Reminiscing about the political struggle for democracy

Dear Editor,
As the 2016 summer school holiday is over in New York and teachers and students are back to classes, some of us teachers reminisce about spending our summer holidays in Guyana, joining others in the struggle against the People’s National Congress (PNC) dictatorship for the restoration of democratic rule and conducting social research. Democracy was restored in Guyana. So in recent years, instead of going to Guyana to organise political events as we did for many years during the 1980s and early 1990s, we rest and or travel to other locations for vacations or research. Some of us still go to Guyana for conferences or to assist with programmes to counter social issues impacting the population. We miss the visits of the 80s and 90s that involved political activism in Guyana that were memorable experiences.
For teachers, summer was a period for rest or an opportunity to earn extra money on top of regular salary teaching or staffing some other city programme. While most of the other Guyanese teachers took advantage of the extra city pay (that could be in excess of ,000), a handful of us (Vassan Ramracha, Baytoram Ramharack, Rennie Ramracha, and myself, joined Ravi Dev and sacrificed the extra pay for voluntary grass roots activism in Guyana to combat the racist dictatorship. Individuals like Freddie Kissoon never made those kind of sacrifices; he was safely ensconced in his basement apartment in Toronto and Grenada and spying against the liberators. Our country and our people and the rights of Guyanese took precedence over the extra pay for teachers in summer school. We booked flights to Guyana, joining the Opposition parties (PPP, WPA, URP, NRP, DLM, TUF, etc) in putting pressure on the PNC dictatorship to force it to carry out political and economic reforms. In the US, we lobbied politicians to put the squeeze on the PNC dictatorship unless it was willing to pursue political (freedom to organise political meetings, etc.) and economic (end the food ban and Government controls) reforms that allowed the nation exhale from decades of abuse. We were intimidated and harassed in Guyana by PNC agents and Police, and we were threatened with physical harm for partaking in protest rallies or discussing politics or conducting opinion polls. The PNC sent spies to monitor our activities. Ravi Dev was held overnight and beaten by the Police. But we were undeterred as we were committed to liberate our people, never mind that the PPP never appreciated our vital work that benefited it more than the other parties.
In the US, we organised rallies to focus on human rights violations in Guyana. We were at every public event where Guyanese gathered – even at events organised by nationals of India because many Guyanese patronised those events.
On every Saturday morning, without fail, we were on 14th Street with handouts about atrocities committed against our people in Guyana. We held picketing exercises against officers or Ministers of the PNC dictatorship. We carried out petition drives to highlight what was happening in our country. We lobbied and met politicians; visiting several of them or writing them about human rights violations and violent events directed by the PNC against activists in our country and pleading for the intervention of members of Congress.
Our activism paid off. The food ban was lifted, allowing Guyanese once again to consume roti, daal, and alou. Several American politicians responded positively to our petitions and wrote letters of support for our work. Some threatened sanctions and withholding of aid to the PNC dictatorship unless it introduces democratic reforms. Some urged the US Administration to take actions against the Hoyte dictatorship, forcing it to hold free and fair elections in October 1992.
It brought about needed democratic change for which those who made so much sacrifice giving up their summer vacations and other precious time were never recognised for helping to restore democracy to Guyana.

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram