Dear Editor,
I have just read letters in the Stabroek News of February 27 by Rajendra Rampersaud captioned ‘Boysie Ramkaran was a celebrated wit in Parliament,’ and by WP George, headlined, ‘Boysie, Burnham and the dog.’
Yes, there is a typographical error in my reply, the date is 1980, not 1970 (no fault of the newspaper editor). In any event, between 1970 and 1980 Burnham attended few sittings of Parliament. From 1980, on becoming the Executive President, he could not take part in the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate.
The rest of Mr Rampersaud’s asseverations are not worthy of a reply, save to say, it is always difficult to compare chalk to cheese, which is what he seeks to do by comparing Ramkarran in Parliament with LFS Burnham.
However, the letter from Mr George of the same issue is a total error or confusion, which I now deal with. The dog story, I do not recall, and so, we can leave this alleged canine caper as credible. However, the last paragraph is seriously flawed; it states: “When the parties attended the conference for the Independence of Guyana, Sir Lionel Luckhoo was a member of the PNC delegation, and Boysie noticed… etc.”
Complete nonsense.
First fact:
Sir Lionel Luckhoo never attended any Independence conference as a PNC delegate. There were three Independence conferences in London, in addition to an earlier constitutional conference in March 1960.
At the October-November 1962 conference in London the PPP delegation consisted of Dr CB Jagan;
Dr Fenton Ramsahoye, AG; Mr B H Benn; Mr Ashton Chase; Mr Moses Bhagwan; and a Trinidadian, Jack Kelshall.
Lionel Luckhoo attended as a member of the United Force delegation, not the PNC.
At the 1963 Conference, the PPP was represented by Dr Jagan, BH Benn, Dr Fenton Ramsahoye,
Ashton Chase, and Professor JAG Griffith as their adviser.
Lionel Luckhoo attended as adviser to the United Force delegation.
The final Independence conference opened at Lancaster House on early, November 1, 1965, under the chairmanship of the British Secretary of State, Mr Anthony Greenwood. As a delegate attending that conference which fixed the date for our Independence, I can state with confidence that no one from the PPP attended, so again, Boysie could not have been at any conference for Independence as WP George’s letter implies.
At that 1965 conference, Sir Lionel Luckhoo attended as Commissioner of British Guiana to the United Kingdom. Sir David Rose MBE was our Defence Adviser, Sir S (Sonny) Ramphal was our Attorney General. The Governor was Sir Richard Luyt. Sir Lionel Luckhoo never attended any Independence conference as a PNC delegate.
The above cannot be disputed save by the flawed recollection of some political neophyte who passes on wrong information to people like Mr George.
My earlier statement holds good. Some folks have set out on a studied campaign to distort or rewrite our history, all the while to make slight the exploits of the architect of the new Guyana, the man who received our instrument of Independence, LFS Burnham.
Truly, we have reached the stage in Guyana where, as Lowell put it, “Truth forever in the scaffold, wrong for ever on the throne.” May Heaven help us reverse this unhappy trend.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green, JP
Good to know he was not part of that dictator group. Thank you mini dictator!!!
Ah tell yuh Hammie, no use trying to educate them; their circle is as ill-informed and gullible.
How the PNC subvert the independence movement and then rise to claim credit to its achievement. Who is the real architect of the Guyana Independence Movement, Burnham or Jagan?
Ironically, Duncan Sandys, who vehemently opposed independence when he was Colonial Secretary, suddenly as a member of the opposition in the British Parliament, began to press the British government to grant independence to Guyana as early as possible.
The leaders of both the PNC and UF, erstwhile opponents of independence when they were in opposition, also now changed into strong proponents, and presented themselves to audiences at home and abroad as long-time freedom fighters. They even told their audiences that the PPP opposed independence, and this caused Jagan to issue a statement on 17 July that the PPP continued to be in complete support for Guyana’s freedom from colonial rule. However, Jagan stated, the British government should resolve some outstanding problems before the beginning of the independence conference. These included the lifting of the state of emergency and the release of all political detainees. He explained that the state of emergency suspended all fundamental constitutional rights of the people, and that even members of the National Assembly were being held in detention. He also called for a political settlement involving the PPP which he said represented the views of the majority of the population.
