Green’s misrepresentations, distortions, falsifications (Pt 1)

Dear Editor,
In a letter dated June 7, 2023, Mr. Hamilton Green wrote in response to Minister Oneidge Walrond’s piece in which she denounced the misrepresentation of the racial issue in Guyana made by Mr. Nigel Hughes and Darren Wade to a UN body.
In the process, Mr. Green again went on a mission of misrepresentation, distortion, and downright falsification of our history.
Some of these issues were previously raised by Mr. Green, and were debunked, but he continues to use the old tactic of repeating the same fabrications in the hope that the gullible would believe them. That shows that Mr. Green’s objective is to deliberately mislead people.
In his letter, he again raised his pet subject, “Apan Jaat”, suggesting that the PPP used this as a tool of mobilisation. This is absolutely untrue. The term was used against the PPP in the 1953 elections by Daniel P. Debedin, who carried the line that Dr. Cheddi Jagan had sold out to Mr. Burnham and the black people. Debedin used the term “Apan Jaat” to call Indian Guyanese to vote for him.
During those elections, the PPP was under pincer attack. Mr. Burnham was being attacked by the League of Coloured People. He was accused of selling out black people to the Indian Cheddi Jagan. Mr. Green never mentions this. “Apan Jaat” was later taken up by the PNC in their efforts to divide the working people in their attack on the PPP.
Ms. Jane Sillery captured that very well in her doctoral thesis in which she pointed out that the PNC was using reverse racism to instigate black people. The tactic was to accuse the PPP of being pro-Indian by calling it a “rice government”, a “coolie government” and falsely accusing it of calling for “Apan Jaat”.
The reality is (and was) that the PPP never used those slogans. They always stood for unity of the people. This has been a constant from Jagan to Jagdeo.
Green, who was an active participant in the PNC X13 racist plan to attack the PPP, has not changed. What a pity! Mr. Green has descended into the worst from of mischief-making. I get the impression that he is trying to replay the old tactic which the PNC used in 1960s. Here he came with the bald-faced lie that, after the 1961 elections, “PPP had made arrangements to have thousands of Indians from the State of Kerala of India to be brought to settle in Guyana…” It is unfortunate that Green continues to propagate this untruth. After all, this was debunked at the time by the PPP, by the then British Governor, and by the Indian Government representative who was stationed in Trinidad.
Therefore, it is clear that Mr. Green’s sole intention in repeating this nonsense today is to stem the tide of what appears to be a growing unity of our people once more. This is an even greater pity, Mr. Green! Such barefaced lies are an old tactic of the PNC.
During the 1960s, while they whipped up anti-communist sentiments, the PNC and their leader, Forbes Burnham, made the ridiculous and false charge that 1000 Cubans were in British Guiana to fight for the PPP. This was, and is, one of the shameful pages of the PNCs history!
Green then moved, on for the umpteenth time, to interpret the PPP’s attitude to the West Indian Federation as racial. In a previous missive, I had pointed out that the PPP’s policy on the Federation was worked out in 1950 when Mr. Burnham was Chairman of the PPP. It was the same position as that of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (Mr. Green here implies that Burnham was anti-Black). Federation was opposed by the colonial people in Africa, where the British tried to impose it as well. It was also opposed by the masses of the Caribbean, and caused changes in Governments in Belize and Jamaica.
The PPP’s position was that the minimum conditions for joining the Federation were not present. The PPP were saying that, at least, the colonies should have internal self-government. Failing that, the Federation could only be a glorified crown colony. This was the same position taken by African leaders who resisted colonial attempt at Federation.
Green, while he sometimes tries to portray an anti-colonial façade, remains colonial in his mentality, as he continues to pursue the racist policy of colonial Britain long after Britain itself had moved away from it.
Green is also putting history on its head in saying that the PPP opposed self-help. Indeed, the opposite is true. The PPP used self-help and co-ops to build hundreds of projects in the then British Guiana. Schools, health centres and houses were built by self-help from 1957 to 1964. This was because the British, and later the Americans, were refusing to grant loans for many developmental projects. That forced the PPP to rely on self-help etc.
Indeed, in 1958, Mr. Burnham and Andrew Jackson of the PNC joined W.O.R Kendall to vote in the Legislative Council against giving support for the PPP’s team of Cheddi Jagan and Edward Beharry, who were going to the UK, Europe and US to raise funds to finance British Guiana’s Developmental Plan. Check the records, Green! It was the PNC that opposed those developmental projects.
Indeed, so successful were co-ops under the PPP that the PNC put it in as part of the official name of our country.
Like so many other things, co-ops and self-help failed under the PNC because of the undemocratic nature of that regime. Under the PNC, co-ops were used as vehicles for PNC cohorts to get rich quick. Remember Greenland Co-op, Mr. Green?

Sincerely,
Donald Ramotar
Former President