Dear Editor,
I am responding to Mr F Hamley Case’s letter of August 18 on President Cheddi Jagan and the Unamco story in response to one of my columns. This is an immensely important statement on Jagan. All Guyanese who are interested in understanding the modern shapers of Guyana should read it. Those who have knowledge of Dr Jagan’s deceptive ways should add their analysis. There is a part of Mr Case’s description of Dr Jagan for which there should be a note from Dr Henry Jeffrey. I will cite that section below.
Here is the crucial aspect of Mr Case’s outline of Dr Jagan: “On at least three occasions we met with President Jagan asking him to intervene and pave the way for CTL/Unamco to enjoy a better working relationship with the GFC. At these meetings the President would have several high-ranking government persons present including Navin Chandarpal and Kellowan Lall. I am convinced that President Cheddi Jagan did his best to tame GFC’s hostility towards Unamco and set the investment on a safe trajectory. Indeed he gave instructions to this effect on several occasions but they were never carried out.
In my humble opinion, Cheddi Jagan as Guyana Inc’s CEO, was too trusting of his subordinates and assumed that once he gave instructions they would be carried out to the letter. It is my view that his subordinates recognized these weaknesses and took full advantage of them. To a man they were anchored in a communist ideology.”
I have the greatest respect for Mr Hamley Case, a deeply decent man whose father was one of the greatest contributors to education in this country. But I am afraid the historian and political analysts that study Guyana’s modern history and the evolution of Guyana’s post-colonial governments will not be satisfied that the quote above accurately reflects who Cheddi Jagan was. I hope to show that the President was the main deceiver.
- Dr Jagan ran the PPP with an iron fist. It is doubtful that he would have allowed his juniors to do what they wanted. He never did allow them to do so.
- When Dr Jagan became president in 1992, ninety-five per cent of the PPP leaders around him were virtually boys and girls who were his protégés from the seventies. They all looked up to him, deferred to him and it is doubtful they would have had the impertinence to defy his presidential orders.
- President Jagan worked late nights and from daybreak to way past midnight would be in constant touch with these protégés who were now his ministers. He got furious and angry with them when they made mistakes.
It would be valuable if Minister Henry Jeffrey could tell us if Jagan castigated members of the cabinet when he was a minister. When the head of the Rice Producers’ Association took a shipment of fertilizers from Dr Hughley Hanoman for rice farmers and failed to pay, Hanoman complained to President Jagan. At a Central Committee meeting Dr Jagan was uncontrollable in dressing down RPA head.
- Surely if three times, President Jagan spoke to these protégés about a huge Malaysian investment and they didn’t move then Mr Case should have suspected that Jagan himself was involved in slowing down the process. In real life, presidents and prime ministers do not allow their mandarins to do such things.
- Mr Case stated that President Jagan’s subordinates didn’t want the Unamco investment because “they were anchored in communist ideology.” Whom do you think they got their communist fanaticism from? From two of the 20th century’s most committed and irrational communists – Cheddi and Janet Jagan.
Now for my analysis on Dr Jagan which has relevance for the Unamco fiasco. Dr Jagan was an extremely deceptive politician whose gentle nature and accommodating style masked a very devious character.
I honestly believe that Guyana’s historiography has been too generous to Jagan and too unfair to Forbes Burnham. Historians need urgently to correct this. From what I know of President Jagan, I would suggest to Mr Case that Jagan wasn’t interested in the Unamco project but he let the blame fall on his protégés. And he did that for the greatest part of his long career as both an opposition politician and Premier and President.
From 1992 to 1997 when he died, when President Jagan wanted something, he got it. I think it would really strain the imagination to think that people like Navin Chandarpal and Kellawan Lall would have undermined Unamco if they know Jagan wanted it. I am sorry if Mr Case disagrees but I think the documented behaviour of Jagan does not support the theory that he was President but his underlings in his cabinet ran the show and did what they wanted. I will leave Mr Case with an iconoclastic comparison with Forbes Burnham. In the PNC, ideologues and liberals argued with Burnham and got their way. Not so with Dr Jagan. Guyana and the world are yet to know about the real Cheddi Jagan. Mr Case’s letter should galvanize us to write on what we know.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
