Retracing our footsteps to freedom A reflection on the significance of October 5, 1992 By Moses V. Nagamootoo (The writer is Guyana's Minister of Information) Guyana Chronicle October 3, 1999 SEVEN years have passed since the historic elections of October 5, 1992, when the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan was returned to office as Guyana's first freely elected President and as head of an alliance PPP/Civic Government. Those elections brought an end to unpopular, unrepresentative and illegal rule. They put an end to rigged elections and authoritarian government. Democracy was at long last restored to Guyana. The struggles between 1964 and 1992 were long and bitter, and were complex as well. For not only were they waged against local despots who had grabbed power at successive crooked elections. They were also directed at foreign backers of the regime, which, for the greater part of those struggles, was the all-powerful government of the United States of America. Guyana had been a pawn in the ideological/political game between Eastern (Russian) Communism and Western (American) Imperialism. That game was called the Cold War. The People's Progressive Party of Dr. Cheddi Jagan was perceived to be an ally of the former, and the People's National Congress of Mr. Forbes Burnham was enlisted as a friend of the latter. So, when elections were rigged in Guyana in favour of Burnham's PNC, the United States covertly assisted at the beginning, and later turned a blind eye to rigging and other flagrant human rights violations. By 1985 when fresh elections under the PNC's Mr. Desmond Hoyte were described by international observers as "blatantly and clumsily rigged" and were compared to elections in Bolivia which were "crooked as barbed wire", there was total isolation of the illegal regime. Guyana was choking to death from the lack of the fresh wind of democracy which was sweeping the world. The Cold War had started irreversibly to thaw, and it seemed that the pendulum inside the United States was beginning to swing in support of free and fair elections in Guyana. However, as we retrace our footsteps to freedom, we would find that the struggle was bitter and costly, and there had been much deprivation and suffering. That epic saga produced martyrs, and victims who today populate the Guyanese diaspora overseas. I have been consistently, since 1964, involved in the political struggle to return the elected Cheddi Jagan government to office. I was still making my modest contributions when, in 1989, I was invited by the American government on a study tour with a group of Caribbean journalists. I was elated beyond expression. That was to be my first visit to the United States of America. Before, I suspected that I was on a prohibition list of undesirable aliens. Those included communists and terrorists. I wasn't sure why I was chosen for the trip though a local journalist was to make a preposterous disclosure about this in his book, `Georgetown Spies'. He stated that my trip had been arranged in some strange deal between operatives of the CIA and the KGB. For me, the message of hope I received there became a priceless reward after 25 unbroken years of struggle for the restoration of democracy in Guyana. For Guyana, that promise was to become its greatest boon since independence. While in America, we listened to and exchanged views with editors from the Washington Post, Miami Herald, and others. We held exchanges with congressmen and senators, and met with tink-tanks on Nicaragua and El Salvador. Invariably, the issue of US policy towards Guyana came up. In Kansas, I wrote two guest editorials for the Wichita Eagle-Beacon. Vice-president Dan Quayle was on a Latin American tour, and I wrote that it was sheer hypocrisy to wave the flag of democracy in South America while the US was backing a dictatorship in Guyana. The editors openly supported my castigation of the US administration, and I started to receive special attention from them. I was not sure whether they were democrats who didn't like the republicans, or whether they really cared for Guyana. But once I spoke the language of democracy, I was a friend. Paradoxically, many would support dictatorships if they perceived that their enemies were the communists. Tom, the journalism professor who was my immediate host, knew a way of dealing with that perception. He would introduce me at meetings as a `communist journalist'. Then he would hold up the four-page Mirror newspaper, pointing out that there was no margin space in the centre, very little ads, and from masthead to tail-piece the articles and letters were about the fight for democracy in Guyana. Tom would ask me to talk about my own life as a journalist, and I would describe how the Burnham dictatorship had muzzled the media, how journalists were persecuted, how access to newsprint was denied, how my newspaper was forced to close down as a daily, how libel suits were used for political ends as in the case of Dayclean and Catholic Standard, the assassination of Fr. Darke, etc.. The effect was terrific. The PNC regime, hitherto a friend of America, would appear as the vicious `totalitarian enemy' and I and my comrades back home were hailed as crusaders for democracy! It seemed that America at last was listening to the voices of reason. Communism was no longer a threat. It was the period marking the end of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall had crumbled; the Soviet Union was disintegrating; and China was facing the Tiananmen challenge. I had walked with the five other Caribbean journalists into Washington at the right time. Or so it seemed when a smiling, lanky woman introduced herself to us. "I am Sally Cowal...Assistant Secretary of State." She spoke briefly about the policy of the Bush administration towards the Caribbean. While she spoke, we were writing our names on a sheet of paper, and Tom passed it to her. I thought she was vague. And either because I didn't grasp the import of who the woman was, or I was being just plain rude, I interjected, "What's your policy towards Guyana and Haiti!" Nancy Rock, the seductive, Haitian firebrand, radio journalist, joined me in her melodious, French-accented voice, "Yes, Mademoiselle: what about Haiti and Guuyannah!" Ms. Cowal paused, smiled, and looked at the paper with our names on it. She asked, "Who is Moses from Guyana?" I didn't have to say. She was staring at me, the aggressive, talkative chap. "Tell Mr. Jagan that we are committed to free and fair elections in Guyana. We will support transparent and certified elections there!" I was stunned. My colleagues cheered spontaneously. For the first time I felt choked on two words, "thank you". And I, a messenger, was to return to Guyana as if I had gone on a pilgrimage of atonement. I couldn't believe: the arch-conservative, reactionary, Bush administration backing free and fair elections in Guyana? But the world had changed. It had turned a full circle. Hawks were becoming doves; yesterday's enemies were today's friends. As it ought to be. Above all, I felt that Cheddi Jagan had been absolved, as the admission from Arthur Schlesinger Jnr. that a grave injustice had been done to him was to establish a year later. It is mainly due to his patience and his trust in the Guyanese people that the new day dawned. It was due mainly to his work abroad that the conscience of the world was awakened to the need for democratic rule in Guyana. This is not to say that others did not struggle, or did not contribute to the great victory of October 5, 1992. The work of the opposition parties, religious, business labour leaders, the Electoral Assistance Bureau, Guyana Human Rights Association and disciplined services cannot go unnoticed. The intervention of President Jimmy Carter and his Carter Centre, the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Caribbean Community was critical in the final phases that resulted in the holding of free and fair elections on October 5, 1992. Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the then `Man of the Moment' newly installed President of Guyana, reflected on the significance of this event. In his December 17, 1992, address at the ceremonial opening of the Sixth Parliament, he proclaimed: October 5 ushered in a new era: a time for democratic renewal; a time for the rule of law; a time for peace and harmony; a time for change and a time to rebuild." He was to re-emphasise this two months later, when Guyana celebrated its first republic anniversary under a democratic government. "October 5," he declared, "has liberated us. It has given us a chance for change and a chance to rebuild. October 5 has laid the cornerstone upon which a republic is built - the foundations of an elected, representative and democratic government... We have retrieved our respect, our dignity, and our self-esteem as a nation." A © page from: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples