Cheddi Jagan was a prosaic leader

Mar 29, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,
Clement Rohee’s depiction of the late Cheddi Jagan (KN March 23) is a pathetic analysis of his so-called ‘Father of the Nation’. With incessant reference to the qualities of the PPP’s founder, Mr. Rohee deliberately omits the nucleus around which Cheddi Jagan formulated his politics.
I refer to Jagan’s Marxist and working-class regurgitation that foreshadowed his ouster from power in 1964. How ironic that he had to appeal and beg the very imperialists and capitalists whom he profusely castigated in his book ‘The West on Trial’ to ensure free and fair elections which ensured his return to office in 1992.
Cheddi Jagan was full of specious talk, always pleasing and appealing to his predominantly sugar-based working class support, but his proclamations were doomed to self -destruct as evidenced by the implosion of the USSR in 1989.
Today Russia, minus Marxism, stands as one of the top 10 economic and military giants of the world. It is worthwhile indicating that while the Jagans were absorbed in propagating Socialism/Marxism their son and daughter were busy enjoying the fruits of capitalism in Canada and the U.S. respectively.
Dr. Jagan was a prosaic leader who incessantly harped about poverty and harbored a deep disdain for affluence, maintaining such was derived by the exploitation of the poor proletariat and sadly (for him) failed to realize his beloved and evanescent Marxism was as doomed as the Titanic.
The PPP leader, especially during the 80’s condemned apartheid in South Africa yet declined to pronounce on the same phenomenon at his doorstep, and even declared the kick-down-door rampage in the same era, (where almost always, invariably the victims were Indians) as a class struggle!
I can go on and on, but I close with the Nationalization of the commanding heights of Guyana’s economy in the mid 1970’s: Bauxite and sugar. If Burnham can be accused of erecting unsound economic structures, then Jagan was the architect who called for further nationalization like the foreign Banks and came out with a most ludicrous program he labeled “Critical Support”!
In conclusion I would like to state that after the 1992 PPP victory a certain minister told me that he had spoken to Dr. Jagan in regards for a post in government for me; but was rejected because he was told by the ‘Father of the Nation’ that I was an anti-Marxist person.
Hard to decipher how persons like Huley Hanoman (PPP’s MP), Henry Jeffrey (Min of Labour), Laurie Lewis (Com. of Police) and company enjoyed exalted positions. For his perpetual espousal of Cheddi Jagan’s mode of thought and Marxist beliefs, Clement Rohee is now considered the last of the Marxists’ philosophy and propagandist in Guyana and should be placed on the list of forgotten souls.
He remains one of the few who still believe in Marxism while being a strong capitalist.
Yours truly,

Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine

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