hang himself." Thus, to the voters, Jagan is still a martyred hero. Then, after belatedly setting up an $84 million emergency-aid program to quiet rising discontent, the British ruined the effect by slowing down expenditures.

Starting with these advantages, Left-Winger Jagan, 39, is acting like a moderate as he campaigns with his wife Janet, once a Chicago Young Communist Leaguer. He denies that he is a Communist, although government officials are convinced he keeps in close touch with the Kremlin. He talks of forming a postelection coalition with a former ally, Forbes Burnham, 36, a mercurial Negro lawyer with Communist leanings of his own, whose splinter wing of the P.P.P. may win up to four seats.

If Jagan wins handily and switches back to his old Red line, Sir Patrick Renison, the Queen's governor, can appoint as many as 14 additional members to the Council, and thus cancel out Jagan's power without the face-losing last resort of calling in the troops. But Renison hopes to be able to persuade Jagan to set up a moderate government that can start easing the colony down the road to self-rule. Jagan claims that he is anxious to please. "I am a realist," he says soothingly. "The British government can still exercise full control even though internal self-government is conceded."

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British Guiana: A New Boss

At last the British had no choice but to take control of their race-torn little South American colony. After five months of continued violence between 295,000 East Indians, led by Marxist Premier Cheddi Jagan, and 190,000 Jagan-hating Negroes, Britain's Governor Sir Richard Luyt announced that he was assuming emergency power in British Guiana to prevent further bloodshed. He also ordered the arrest and detention of 35 leading troublemakers—all but two of them members of lagan's People's Progressive Party. Temporarily at least, Cheddi Jagan and his Communism-spouting wife Janet were out of business.

In the most recent clashes between the races, 15 have been killed and scores injured. The worst horror was played out in the Georgetown capital when terrorists fire-bombed the home of a mulatto anti-Jagan civil servant, killing him and seven of his children. On radio next day, Governor Luyt (pronounced late) reported that Jagan and his ministers had refused to impose curfews, refused to permit military searches for terrorists, and had not muzzled race-baiting radio broadcasts. Said the Governor: The security force of 1,200 British troops, 600 "volunteer" troops and 1,600 local police "will be firm. They will also be fair. The position now is that the Governor and not the ministers will handle the emergency."

Some of Jagan's opponents welcomed Luyt's action as "the only one that can prevent the country from falling into a final stage of anarchy." Predictably, Jagan cried imperialism and condemned it as "a dark mark on Britain's all-dirty record as a colonial power." His followers warned that he might call for countrywide civil disobedience. If he does, Jagan himself is almost certain to land in jail.

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British Guiana: Old Leftist, New Game

When Dr. Cheddi Jagan. 42. a politically ambitious East Indian  dentist, first took power in British Guiana eight years ago,  he fluttered the dovecots of empire. Sounding every inch a Marxist.  Jagan vowed: "The same bullets which were fired on poor people  will be fired on our oppressors." announced that he was forming  a "people's police" and abolishing the civil service. In a day when Winston Churchill was still Prime Minister. Britain's reply was to send four warships and 1,600 troops, who ousted Jagan and suspended the brand-new constitution that granted the 147-year-old colony internal self-government. Last week, in elections that represented a second attempt at self-government. Jagan was again the runaway winner, with 20 of the 35 seats in the legislature. But the fiery messiah of 1953 was now playing a much cozier game.

The ballots were barely counted before Jagan began agitating for an end to the last vestige of British control (foreign affairs, defense) and demanding immediate independence. Domestically, he promised democracy and social reform. Abroad, he said, "we plan to follow a policy of neutralism like Nehru and Nasser.'' No longer shouting about oppressors, bullets or people's police, Jagan said reassuringly: "We also cherish the things the West fights for—personal liberties." The West kept its fingers crossed.

Marrying Marx. A plantation foreman's son who went to Northwestern University in 1941, married a Chicago-born Young Communist Leaguer named Janet Rosenberg, and came home yelling Marxist war cries. Jagan has simmered down in recent years, swung toward advocating order and development.

