Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr F. Skinner’s letter captioned “Burnham’s socialist policies created hardships for all.” (06.11.23). I certainly have no disagreement with most of Mr Skinner’s letter and my letter was not meant to attack Mr Skinner personally. I was merely correcting the statement: “Indians came out financially better at the end of Burnham’s regime” as if LFSB’s policies favoured that group.
I pointed out that the areas in which the vast number of Indians earned their living were the sugar and rice industries and in shop-keeping.
I pointed that the sugar and rice industries were ruined under Burnham, resulting in severe job losses and curtailment of wages. I could quote the detailed statistics but this would be proving the obvious.
I would however quote the macro-statistics – In 1992 when Mr Hoyte went out of office, rice production which had once been 300,000 tons p.a. fell to 129,000 tons per annum and sugar from 320,000 to 119,000 tons. These figures reflect the exact trend during LFSB’s reign. Since Burnham controlled import/export as well as the wholesale and even retail trade, and as such trade largely provided employment for Indians, they were out of jobs when the state took over and displaced them. Smuggling in the Corentyne was confined only to persons who wished to break the law and the smugglers did not represent the thousands of other Indian people who were displaced.
Mr Skinner mentions a few sawmillers who were in business long before Burnham. Messrs Mazaharally and Toolsie Persaud, for example, were in business from the 1950’s but since the economy was contracting and there were accordingly contracting local sales and the bottom had fallen out of the export market, business was very bad. These sawmilling families survived not because they were in booming prosperity, but by holding on grimly and desperately.
Burnham’s policies and governance helped no one and certainly did not favour Indians. I would advise Mr Skinner not to depend on anecdotes or impressions when attempting to give serious socio-economic appraisals, but on ascertainable fact and statistics.
His impression of the prosperity of the rice industry under Burnham is a clear example of what I am referring to.
Yours faithfully,
B. Walker
