Dear Editor,
PRESIDENT David Granger fired the first salvo in pursuit of his historical mission to misinterpret and revise Guyana’s contemporary political history. In the course of a lecture delivered at the Parliament Building on July 6, 2012, he declared: “There is no Father of the Nation; Independence cannot be attributed to a single person or to a single party.” With this single sentence Granger dismissed out of hand any role for both Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham. By the same token, he distanced himself from Burnham, his benefactor, “the Kabaka” and Founder Leader of the party he now heads. A mere three years later, Amna Ally, speaking at a ceremony hosted by the Women’s arm of the PNC on August 7, 2015, contradicted Granger. She publicly hailed Burnham as “the Father of the Nation”.
It was the politics of deception at work. In the same month and year, to mark the same occasion but at a different venue, Granger made a ninety degree about turn, probably to appease the Nortons and other hardline Burnhamites who had expressed publicly their disagreement with Granger’s earlier “Father of the Nation” statement. Praising Burnham, this is what Granger had to say: “Guyanese are heirs of a rich legacy bequeathed by Forbes Burnham… We draw strength from our former leader’s exemplary record, and renew our collective effort to continue his life’s work and to create a good life for all Guyanese.” Continuing his historical mission to dictate the course of history and to provide his own interpretation of Guyana’s political history, speaking at a President’s College Graduation ceremony in November 2015, Granger declared that Guyana needs a “second Independence”. He stated: “The independence movement was “incomplete”; it left many citizens languishing in the shadow of dependency with its poverty, prejudices, and political partisanship.” Granger completely and consciously side-stepped the programme and policies implemented by the PPP from 1957 to 1964; but, more importantly, those implemented from 1992 to 2015.
Granger now sees himself cast in the role of Sir Galahad, who has taken on the “mantle” of saving Guyana from the “four horsemen” which he so fondly keeps reminding his audiences about. Further, he assumed another mantle, beginning from 1966, since, as far as he is concerned, neither Jagan nor Burnham played any significant role whatsoever during the period of 1957 to 1964, and from 1964 to 1992, and later from 1992 to 2015, while the PPP was in office. At the ceremony marking the 49th Anniversary of Guyana’s Independence, held at the Independence Arch at Brickdam, Granger praised to the skies one Theopholus Lee whom he claimed played a major role in the Guyanese people’s struggle for Universal Adult Suffrage – a rather far-fetched and obscurantist approach to Guyanese political history. It was a falsehood which could not survive a test of a Guyanese history lesson, nor scrutiny of British Guiana’s historical records.
It astounded many that Granger would scrape the barrel searching for an obscure and a non-entity as Lee, a turncoat who openly supported pro-colonial policies against the citizens of the then British Guiana. It came as a surprise, therefore, that Granger did not use the occasion to name the Brickdam Arch after Theopholus Lee, as he is wont to do. But this was not to be the end of the revisionist and obscurantist approach to Guyana’s contemporary political history. In fact, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of our country’s Independence, Mr. Granger was at it again. This time he delved deep into his party’s album in search of a hero who perhaps Burnham himself never liked anyway. Thus Granger came up with the name Eugene Correia. The question was where was the name to be placed? A location had to be found to assign the name; and, after all, what better place can there be than the Ogle International Airport? The President therefore took it upon himself to sell the name, and to publicly justify the name being emblazoned atop the main Terminal Building at the Ogle Airport.
In this way, Granger opened a can of worms, all hell broke loose, the proposal became mired in controversy from the very outset, but there was no turning back. Eugene Correia belonged to the privileged and propertied class of the then British Guiana. Following the removal of the PPP government as a result of the suspension of the Constitution by the colonial powers, he was elected a Member of the 1954 Interim Government. Correia belonged to the National Democratic Party (NDP), which fought the PPP in 1953 elections. Correia’s party was closely associated with the League of Coloured People (LCP), a party that appealed to African racism. Correia, along with others, opposed the Rice Farmers’ Security of Tenure Ordinance. According to Cheddi Jagan: “The Ordinance sought to help rice farmers during droughts and floods, and to secure and protect their rights. For a landlord who did not keep drains and trenches free from bush, the penalty was again that the tenant would vacate the land. The landlord deliberately did not uphold the rules of good estate management. And vacating the land was the last thing the tenant wanted to do – The law was of no value to him”. So much for the “admirable role” played by Eugene Correia. Rice farmers today should take note of these historical facts as they continue to struggle for survival fifty years later. Guyana can look forward to more of these brazen and disrespectful acts as we move towards celebrating the 50th Anniversary of our country’s independence.
Regards,
CLEMENT ROHEE
General Secretary,
People’s Progressive Party