What may make Jagan's task more difficult is a tense racial issue that pits the more numerous East Indians, imported to work the cane fields, against the colony's Negroes. In last week's election, his People's Progressive Party wooed rural Moslem and Hindu sugar workers, promising socialist reform to those getting $3.50 a day, did not even put up candidates in Negro strongholds.

"Like Tito." Jagan's main hope to knit his fractured country together is massive aid from abroad. With Cuba, he has a deal to export rice and timber in return for a Castro-confiscated printing plant. But to the U.S., he cooed that he does not intend to fulfill an old pledge to nationalize the sugar and bauxite industries. When final independence is won, he intends to join the Organization of American States. He wants to travel to the U.S. this fall to talk over his share of the Alliance for Progress with President Kennedy, and sees no reason why he should not get "aid from the Western world." Why not? he asks. "Tito and Nehru get aid, and even Poland."

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BRITISH GUIANA: Kicking Out the Communists

Last April, British Guiana, the Kansas-sized land of jungle, mountains and coastal sugar lands that is Britain's only colony on the South American continent, held its first popular elections under a newly granted constitution—and returned the first openly pro-Communist government ever to hold office in the British Empire. Last week, after six months of mounting frustration over the colony's Red-created unrest and subversive intrigues, Britain suspended the constitution and sent in troops to guarantee public safety. Said Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton: "Her Majesty's government is not willing to allow a Communist state to be organized within the British Commonwealth."

Chicago Schooling. Habitually less concerned than Americans about the menace of international Communism, the British had hoped by the example of good manners and management to cool off the hothead East Indian and Negro leaders elected in backward Guiana. But the crown-appointed governor, Sir Alfred Savage, soon found that the Reds of the victorious People's Progressive Party, holding 18 of 24 seats in the legislature, were too hot to handle. Their Premier was a 33-year-old East Indian dentist named Cheddi Jagan (rhymes with pagan), a rapid-fire orator in both English and Creolise (an abused English spoken in the colony). But the real brains of the Communist movement was his blonde, Chicago-born wife, Janet Rosenberg Jagan, 32.

Alone among Guiana's "Progressives," Janet Jagan, graduate of the U.S. Young Communist League, was trained in international Communism (although she says she now has no Communist Party connections). Daughter of a prosperous plumbing contractor who lived in Chicago and Detroit, she had finished 3½ years of college (Michigan State, Wayne, Detroit), and was a student nurse at Chicago's Cook County Hospital when she met Cheddi Jagan, a dentistry student at Northwestern in 1942. Ditching five other suitors, she married Cheddi, converted him to Marxism, helped him set up practice in British Guiana's capital of Georgetown in 1943.

Rumania Refresher. Starting the colony's first women's political group, stumping through the canebrakes to demand better housing for low-paid East Indian sugar workers, slim, serious Janet Jagan soon became the most talked-about woman in British Guiana. The waiting room of the Jagans' dental office became the meeting  place of the discontented, and especially of those who sought independence for the colony. In 1947, after Jagan won a seat in the legislature, the Jagans sparked a bitter sugar strike in which five workers were killed. Founding the Progressive Party, Janet became secretary general and went from village to village making speeches and organizing study and propaganda cells. In 1951, her husband traveled to East Berlin. This year, after their April electoral sweep, Janet left her four-year-old son Joe with her husband and went first to Denmark to address the Copenhagen congress of the Communist-run Women's International Democratic Federation, then on to Rumania.

After Janet got back, Governor Savage quickly realized that he could never work successfully with the Reds. As soon as he let them repeal a ban on importing subversive literature, they brought in stocks of Communist propaganda. Then the new ministers fomented another big sugar strike that shut down the colony's main industry. When that petered out, they brought in a bill to force recognition of their Red-led union, and denounced "that man Savage" in open-air rallies. And when Janet Jagan drafted a party declaration demanding that London abolish the governor's control powers and other constitutional checks, the Colonial Office apparently decided that it was faced with a determined Red plot to seize full power.

London Lesson. Taking no chances after all the oratorical threats, London ordered 1.600 troops and four warships rushed to the colony. Though news leaked from Bermuda that the cruiser Superb had sailed with sealed orders, there was no violence. As the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and Marines fanned out to occupy key points around Georgetown, and the radio announced suspension of the constitution and dismissal of the legislature, Premier Jagan made the understatement of the week: "We are most unhappy about the situation." He and the other Red-tinged ministers were not detained or molested in any way, but the legislature's dismissal had neatly squeezed them out of their jobs.

At first, adopting an air of injured innocence. Jagan & Co. announced that they would take their case to the U.N. and to British opinion. Then they got their second wind, and Janet dashed off a fiery manifesto beginning: "Our country has been invaded by foreign troops . . ." and calling, almost in the same breath, for a general strike, a boycott and nonviolence. In London, a few Labor M.P.s cautiously questioned whether it had been necessary to act quite so forcefully. "Better to be in good time than too late," replied Winston Churchill. That seemed to be exactly the view of the U.S. State Department, which issued a prompt statement declaring itself "gratified" at the "firm action" against a Communist bid for power within the U.S.'s vital strategic zone.

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British Guiana: Cheddi's Last Stand

Land Rovers prowled the streets,  bristling with British tommies and submachine guns. Army helicopters  whirred overhead. Military radios crackled back and forth. It was  election day in British Guiana, and Her Majesty's government in  Whitehall was determined to ensure the peaceful elections that seemed  to be the colony's only hope of ending its three-year reign of racial  violence. But -not for the first time-hope for stability in British  Guiana was thwarted by Marxist Premier Cheddi Jagan.

The election was specifically designed to oust Jagan, whose People's  Progressive Party is overwhelmingly supported by Guiana's 295,000 East  Indians. To guard against a repetition of the 1961 election, when Jagan  won a parliamentary majority with only 42.6% of the vote, the  government introduced a system of proportional representation under  which he would have had to win a clear majority to return to power.  Since no other party is willing to join a Jagan government, the British  hoped that the election would result in a coalition headed by Attorney  Forbes Burnham, a moderate, pro-Western leader whose People's National  Congress Party is backed by his 190,000 fellow Negroes.

Familiar Tale. To a certain point, the election went as planned. Jagan  piled up only 45.8% of the vote; Burnham won 40.5% and stood ready to  form a coalition with the third-running United Force Party (12%),  headed by Portuguese Businessman Peter d'Aguiar. But then Cheddi simply  refused to resign. "The election was fraudulent," he announced. "The  British government will have to force me out." Unimpressed, the  governor formally appointed Burnham Prime Minister.

It was a familiar tale. Jagan, a dentist turned demagogue, founded the  P.P.P. in 1950 with his Chicago-born, sometime-Communist wife Janet,  and won the colony's first general elections in 1953. Jagan's  intemperate demands for independence and deliberately incited sugar  strikes forced the British to boot him out after five months. Ever  since his return to power three years ago, Jagan has gone out of his  way to foment racial passions. When last week's elections were  announced in October 1963, his answer was to send his sugar workers out  on a savage strike that lasted six months and took 173 lives before  5,000 troops restored order.

Bedtime Reading. By contrast with the P.P.P.'s racist election  propaganda, Burnham's campaign focused on such needs as public works  projects and agricultural reform. A silk-smooth speaker and one of his  country's top criminal attorneys, Burnham earned a law degree with  honors at London University, reads himself to sleep in English  ("political novels"), French (Lamartine, Corneille), or Latin (Cicero,  Tacitus, Catullus). Originally a co-founder of Jagan's P.P.P., Burnham  soon soured on Cheddi's Marxist rantings and, fired by his own  ambition, set up the anti-Communist P.N.C. in 1957. If his ideas today  are sometimes vague, he is an avowed friend of the U.S.-and needs to  be, since the backward colony desperately needs U.S. aid.

Above all, Burnham is determined to damp down racial hatreds. "Every  case of hooliganism will be ruthlessly dealt with," he vows. "We will  not condone violence." Nonetheless, the colony may well be in for more  violence before Jagan goes back to dentistry.

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GREAT BRITAIN: Sledge Hammer in Guiana

The House of Commons, ancient Mother  of Parliaments, last week debated the government's right to take back  the democratic rights it conferred only five months before on the South  American colony of British Guiana.

Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton defended his action in rushing  warships and troops to Guiana to prevent a Communist coup (TIME, Oct.  19).

Lyttelton accused the Guiana People's Progressive Party of 1)  seeking to establish a one-party Communist state, 2) spreading racial  hatred. He cited evidence that Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the East Indian  dentist whom Lyttelton deposed from his post as Prime Minister, had  conspired to organize a Red "People's Police.'' Two of Jagan's Cabinet  ministers and his American wife Janet, a former Young Communist who  became the deputy speaker of the colony's Assembly, had been seen  touring the sugar plantations, inciting workers to strike. Jagan's  Minister of Works & Labor had urged party hooligans to storm the  Parliament building. One P.P.P. speech, cited by Lyttelton: "We are  going to sacrifice some warm blood, so these damn white bitches see we  mean something . . ."

Day in Court. Not all of Lyttelton's charges were equally convincing. A  few, e.g., that the P.P.P. had "sought to undermine the position of ...  the Boy Scouts," left some Britons with an uneasy feeling that the  government was trying too hard to establish its case. The misgivings  vanished last week when the nation got a firsthand look at what its  home-grown Reds were calling "the suffering victims of imperialism."

Beetle-browed Cheddi Jagan, 35. had flown to Britain, confidently  expecting a bonanza of Socialist sympathy. With him, flashing the  three-fingered salute of the P.P.P.. was his Minister of Education; an  Oxford-educated Negro named Linden Forbes Burnham. The pair were met at  London Airport by a bunch of British Communists, but before they could  mount a soapbox, Scotland Yard whisked them away to a private office on  the Opposition side of the House of Commons. Clement Attlee, whose  government had prepared the way for self-government in Guiana, had  urgent questions to ask. He had been disturbed by Lyttelton's handling  of other colonial revolts (in Kenya and Nyasa-land), and wanted to make  sure that the two Guianans got their day in court.

For close on three hours. Attlee, Nye Bevan, Herbert Morrison and ten  others of Labor's top command grilled the pair, demanding clear-cut  answers to Lyttelton's charges. Time & again, they put the direct  question, "Are you Communists?", got only evasive replies. To a man.  the Labor leaders were revolted by Burnham's doubletalk. "It's a  tragedy." said one, "that such an opportunity should have been thrown  away by such terrible men . . ." "Burnham is 20 times more astute than  Jagan," said another. "His answers were so slick that sometimes you  were almost caught by them . . ."

Limited Indictment. Next day, in the House of Commons, the Laborites  disowned Jagan and all his works, stoutly endorsed Lyttelton's  pronouncement: "Her Majesty's government are not prepared to tolerate  the setting up of Communist states in the British Commonwealth." Attlee  added his bit: "It is quite clear that [P.P.P.'s leaders] speak the  language of Communists and feed on Communist literature." Attlee  approved the sending of troops and the firing of Jagan, questioning  only whether it had been necessary to suspend the colony's  constitution.

The Opposition was worried that Lyttelton's "sledgehammer" tactics  might give the Reds in other British colonies a new rallying cry.  "Wouldn't it have been better," asked Attlee, "to charge Jagan & Co. in  a court of law, or ... dissolve the Parliament and have fresh  elections?" Attlee's conclusion: "We have no dispute whatever about  the danger and about the need for action. Our indictment is that there  were other methods."

The vote sustained Lyttelton, 294 to 256—"a highly satisfactory  majority," commented one Tory. Jagan and Burnham, who had watched the  performance from the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery, noisily stalked  out. At a London rally, they told their Communist friends: "Bullets  have replaced ballots."

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British Guiana: Calling for Help

All week long, raging mobs of Negroes  surged through British Guiana's Georgetown capital, looting stores,  mercilessly beating any East Indian in their path. What started as a  peaceful strike by British Guiana's Negro-dominated unions against  Marxist Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan's highhanded government became a  bloody fight with ugly racial overtones. It pitted the East Indians  (49% of the population), who loyally follow their countryman Jagan,  against the Negroes (45% ), who regard him as a dangerous Communist.

