Law and order…
The failure of Guyana’s National Drug Strategy Master Plan Guyana’s National Drug Strategy Master Plan 2005-2009 has expired. Was it a success or failure? By David A. Granger The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank issued a damning indictment of the impact of [...]
The Houses of Queen’s College
Queen’s College is steeped in traditions that have been nourished for 165 years. The very name has been retained from the reign of Queen Victoria. Its anthem − Carmen Collegii Reginae − is still sung only in its original Latin although one stanza proclaiming loyalty to Britain was dropped after Guyana became an independent republic. [...]
Society
The rise of Victoria – mother of all villages Victoria Village, the first village to be founded on Guyana’s coastland, celebrated the 170th anniversary of its purchase in November. By David A. Granger Victoria is the mother of all villages. The founding of Victoria, the first village on the coastland, is a landmark – a [...]
The Queen’s College Cadet Corps: its rise and fall
Had it not been abolished in 1975, the Queen’s College Cadet Corps which was founded in 1889 would have celebrated its 120th anniversary this year. It was the first cadet corps to be established in the English-speaking Caribbean − fifteen years before that of Barbados, twenty-one before Trinidad and Tobago and fifty-four years before Jamaica. [...]
Laurens Storm van ’s Gravesande: Guyana’s greatest governor?
When it comes to colonial governors, many are reviled and few are admired. Their achievements if any might be acknowledged only grudgingly and anniversaries of their incumbency are never celebrated in this country. In the anti-colonial mindset of historians whose forebears were the victims of enslavement and indentureship, there was little to commemorate in the [...]
The defence of the New River, 1967-1969
Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary General, famously remarked a decade ago “You can do a lot with diplomacy but, of course, you can do a lot more with diplomacy backed up by fairness and force.” This aphorism became an axiom in Guyana’s relations with its neighbours 40 years ago. In each of the first [...]
The Rupununi Rebellion, 1969
The rebellion that erupted forty years ago on Thursday, January 2, in the Rupununi District has been the single most serious threat to the national security and territorial integrity of the state. Occurring only thirty-two months after Guyana’s independence from Great Britain, it also constituted the country’s earliest and severest test of statehood and social [...]
The Guyana National Service
Born in controversy in 1974, the Guyana National Service was dismantled in controversy in 2000. Today, the debate seems never to have gone away. On the one hand, speaking at a community meeting at Den Amstel in August 2005, President Bharrat Jagdeo said that questions continue to be asked about why the national service was [...]
The Guyana People’s Militia
As Dave Martins’s popular, patriotic ballad “Not A Blade of Grass” pervaded the airwaves to find acceptance as Guyana’s second national anthem, the sonorous slogan “Every Citizen a Soldier” signalled the establishment of the Guyana People’s Militia in December 1976. Yet, it was quietly disestablished a little over twenty years later in August 1997. What [...]
British regiments in British Guiana
Radicals regarded it as their ritual duty to yell “Limey go home” on encountering British soldiers in British Guiana in October 1953, fifty-five years ago. Under the governorship of Sir Alfred Savage, the soldiers were reviled as invaders. But the regiments were replenished and replaced almost continuously up to and beyond independence in 1966. By [...]
The Guyana Legion
The First World War (1914-1918) changed the course of human history in significant ways. For over 700 loyal British Guianese officers and soldiers who voluntarily enlisted and travelled overseas as members of the British West Indies Regiment, it was an unforgettable experience, but often for unexpected and unpleasant reasons. Origins Cedric Joseph’s The British West [...]
Pet Corner
Vaccination schedules One can extract from last week’s Pet Corner that there is no correct vaccination protocol. Below, I will be discussing some options that are open to us. Vaccination against Canine Parvovirus (CPV) One can vaccinate against Parvovirus by using a vaccine that contains either inactivated viruses or weakened live viruses. One can vaccinate [...]
Retraining the police
By David Granger Onlookers at the Guyana Police Force’s169th anniversary parade last July must have been astonished at the sight of some Britishers in typical beachcombers’ gear marching amidst their differently attired Guyanese counterparts. What was important, however, was not their uncommon apparel but their serious mission in this country. The Britishers belonged to a [...]
Guyana’s periodicals
Guyana’s periodical press has survived through resilience and resourcefulness for over two centuries. This was so in part because Guyana’s polyglot population, most of whom are descendants of people who had been enslaved and brought to this country, or who came as indentured servants, yearned for the freedom of self-expression. Publications arose to express the [...]
Bookshelf
Shridath Ramphal and the art of diplomacy Richard Bourne (ed) Shridath Ramphal: The Commonwealth and the World. Essays in Honour of His 80th Birthday. London: Hansib Publications Ltd., 2008. 206 pages. ISBN 978-1-906190-20-0. That any person could be granted twenty-six honorary doctorate degrees; twenty-one national awards from various countries, including two knighthoods from the United [...]