At the beginning of October 1965, Burnham and Jagan met to discuss the agenda for the independence conference. Little progress was made at this meeting because Burnham refused Jagan’s request to end the emergency and release the political detainees. As a result, Jagan issued a statement on 5 October 1965 announcing that the PPP could not attend the independence conference unless the emergency was lifted and the detainees released. He added that a Constituent Assembly should be set up to fashion a constitution for an independent Guyana. This, he said, would ensure the inclusion of fundamental rights of citizens in the independence constitution, and would also help in the achievement of a “broad political settlement.”
Jagan also called upon the government to inform the Guyanese people as to what plans it had to protect the borders and the territorial integrity of Guyana. This crucial issue was one of the matters he felt should be settled even before the beginning of the independence conference.
The PNC-UF government as well as the British government refused to budge on any of Dr. Jagan’s demands, with the latter in particular adamantly refusing to help resolve the differences between the Guyanese political parties. As a consequence, the PPP decided to boycott the independence conference. In a letter to Greenwood refusing his invitation to attend the conference, Dr. Jagan pointed out that agreements reached at the 1963 constitutional talks were not upheld, and that the British government had provided all assistance to the coalition government to oppress the majority of the Guyanese people.
In response, Greenwood appealed personally to Dr. Jagan to attend saying that he should not “throw away the chance of sharing in the vital decision affecting the future of the country.”
Dr. Jagan again declined, and reminded Greenwood in a letter on 29 October that he was discharging his duty to the people of Guyana by not lending support “to the formal promulgation of decisions already taken and which are gravely inimical to the interests of the Guyanese people”. Dr. Jagan in a prophetic statement warned Greenwood that the British government had “a grave responsibility in deciding whether this country moves towards a dictatorship of the Latin American type.”
With the PPP not attending, Greenwood tried disparately to obtain some form of opposition participation. At the last minute, he invited the two PPP defectors in the legislature, Sheik Mohammed Saffee and Moses Bhagwan, to attend the conference, but they also declined.
Just a few days before the conference began, a draft constitution prepared by the coalition government without any input from the people, was published in Guyana. Absent from it were many of the reservations and safeguards Burnham had forcefully argued for at the 1962 independence conference when he was Leader of the Opposition.
The independence conference began on 2 November and by the 7 November agreed that independence would be granted on 26 May 1966. The British government quickly agreed to the draft constitution which was adopted after very little discussion. Independence was, thus, handed over to the PNC-UF government without any reservations by the British government, which only up to a year before had stubbornly resisted granting independence when the PPP was in power. In doing so, it complied with the wishes of the American government not to grand independence until a pro-western “friendly” administration was in power in Guyana.
Shortly after the conference ended, Burnham returned to Guyana and received a grand welcome by his supporters who, only a year before, had stoutly opposed independence.
The PPP immediately welcomed the granting of independence, and in a statement issued on 19 November, expressed concern over the British government’s failure to work out a real and lasting solution to Guyana’s political problems. While it greeted the announcement, the Party declared it had no misconceptions as to the type of independence being ushered in – independence subservient to American imperialism – and declared that it would intensify the struggle “for a political settlement and genuine independence of the country.”
Stabroek News should not allow PPP blogers on this site to peddle PPP material.
Burnham opposed, Burnham did go. Jagan proposed and Jagan did not go—makes no difference they both wreck a good country. They are mirror image of each other.
President Jagan was by far the worse because he cared more about Russia and Cuba than poor working class Guyanese
At least in the case of Burnham he did register Guyana independence not much we can say about the current PPP President who cannot even register his own marriage certificate–and he running the country –we have sank to low depths
a singh, what bs. get your facts straight, i think you read the wrong history book. what did jagan ever did for russia or cuba? isn’t it the other way around? cuba up to this day is still helping guyana.
Luckhoo had a free ride as a lawyer. He was well known in the judiciary and political circles,and got “relaxed” treatment in the courts,and therefore padded his defence winning status.A lot of murderers got off because of him and the corrupt justice system.The victims families are still awaiting justice.
ASingh, do not censor. The PPP restored democracy in Guyana something you do not want to talk about as you choose to play it safe and accuse both for being wrong. If everyone should agree to you then Guyana would still be in darkness.
Logie days is something of the British makings and not Cubans or Russians!