Independent Guyana

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 4

Independent Guyana

Trouble in Guyana. By Peter Simms. Alien and Unwin. 187 pp. Bibliography and Index.

When British Guiana became independent Guyana last month it was one of the last British coionies to achieve statehood. Yet its political development began earlier than many other colonies and, but for the violence of the last 15 years, it would have been independent much sooner. Mr Simms, journalist and university lecturer, has attempted an account of the origins of European settlement in this remote corner of South America, and of the political strife which accompanied the emergence of this newest member of the Commonwealth. The result is an absorbing book, bringing to life the peoples and problems of a country known before 1953 only as the home of Demerara sugar, from the name of the river which flows through the capital, Georgetown.

British Guiana, about the size of New Zealand and with a population of only 600,000, consists of a narrow coastal strip, mostly reclaimed land below sea-level, on which stand the sugar plantations. Behind this lies the jungle, almost uninhabited. There are rich mineral resources, particularly manganese and bauxite, almost untouched. The first planters brought Negro slaves with them. When the slaves were freed, indentured Indian labour replaced them. Now Guyana is split between these two predominant, and almost equal, racial groups. Its people call it the “land of the Six Peoples,” for in V?

addition there are significant numbers of Chinese, British, Portuguese and indigenous American Indians.

Guyana’s present government is a coalition based largely on the Negroes and Portuguese. The Indians are in opposition, but for the last 15 years their party, the Peoples Progressive Party, under the leadership of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and his American wife Janet, has dominated the political life of the colony. Both the Jagans have all but admitted to being Communists. They once hoped to make Guyana the first Peoples Republic in the Western hemisphere. As Mr Simms tells the story, they have been prevented largely by their own ambition and their refusal to compromise with other political groups. Mr Simms found Guyana “a microcosm of the post-war world.” Basically, the tensions and divisions are racial. But they are overlaid with ideological disputes in which, since the first riots in 1953, men have killed each-other in the name of communism, capitalism or Socialism without understanding what their slogans meant The road to independence has seldom been peaceful, but probably only Cyprus and Kenya in the old British Empire can show a more horrible record of atrocities than Guyana—not between the colonial peoples and their overlords, but between the peoples themselves disputing who shall rule their new land. “Trouble in Guyana” is a timely book. It is also a depressing one, and it must be with considerable doubts about its stability and racial harmony that Guyana faces tiie future.