Burnham and Jagdeo: History repeating itself

One of the amazing occurrences in 2009 in this country is the identical format of Presidents Forbes Burnham and Bharrat Jagdeo in a frenetic search for international credibility, while at home, their contradictions had lacerated the nation’s psyche and laid waste the hope of their people.
It is history repeating itself. Throughout the modern world, Burnham’s stature had risen high. From the sustained democracy of India to the brutal dictatorship of Cuba, Burnham was perceived as an international actor that championed the claims of the Third World and demanded justice for the developing nations.
At home, Burnham had nothing but contempt for the quintessential elements of justice. Burnham’s interpretation of the use of power was that power was synonymous with its possessor. It meant the possessor must be allowed to use power without extraneous restraint, meaning curtailment from the wider society.
Here was a leader telling the President of the US, France, UK, among others, that they must not dominate smaller counties and they must give justice to poorer nations. But it was alright at home for the leader to brutalize the opposition, union leaders and the private media.
Enter Bharrat Jagdeo. Here is an exact replica of Forbes Burnham. He is all over the world echoing the identical, I repeat, the identical sentiment of Burnham – the rich countries must concede a fair share of the world’s resources to poorer countries. Under Burnham, this fair share was in trade.
With Jagdeo, it is carbon credits. But Burnham had more going for him than Jagdeo and was less hypocritical. Burnham wanted a more equitable distribution in traded goods. He was concerned about the economy of the small person. Mr. Jagdeo’s clean environment crusade smacks of repugnant hypocrisy.
Georgetown has to be one of the most putrid cities in the world. Mr. Jagdeo’s government for the ten years he has been in power has played nauseating realpolitik with municipal government in Georgetown that has reduced this city to a colossal man-hole of rut. How can a leader of any country champion the preservation of the world’s environment while he presides over a city whose physical appearance is dirty and stink? The environment in Guyana is endangered.
Without a cent to run Guyana, the Burnham Government kept the National Park and the Botanic Gardens in more pleasant surroundings than what we see today. No citizen of this country can honestly say that he/she has not lamented at one time or the other, the rotten landscape of Georgetown.
So President Jagdeo’s Copenhagen pursuit is the preservation of the environment while at home, his friends, Government ministers and PPP sycophants drive gas guzzlers. And make no mistake about it, when he returns home, so predictable he is, the fight with the City Council will resume and more gas guzzlers will be purchased by his friends.
Of course we all know who the friends of this leader trained in communist USSR are. Mr. Jagdeo himself admitted that one of Guyana’s richest investors is his friend and therefore when concessions to him were being discussed by the Cabinet, he chose, out of the conflict of interest principle, to leave that particular session of Cabinet.
We are still to hear Mr. Jagdeo publicly declare that one of his close friends is a poor trade union leader, a poor university student or not so well off, sugar worker. So much for communism in the PPP, the very party whose constitution proclaims it is a Marxist-Leninist organization.
This is the statute in the PPP’s constitution that the party leaders tempestuously voted to retain at the 2004 congress after Khemraj Ramjattan submitted a motion to have it removed. Ramjattan and his PPP Campbellville party group probably said to themselves that since there are no longer any communists in the PPP, why keep that statute in the organization’s constitution.
So Mr. Jagdeo is making the rounds around the world trying to establish himself as a spokesperson for the Third World’s demand for a redistribution of power in the global system.
Mr. Jagdeo wants the West to pay the poorer nations handsomely to preserve their forests. Back home however, the distribution of power and wealth remains disgustingly skewed in favour of well-to-do people. Mr. Jagdeo wants to carve a legacy on the international scene, but refuses to do so at home, where a beautiful legacy awaits him.
He can change the primitive retirement age, restructure the judiciary to give justice to the poor and powerless, relinquish his government stranglehold on Parliament, award a decent increase in salary and wages to the working class (sugar workers only got three percent) and of course respect the Constitution.