GUIANA'S STRUGGLE AGAINST REACTION AND RACISM, FOR DEMOCRACY AND INDEPENDENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000700590008-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: August 1, 1965
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

WORLD MARXIST REVIEW
Approved For Release 2004/12/15 : CIA-RDP75-001 9R000700590008-6
English edition of Problems of Peace an
Published inPraue, Czechoslo1
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Graza a's Straggle against Reaction and Racism,' for Democracy
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and Independence
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T HE question has been . posed-how and why has the The fact is that the superstructure of the Trades Union
People's Progressive Party (PPP), which won three succes- Council (TUC) of Guiana is a bastion of reaction.
sive elections in 1953, 1957 and 1961, been removed from But the TUC was not always a reactionary body. Prior to
the government? The answer is that the British and U.S. 1953, it pursued a militant policy and supported the PPP. Its-
imperialists, having failed to destroy the PPP in spite of a affiliates, catering particularly for workers in the sugar planta-
Tory-engineered split in the party in 1955 and gerrymandering tibns, waterfront, saw-mills, wood-plants and quarries, were
of constituencies in 1957 and 1961, and seeing no prospects of constantly engaged in, militant struggles for recognition, increased
defeating it at free and fair elections in the future, resorted to wages and improved working conditions.
force and fraud. But this militant TUC also became a casualty of the Cold
They did not want another progressive independent state in War. Through the influence and pressure of the ICFT'U, the
the Western hemisphere. Alarmed and hysterical about develop- TUC was unconstitutionally disbanded soon after the October
ments in socialist Cuba, the U.S., after our victory in 1961 when 1953 forcible removal. of the PPP from oficc. Six reactionary
we were poised for independence, stepped up their propaganda unions controlled by the Opposition, headed by the MCPA
that an independent Guiana under the PPP would become a (the company-dominated sugar workers' union), formed a new
second Cuba and a gateway for international communism into TUC. And after he split the PPP in 195,5, Burnham strengthened.
South America. The reactionaries' slogan at home and abroad the new TUC with his British Guiana Labour Union and con-,
was, "No independence under Jagan", fused and split the Negro working class with pseudo-Socialist
Consequently, counter-revolutionary disturbances were en- demagogy and racism.
gineered in 1962 and 1963 and a blockade imposed in 1963 The Trades Union Council, as presently constituted, is domi-
with the aim of forcibly removing my government from office and nated by the MPCA and, unions 'catering for civil servants,
giving the British Government the excuse for withholding inde- -teachers and other government employees in postal, airline,
pcndence and suspending or manipulating our constitution. telephone and transport services.. The leadership of this group
The opportunistic, collaborationist political and trade union ', comes mainly from opportunists, labour aristocrats and the
leaders, aided and abetted by reactionary local big business, a middle class which to a large extent has been pampered by
'? colonialism and imperialism. Many of these "labour" leaders
corrupt, big-business-controlled press and foreign imperialist
elements combined, to use the words of the Commonwealth have been taken on scholarships to Washington D.C., USA, for
Commission of Enquiry into the disturbances of February 16, pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist indoctrination. Several have
1962, to "form a veritable torrent of abuse, recrimination and been put on the CIA monthly payroll. They fight to maintain the
vicious hostility directed against Dr. Jagan and his government". stanrs quo and to preserve entrenched positions.
This is the explanation for the TUC's opposition in 1963 to
U.S. Imperialism-Inspired Counter-Revolution the Labour Relations Bill which it supported a decade earlier
The excuse for the 1962 disturbances was the budget, which in 1953. The enactment into law of the Bill would have achieved
was largely influenced by the Cambridge economist, Mr. two things; firstly, in a secret ballot of workers the MPCA would'
Nicholas Kaldor. It was described and attacked as "anti-working have been replaced by the Guiana Agricultural Workers'
class" and ... "communistic". Union (GAWU) and the British sugar planters would have been
At the same time unbiased economists took a favourable view forced to bargain with a militant union; and secondly, the
of the budget. For instance, Peter Newman, Professor of GAWU, with the nearly 30 per cent of the delegates at the TUC
Economics at Michigan University, pointed out that it was the annual congress (who now represent the MPCA) would have
first serious attempt at self-help. had the opportunity of changing the, reactionary TUC super.
"It is ironic," he wrote, "that the grave riots in February of structure now headed by President Richard Ishmael.
this year were sparked by the first serious attempt to make the U.S. involvement in our domestic affairs has been evident.
Guianese responsible for their own economic development." for some time. In early 1963, Mr. William Tyler, Under-Secretary
The real cause, declared the Commission mentioned above, of of State, giving evidence before a Congressional Appropriations
the disturbances was political rivalry and fear that the govern- Sub-Committee, spoke disparagingly of my government and
meet might enact measures injurious to the proprietary rights of categorically stated that the United States government would
the upper classes and businessmen. be happy to see us out of office.
In 1963, the excuse for the disturbances, lockout and blockade In late 1963, U.S. Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was reported
was the Labour Relations Bill. to have put pressure on the British Government to delay in...
This bill was patterned after the National Labour Relations dependence and to change the electoral system. An unprecedented.'
(Wagner) Act of the New Deal Roosevelt administration. Its number of U.S. trade unionists and CIA agents entered the
motivation, as that of its 1953 predecessor of the first PPP country to stir up opposition to the government. During the
Government, was the elimination of company unions, the ending, whole period of the 1963 disturbances, a United States trade
of jurisdictional disputes and the establishment of democracy unionist was instigating the political Opposition and the Trades
in the trade union xJ1t i b Union Council to continue the strike while the British trade
)Pp
osttib -&g-ng a settlement. With
local and foreign' rb in~s';'t~ie ~he` w 4q
parties and the imperialist-controlled press. the help of other United States trade unionists, the ICFTU and
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