Forbes Burnham

Burnham, an Afro-Guyanese man, was born in Kitty, a suburb of Georgetown, East Demerara in Guyana, as one of three children. He attended the prestigious secondary school, Queen's College. In 1942, he won the Guiana Scholarship as the colony's top student. Burnham received a law degree from the London School of Economics in 1948. Burnham met many African and Caribbean students – including Abubakar Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria, Seretse Khama of Botswana and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana as well as Michael Manley of Jamaica and Errol Barrow of Barbados – during his studies in London.[2] He was married to Viola Burnham, who was also involved in politics. He has three children, Roxane, Annabelle, and Francesca from his first marriage to Bernice Lataste. His second marriage to Viola produced two daughters, Melanie and Ulele and later they adopted a son, Kamana.

Burnham was one of the founders of the People's Progressive Party (PPP), which was launched on 1 January 1950. The Indo-Guyanese labour leader Cheddi Jagan became Leader of the PPP and Burnham became its chairman.[3] In 1952, Burnham became the president of the party's affiliated trade union, the British Guiana Labour Union. In 1953, the PPP won 18 of 24 seats in the first election with universal suffrage in Guyana, with both Burnham and his sister Jessie elected to the House of Assembly. In the short-lived PPP government that followed, Burnham served as Minister of Education.[4]

In 1955, there was a split in the PPP between Burnham and Jagan. Jagan supported a socialist domestic policy,[5][6] but Burnham believed that, given the geopolitical conditions of the era, communism would be a better alternative. The UK and United States were falsely informed that Burnham was somewhat more moderate than Jagan. This red scare tactic resulted in foreign support for Burnham, who went on to form the People's National Congress (PNC) in 1958 entering its first election under that name in 1961.[7] Guyana obtained massive debts during Burnham's tenure, experienced stagflation, and suffered a massive rise in crime. Burnham's tenure was also marked by elections rigged by the PNC. The UK and USA would later formally apologize for this destabilization, albeit years later in the 2000s.

Forbes Burnham Presidential Standard

In the 1964 election Jagan's PPP won the highest percentage of the vote (46% to the PNC's 41%), but it did not win a majority. Burnham succeeded in forming a coalition with the United Force (TUF) (which had won the remaining 12% of the votes) and became premier of British Guiana on 14 December. On 26 May 1966, British Guiana became an independent country and was renamed "Guyana".

Due to the radical views of Cheddi Jagan (who leaned towards communism) both due to his socialist economic views, and his alliances with the Soviet Union and Cuba, Burnham was supported by Western nations.[8] At first, Burhnam pursued moderate policies, but in one of his first acts upon independence, he had passed a sweeping "National Security Act" giving the police the power to search, seize and arrest anyone virtually at will.

The PNC attained a majority government in the general elections of 1968 through electoral fraud, using an inflated "overseas vote" to skew the results in their favor.[9][10][11] In 1970, he veered sharply to the left and established strong relations with Cuba, the Soviet Union, North Korea and other socialist countries. On 23 February of that year, he declared Guyana a "co-operative republic". Adopting a policy of autarky, he banned all forms of imports into the country, including flour and varieties of rice that had been integral to the diet of Guyanese. Burnham also nationalised the major industries that were foreign-owned and -controlled, reducing the private sector's share of the economy to 10 percent by 1979. Burnham, after attending the 1970 summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Lusaka, Zambia, paid official visits to several African countries—Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia—over the period 12–30 September 1970. The Guyanese government remained fully involved in the African liberation movement throughout the 1970s.[2] Interestingly, although Guyana provided much-needed aid to African nations in their time of need - when Guyana was in its most dire times of need (the early 1990s and late 2010s), none of these African nations offered aid to Guyana.

Burnham sent more than a hundred Guyanese public servants to various departments of the Zambian Government. Many Guyanese doctors, engineers, lawyers and secretaries worked in Southern African states throughout the 1970s.[2] Current census data indicates that the majority of doctors, engineers, lawyers and secretaries currently working in Guyana originate from India, Sri Lanka, Cuba and China.

In 1974, Burnham issued the Declaration of Sophia where he stated that "the Party should assume unapologetically its paramountcy over the Government which is merely one of its executive arms."[12] The Declaration also called for a transition to a socialist state, and a nationalisation of its economy.[13] He won a 1978 referendum which made it much easier for the government to change the constitution. Anecdotal evidence from hundreds of Indo-Guyanese (and Afro-Guyanese who were PPP supporters) claims that PNC enforcers aggressively (and often violently) denied PPP supporters of the opportunity to vote. Most notably, official figures showed the referendum passing with an implausible 97 percent of the vote. In 1980 the constitution was changed to make the presidency an executive post (before this time, the post was held by Arthur Chung in a ceremonial head-of-state role). Burnham won election as president that year.

Burnham introduced mass games to Guyana. They were first held in February 1980 to commemorate the founding of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.[14]

Tomb of President Forbes Burnham

According to Dr. Walter Rodney, Burnham's "style of rule has many similarities with that of the late Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Somoza" - who not only oppressed the working class, but those in the upper echelons of the society who refused to go along with his domination. In 2014, Donald Ramotar launched an inquiry into the murder of Rodney despite resistance from the PNC. In 2016, the Commission of Inquiry released findings that state that President Forbes Burnham, aided by the Guyana Defence Force and Guyana Police Force, was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Dr. Walter Rodney. Rodney was the leader of the Working People's Alliance which posed a threat to Burnham, for the WPA was bridging the gap between East Indian and African populations of Guyana. Rodney was killed in his car on June 13, 1980 by Gregory Smith, an operative of the GDF, with an explosive communication device. Smith escaped to French Guiana with assistance from the Burnham government, changed his name and is thought to have died in 2002. Although most people believed Burnham had a hand in Rodney's death, the government claimed that Rodney died trying to blow up a prison. [15]

Burnham remained President of Guyana until his death. He died on 6 August 1985 after undergoing throat surgery in Cuba.[4]