Jagan's reaction to the conflict served only to inflame it. When a crowd  pelted his car as he was leaving Parliament, his bodyguards opened  fire, wounding four demonstrators. As the rioting grew worse during the  week, Jagan's riot police, aptly nicknamed the "Bongo Boys," hurled  tear-gas grenades, waded in with truncheons, and finally started  shooting. Scores were wounded, hundreds arrested. Food supplies ran  short, and at one point hundreds of children joined the demonstrators,  rattling spoons and empty plates and chanting, "We want food, we want  food." At the Georgetown docks, where the Russian freighter Kirovsk was  loading 30,000 bags of rice sold by Jagan to Communists, an angry mob  stoned police and smashed windows of the government's Rice Marketing  Board. Soon after, nearly 100 sticks of dynamite were found, some with  the fuses sputtering. The Russian ship sailed for Castro's Cuba.

So serious was the situation that Jagan was forced to accept a strange  sort of aid for a man who describes himself as an "anticolonialist  nationalist." He called on the British Governor, and for the second  time in 16 months, let British troops protect his tottering regime. In  battle dress, weapons at the ready, a contingent of Coldstream Guards  stationed in the country quick-timed through Georgetown to lay barbed  wire around Parliament House and take up positions at key power and  water facilities. In London, the Colonial Office watched the situation  closely. There was talk that Britain might suspend British Guiana's  constitution and temporarily revoke self-government if Jagan cannot  maintain law and order.

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British Guiana: Cheddi Against the Field

The East Indian speakers at the rally  could barely be heard above the din. Tough-looking Portuguese and Negro  youths swaggered about the parade grounds in the Georgetown  capital—heckling, booing and shouting obscenities. When the last East  Indian speaker stepped up, the mob advanced to the platform,  disconnecting the public address system and defying the outnumbered  East Indians to do anything. Then the hecklers swarmed toward a car,  nearly lynching an East Indian driver because someone shouted: "He's  got a gun." The gun was a toy pistol.

Reason behind this and similar riots is that on Dec. 7, Britain's tiny  self-governing colony on South America's northeast hump will elect a  new government. The campaign pits Marxist Premier Cheddi Jagan and his  295,000 East Indian followers, who live mostly in the countryside,  against an informal alliance of 330,000 violently anti-Jagan whites and  Negroes, who control the towns and are led mainly by Georgetown  Attorney Forbes Burnham, 41. Jagan has a real fight on his hands. In  1961 he got 42.6% of the vote. But under simple majority rule, he  picked up enough districts to win 20 of Parliament's 35 seats. This  time, however, the British have decreed countrywide proportional  representation—strongly hinting that London wants an opposition  coalition in Parliament that will mix the races and bring Jagan down.

Campaign of "Ifs." Cheddi's first reaction to the new ground rules last  fall was to threaten a boycott. When that failed to daunt the British,  he sent his East Indian sugar workers out on a strike that swiftly  degenerated into an ugly race war. Hundreds of Negro and East Indian  homes were bombed, 173 people were killed, thousands more injured.  Sporadic fighting went on for six months until British Governor Sir  Richard Luyt assumed emergency power and called in 5,000 tommies. Only  then did Jagan call off the strike and order his supporters to  register.

His campaign has done little to calm the racial passions. His party  circulated thousands of copies of a preliminary police report on the  activities of Negro counterterrorist groups during the strike. When  Luyt banned the report on the grounds that it was secret and full of  unverified accusations, a so-called Jagan "government commission" put  out its own juicy report on Negro violence. Then there is the question  of lagan's Marxism: Cheddi has long railed at the "imperialist" U.S.,  while lauding Fidel Castro, trading with Cuba, and calling for Cuban-style "socialism" in British Guiana. Yet he  insists that "my party is not a Communist party." Is Cheddi himself a  Communist? "If you mean to each his own," he says, "then I am a  Communist. But if you mean denial of freedom, then I am not." Chance  for a Coalition.

Cheddi's chief opponent, Negro Leader Forbes Burnham,  considers this pure doubletalk. A graduate of London University,  Burnham is an able, experienced politician who would strengthen the  colony's ties with the U.S. Chances are that Jagan will win the most  votes, but not the 51% majority he needs to form a government. In  second place will come Burnham, and third, the United Force Party, led  by Portuguese Businessman Peter d'Aguiar. Anti-Jaganites then hope that  these two will stitch together a ruling coalition, allowing British  Guiana to recover, with Western help. "Jagan," says Burnham, "has  antagonized the West as far as assistance is concerned, and failed to  get assistance from the East."

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Where else in the world would you find a white non-born citizen become the President of a country? Nowhere else. And the blue-eyed bougie was the president and Guyanese indians could not get enough.

Indeed that communist Cheddi was a disgrace to Guyana. He was the main reason that the Americans and British supported the lesser of the two evils, the pnc. 

The LIMEY DOGS were MOST responsible for THE FATHER OF THE NATION BEING KICKED OUT!!!! BLOODY LIMEYS!!!!

With TEARS in my eyse I say "If dat GREAT man was not denied his RIGHTS by Panty wearing Churchill and Kennedy GUYANA would have been the Caribbean's Dubai.  MAY GOD BLESS HIS GREAT SOUL. JAI SHREE RAM.!!!

This is why we were left in limbo for 5 decades. This fool could not answer a question straight. This is the father of the nation supposedly doing the Clinton shuffle ( decades before Clinton)  on it depends on what one means by "is"

 A friend of my enemy is not my friend. The Brits and Americans have a responsibility to their people first and not to labor over obfuscating answers by one who can jeopardize it. With Cheddi in power the Soviet could have put missiles in the place just to project power in the west.

TOTAL BULLSHIT. SHE MARRIED AND LIVED IN GUYANA MORE YEARS THAN YOU HAVE!!!!

Some are still pushing for Sonia in India.

He is called the father of the nation. Goads, why are you disparaging him?

His communist views caused the Americans to favour the PNC over him.  Good read Sunil.

god bless his soul but today he is turning in his grave every thing he fought for is gone to waste

If it ain't the consummate kack blocker mitwanda aka lucknee wallah. hhahahahahaha

You may worship that fool as this is your right, however you fools can not dictate who I support. ahahahaha 

Nuff of his Commie youth gang hide their face as they have all converted to capitalists and feudalists.  I know few PYO guys from my school days now in denial.  When I remind them of their fist-in-the-air chants "almighty USSR, death to America", they say I mistook them for someone else.  It's funny, if not for the destruction of the Indian masses which resulted.

Dr. Cheddi Jagan's political beliefs were informed a great deal by his experiences at Howard University, Washington DC. You have to remember those were the days that Blacks were still fighting for civil rights and equality. Likewise the European world was going through the throes of de-colonization with all the warts that engendered. Heck even Forbes Burnham's experiences in a British university would have nurtured some anti-colonial beliefs and a desire to be the anti-European (rice instead of wheat, shirt-Jacs instead of suit and tie....).

Yes, an innate belief in the power of the market and entrepreneurship would have sounded nice to the British and Americans, but you have to put Jagan's political posturing in the context of the world conditions that existed then.

This is a man who fought for land equity for people (a capitalist desire), fair trade (another capitalist idea), women's right to vote; education for all, etc. Could he have nurtured a party whose succession of him would have been more democratic? Certainly. That's how political movement evolved, and that's why the cabal-rule of Jagdeo was so anti-ethical to the original PPP idea of democracy. You have to give some weight to the centrist Cheddi of the 1992 - 1927 period.

Well, he felt sorry for the US blacks who were getting their asses kicked by Whites, so he returned to Guyana and let them kick abie ****** ass.  That's some pay-back.

Dr Jagan was a great man.  These fools would have run the risk of being severely whipped in Guyana if they had said these things against the great man there.  

Alyuh PYO c00lies mek abie get nuff whipping form dem PNC/YSM blacks.  It took BJ to save abie.

Baseman rest you r-ss.  It will take one hundred thousand men to fill the shoes of Dr Jagan and to match Jagan legacy.

Your racism jumps out naturally.

 Where are the great communists produced at HU of the period?

Carter, Sugrim, Denbow, Moody, Eden, Jacobs, were all of the era and anti colonialists ( the League of colored peoples was a response to the Atlantic Charter not covering colored people per Churchill). Cheddi was influenced by his wife ( the record states the US believed he was merely a naive socialist) and she held sway over him and was an avowed communist.

Burnham  had no firm ethical moorings and had an overwhelming compulsion to be seen seen as the leader. He had lots of examples before him to follow but his ambition overwhelmed prudence.

I agree with Kari with the exception of the last two sentences.  We can have the BJ debate another day.

Nonsense.  BJ was helpless when the mass killins were taking place.  It was law enforcement who finally took out Fineman.

Kari just blow smoke screen, he is good at it.  He talks a lot of gibrich.

Jagan was not a centrist, he was a loser.  He had no choice but to take the position in 1992 as the USSR was defunct and the East Block disintegrated, and Cuba was on a knife's edge.  Jimmy Carter brought him to power, so he reluctantly toed the line.

Regardless of what some people here may think of Mr. Jagdeo.  When he was the leader of the PPP party he was the leader of the PPP party.  What he said or think about issues goes.  There were no fights with the deputy leader of the party at the breakfast table the next morning over issues.  There was no sudden changes to issues because the deputy leader was upset. No one in the party not even Gail dared to bully Mr. Jagdeo.  He was never a weak party leader.  We have to give the man some credit for that. 

wally i agree 100% with you on this regardless of of what he did he was a ruler guyana do not have a ruler today

Y'all got to stop being naive about the PPP and its place in Guyana's political history.

For one thing, a native political force emerged with Cheddi Jagan's leadership to shape the nation's post-colonial future. Jagan's socio-economic plans were borne out of the colonial experience (lack of education, health care, women's voting rights, etc.), and given his plans and the Cold War (along with the US Monroe doctrine and the presence of Fidel Castro's Cuba) he was cornered.

The second thing to note is that Jagan's political infrastructure of "Democratic Centralism" was undemocratic and led to cliques and cabals. Nail him for this if you will, but understand the context above.

Y'all gotta stop responding faith-like when characterizations are made about the years of Jagdeo's governance. Who gives a crap about putting blacks in their place and protecting Indians, and all of that. Measure those years with the security side of things - The political proxies FF and the Phantom fights - with no above-board law enforcement help accepted or procured. Measure the progress by the economic infrastructure installed, the contracts given out and technology transfers. Measure those years by whether Guyana's economic infrastructure was transformed. Has Guyanese manufacturing joined the technological world? Has Guyana jumped on the technology services bandwagon? Are the natural resources exploited optimally - land-based gold extraction, oil exploration, hydro power, etc.

So let's put Cheddi's impact on Guyana's political and economic history in proper perspective. Balance the successes - secondary and tertiary education, health institutions, farmers' progress, etc. - with the failures - the 20-some odd years in the political wilderness with no palpable opposition and indeed critical support when Guyana descended into state capitalism; no democratic party infrastructure; Janet's place in Guyana's history..........

You and the Rev are among the most breathtakingly perverse racists I have encountered and I have met the skinheads and neo Nazis.

All week long, raging mobs of Negroes  surged through British Guiana's Georgetown capital, looting stores,  mercilessly beating any East Indian in their path. What started as a  peaceful strike by British Guiana's Negro-dominated unions against  Marxist Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan's highhanded government became a  bloody fight with ugly racial overtones. It pitted the East Indians  (49% of the population), who loyally follow their countryman Jagan,  against the Negroes (45% ), who regard him as a dangerous Communist.

History is repeating itself. How can you trust these terrorists and thugs?

Sir, there is distrust on both sides. Indians are as avaricious and racist as any and no less prone to criminality of any kind. The reality is we have two competing groups in a low level internecine war that is in need of mediation. The idea of calling people terrorist and thugs does not help. I means you will perpetuate the same wrongheaded sentiment by typecasting this new generation of young people who know little of and care less for the history preceding them. They want a difference.Either you want that difference for them also or you remain intransigent and steeped in the detritus of a dead era.