A brief historical note on an event - and a missed opportunity by Moses Bhagwan Stabroek News October 24, 1999 It may be useful to recall at this time an episode in our political history of which little is known by this generation.. There is an account of it in Dr. Jagan's "West on Trial". However Dr. Jagan's account leaves out useful details. I am referring to the occasion of the visit of a team from Ghana led by Dr. W.E. Abraham which came to Guyana (then British Guiana) at the invitation of Dr. Jagan to engage the PPP and PNC in a search for unity at a time of intense inter-party rivalry and racial conflicts that practically severed the nation in two. The team arrived in Guyana on 9th February, 1964 and left on 17th February, 1964, to report failure of the mission to their President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. We need to understand the backdrop to this episode. Very early during the course of the British Guiana constitutional conference held in London in 1962, there were clear indications that the delegations would return home empty handed. In the face of the imminent collapse of the talks, I opened an initiative with Mr. Neville Bissember on the possibility of a coalition government to lead us into independence. The discussion I had with Mr. Bissember yielded nothing, the conference collapsed and I gave a report of my initiative when I returned home. At the 1963 constitutional talks new elections were fixed by the British Government under a new electoral system. The situation in the colony then deteriorated rapidly. Some time after Dr. Jagan reported to the PPP Executive on a meeting he had with members of the anti-colonial committee of the United Nations on the issue of a coalition government formed by the PNC and PPP. Dr. Jagan told us that he was asked by the committee if he would agree to a coalition based on equality for the two parties. The committee, he reported, had received an indication or assurance that given equality between the parties Mr. Burnham would be willing to enter into a coalition government with the PPP. Dr. Jagan's response was that as his party had not taken a decision, he could not agree to the proposal. The question then engaged the PPP Executive for the first time. The issue was: would the PPP agree to a PPP-PNC coalition on the basis of equality? The executive spent many hours in intense deliberation on the matter. There was doubt, shared by all us, about Mr. Burnham's sincerity. Lawrence Mann and I argued forcefully for the proposition. Dr. Jagan initially took an open position but finally supported the coalition. There was a group that was dead set against any coalition with the PNC. A third position was less hostile to the idea but feared that it would not be possible to work with the PNC. Another position was that in any coalition with the PNC the PPP could not yield equality. At the end of the day no vote was taken (as far as I recall). However although a majority opposed the idea of the coalition, the minority view was allowed to prevail and Dr. Jagan, Lawrence Mann and I were selected as PPP's representatives at the meeting with the Ghanaian mission and the PNC. Regrettably Mr. Burnham showed little enthusiasm for the proceedings and appeared to simply go through the motions. The Ghanaian mission returned with nothing resolved and the country went back to the warfare to which it had become habituated. Perhaps we can count our lost years from that date. A © page from: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples