From: tony@zoo.toronto.edu (Anthony L. Lang)
Subject: 28 years of oppression of Indo-Guyanese ends
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 21:18:10 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

The dictatorship in Guyana finally bowed to world pressure
to hold free and fair elections.  The result is that
last week a democratically elected goverment came into power
and ended the 28 year oppression of the Indo-Guyanese (who are
a majority in the country) by Afro-Guyanese.  
The new president is former
prime minister (from the 1950s and '60s) Cheddi Jagan.

The Indo-Guyanese (and Indians in Trinidad) were 
brought primarily from the middle Gangetic
plain (Bihar and U.P.) and from the Chota Nagpur plateau from
the 1830s to the 1920s.  Smaller numbers came from Bengal,
Tamil Nadu, and some Rajastani soldiers were also shipped
after the mutiny, but the only language that survives 
is Bhojpuri Hindi.  They came from all castes.
They replaced African slaves on the
sugar plantations after emancipation, who mainly migrated to
the cities.  The geographic seperation largely remained
by the time the move for independence came in the 1950s.  

The independence movement, however, soon split along
racial lines (African/Indian) mostly due to the the burning
desire for power from an African by the name of Forbes
Burnham.  Burnham whipped up African fears of the Indians
becoming the new colonial master in order to muster support for his
new party.  In the meantime, England and the U.S. grew uneasy
with Cheddi Jagan's Marxist stance during his 3 pre-independence
governments.  After meeting with Jagan, J.F. Kennedy,
perennial red-baiter, gave the order to the CIA to depose
Jagan.  Prior to this, Jagan had been ousted temporarily by the
British army when Burnham's opposition forces took to the
streets of the capital to loot Indian shops and assault and
murder Indians.  Jagan and his government had been reinstated
later, but a national strike began at the instigation of
Burnham's African based party, along with the right-wing
United Front, a largely Portugese-Guyanese party.  The CIA
provided unlimited funds to pay the strikers more than
they made on the job, according to an ex-CIA man.  
This again deteriorated into violence
directed at Indians and the government was brought down.
This was in 1964.  Burnham's party and the UF formed a
coalition and Burnham rigged the next election to gain 
complete control over the country.  He then proceeded to 
weed Indians out of the police, army, civil service and
give jobs to Africans in order to consolidate his support.  
Public opposition was silenced
by death squads.  Indians left in droves over the next 27
years.  There have been estimates of as many as half a million
leaving, primarily to Britain, the U.S. and Canada.
Approximately 350,000 Indians remain in the country.
Burnham's policies continued after his death in the late 1980s.
He too however, became a Marxist, and nationalized many foreign
owned and locally owned businesses.  He placed his friends
and supporters in power and they promptly looted them of their
money and mismanaged them into the ground for lack of expertise.
Indian rice farmers slowed production after people with no
knowledge of agriculture were placed in charge of the rice
board and Guyana slipped from first place in rice production
in South America.  Ironically, Africans had become the new
colonial master and at the same time had not moved into
many sectors of the economy and professions because of
patronage from the dictatorship.

This nightmare came to an end last week.  
African supporters of the dictatorship looted shops
on election day, but the police kept order and democracy
prevailed.
The country, however,
is in ruins.  The economy has shrunk is excess of 5 % annually
for 2 decades and the national treasury and aid programs
have been looted by the dictatorship.  Jagan 
who now espouses a mixed economy, is also faced
with trying to introduce employment equity between Indians
and Africans, and to curb the powers of the army and police
that facilitated the rigging of so many elections.  This
means that the threat of a racially motivated coup is
strong.  I hope that democracy and racial equality succeed.
-- 
Anthony Lang
Dept. of Zoology, Univ. of Toronto
tony@zoo.utoronto.ca
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian