NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY 95A; GUYANA; COUNTRY PROFILE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: NIS
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070010-7
• Release Decision: RIF
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 28
• Document Creation Date: October 25, 2016
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: REPORTS

CONFIDENTIAL
95A /GS /CP
Guyana
June 1973
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY
CONFIDENTIAL
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
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NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY PUBLICATIONS
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raphy, Transportation and Telecommunications, Armed Forces, Science, and
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GENERAL SURVEY CHAPTERS
COUNTRY PROFILE Integrated perspective of
the subject country Chronology Area Brief
Summary Map
THE SOCIETY Social structure Population
Labor Health Living conditions Social
problems Religion Education Public infor�.
mation Artistic expression
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Political evo-
lution of the State Governmental strength and
stability Structure and function Political dy-
namics National policies Threats to stability
The police Intelligence and security Coun-
tersubversion and counterinsurgeney capabilities
THE ECONOMY Appraisal of the economy Its
structure� agriculture, fisheries, forestry, fuels and
power, metals and minerals, manufacturing and
construction Domestic trade Economic policy
and development International economic rela-
tions
TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICA-
TIONS Appraisal of systems Strategic mobilih
Railroads Highways Inland waterways
Ports Merchant marine Civil air Airfields
The telecom system
MILITARY GEOGRAPHY Topography and cli-
mate Military geographic regions Strategic
areas �Approaches: land, sea, air
ARMED FORCES The defense establishment
joint activities Ground forces Naval force, air
force
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r
n
Cooperative Republic
or Two Racial Camps 1
0 %lore People, %gorc Problems
Different Worlds of Black and Brown
The Politics of Race
'Turning Left and Slowing Down
Chronolo
Area Brief 14
Summary Map .....................follows 14
This Country Profile was prepared for the NIS by
the Central Intelligence Agency. Research was sub-
stantially completed by March 1973.
CONFIDENTIA! No FoiiE1GN DISSEM
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li
r
n
Cooperative Republic
or Two Racial Camps 1
0 %lore People, %gorc Problems
Different Worlds of Black and Brown
The Politics of Race
'Turning Left and Slowing Down
Chronolo
Area Brief 14
Summary Map .....................follows 14
This Country Profile was prepared for the NIS by
the Central Intelligence Agency. Research was sub-
stantially completed by March 1973.
CONFIDENTIA! No FoiiE1GN DISSEM
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W,
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Sugarcane, rice, and bauxite form the resource'
base from which Guyana derives its livelihood.
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Cooperative Republic
or Two Racial Carps (c)
A sense of new direction and a striving for genuine
nationhood are symbolized by the selection of the
name "The Cooperative Republic of Guyana" for the
country long known as British Guiana. "Guiana" and
its capital, Georgetown, evoke memories for y; icrans
of World War If of it steamy tropical airport hacked
out of the South American hush �a ferrying point on
the long hop to Africa and Europe.
Although located on the northeastern coast of South
America, Guyana is culturally part of the Caribbean.
The English speaking Guyanese are isolated from most
of their Latin American neighbors by language and
historical tradition as well as by uninhabited savannas
and tropical rain forest. The airfield, now an inter-
national jet port, is still the rain entry point for
visitors; the relatively shallow coastal waters limit ship
traffic to ore carriers and small freighters, and there are
almost no roads that link Guyanese towns with other
urban centers in South America.
Some change has come to Guyana since the days of
those memories. The road from the airport north to
Georgetown has been improved, only the presence of
bullock carts and heave traffic slow a fast auto trip in
to the capital. To the south, it high -speed
superhighway cuts through he thinly populated rain
forest to the hauxite mine at Linden. The British
colonial administration has departed, and the in-
dependence that followed has provided hopes but no
cures for the persistent problems facing the new state.
Physical isolation has not deterred Guyanese par-
ticipation in world affairs. Current leadership, in-
fluenced by several decades of experimentation with
Socialist and Marxist philosophies, has increasingly
sought to reduce Guyana's depel Bence on the United
Kingdom and the United States nd more recently to
broaden relationships with both major centers of the
Communist world �the Soviet Union and
China �and with its Latin American sub center,
Cuba. Guyana has assumed a major leadership role in
the movement for Caribbean unity, which is replete
with anti -U.S. and black nationalist overtones.
Guyana also has attempted to make common cause
and identify with the :1fro :1rab bloc in the nonaligned
world. Success and prestige in these efforts were
enhanced I -v :!te choice of Georgetown as the site for
the Nonaligned Foreign Ministers Conference in
August 1972.
The excitement generated by G !ylma's initiatives in
the internationa field only temporarily obscured the
need to deal with domestic discontent and to cope
with the country's most intractable problem: the in-
ability of the government to develop its resource base
rapidly enough to keep pace with the needs of its grow-
ing population. The government successfully sup-
pressed a domestic revolt in the interior in 1969, abor-
ting what was widely perceived as an opportunity for
Venezuela to advance its claim to a large parcel of
Guyanese territory. In order to meet the economic
needs of the population, the government has ent-
harked upon a radical socialization program to make
Guyana it truly cooperative republic
The goals of the new economic police are to be
achieved through nationalization or majority control
of foreign owned enter7xises involved in the exploita-
tion of natural resources, the adoption of the
cooperative as the preferred form of domestic
economic organizat!wi, the expansion of agricultural
exports, and the development of ne\w industries with
the aid of both domestic and foreign capital. Plans also
call for it drastic reduction of imports through
mobilization of all available manufacturing
capabilities and through self -help projects, and the in-
tensification of efforts to develop the economic poten-
tial of the interior of the country. The achievement of,
these ambitious goals is threatened, however, by
deeprooted racial hostility and political infighting
between the two dominant groups in the population:
the Guyanese of African extraction and those referred
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i
to as 1 ?ast Indians, til desc�endcnts of indentured
sugarcane field +vorkee:; from India. Bac�e serves its a
crmvcnicnt svnhol for the +vide cultural cleavage that
impedes the national integration of Fast Indians and
Africans, but the root of their differences is extreme
counpetiti+�cness in the� economic sphere. In general.
Fast 111(lians visualize Africans as lazy, dishonest, fm-
More People, More Problems
'V
I� t+ident, profligate, and physicalk aggressive. The
Al (.'(W:Ancu�, on tit(. uthcr hand, sec themselves as
the natural successors to British dominance and
the Fast Indians as clannish, prudish, tightfisted, ac�-
ctuisitivc and �not least of all �picmc to capitalize on
light skin pignu ntation to facilitate c�c�onomic� no
hilih
The struggle for economic and political dominance
between the :lfricaan .(:u\cuucsc and the Filst Indians
has hccr heightened by the high rate ()f population in
crease and the persistent cuncmploy t;cnt problem. The
rapid c�onyucsl of Guyana's tropical diseases since the
turn of tltc c�cnturv, particularly the eradication of
malaria from low-1 ing rice and canefields during the
1930's and 1()40 *s. was characterized by if dramatic rise
in the average annual rate of population growth. The
rate increased from 0.5`; during the 1921 31 period to
2.9"1 during 1S) 1(i (i(1, and then (lipped slightly, to 2.5`1'
during. 1961 -70. Nonetheless, tilt current age� structure
remains highly conducive to rapid population grnr+vth
and. concomitaoil, to the a,ldition of progressivcly
larger annual inc�renu�nts to the labor force. niuc�h
higher rate of natural growth anumg East fndians than
aniong African Guyanese has resulted in if progmssive
rise in the Elast Indian proportion of the total popula-
tion. By January 1)fi) thc\ had iu�hieved :ut absolute
majority of 51 compi. ;ed with an approximate 43
for the combined African and mulatto c�onummities.
Africans fear that the ever widening Fast Indian lead
in pc,pculation size +:ill result in the loss of their
politic�acl (lomincutc�e and, in tuns. Icad to the weaken-
ing of their position in the joh market. With 20"0 of t he
tabor force unemplo\vd and sizable numbers ur-
dercnuployed. the job market is highly competitive.
:1llhough dcvcl yment programs have benefited
from generous inputs of foreign aid. the ec�onomv has
clispla\ only nuculest growth rates. During the period
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from 196 to 1971, the economy grey at an estimated
annual average of -1'/ in real terms, or nearly twice
thv rate recorded in the previous decade when produc-
tion suffered as it result of periodic civil disturbances
and strikes. Despite this increase, per capita gross
domestic product amounts to only US$385. The
economy does not support can affluent class or yield
high profits to foreign investors. Given the modest
labor absorption capacity of Guyana's major growth
sectors, coupled with the expected high rate of labor
force growth, there is little ground for optimism that
unemployment can be quickly and substantially
reduced.
In developing their natural resources, the Guyanese
turned first to wresting from the sea and numerous
river estuaries the fertile, low -lying silt and clay
coastlands which represent their most productive
agricultural land. The soils in the interior, associated
with the tropical rain forests, savannas and forested
uplands, tend to be logy in natural fertiiity and have
limited potential for agriculture without heavy capital
investments. The application of water- control techni-
ques by the early Dutch settlers, perfected in reclainn-
ing their twn limneland from the North Sea, and the
use uf' the mass lalmr of imported African slaves laic)
the basis for forging a society N%bich to the present clay
has been cc,ncentrated ou a nuro%y strip of ennpoldered
coastland comprising only about I of the country's
83,000 square miles of' terrain. I Jere an annual regime
of two wet and dry seasons promoted the cultivation of
two harvests of sugarcane and rice. "These traditional
export crops constitute the mainstay of the econonny,
supporting about half the population and zuccounting
for 70"1 of the agricultural output and 39 of export
earnings. The country is not self- sufficient in food crop
production and obt