Caribbean Cold War: Stoking a Race War

[Charles EP M.]

Discuss this article by @Gary Oswald here!

 

[The Red]

Fascinating article, really illustrates the legacy of imperialism but domestically and internationally.

Between 1838 and 1917, around 240,000 indentured workers arrived from the Indian subcontinent, alongside around 25,000 from British Hong Kong and around 25,000 from the Madeira Islands of Portugal, and perhaps two out of every three workers who survived their service stayed in the colony

The numbers here really are staggering. The British Empire was perhaps not uniquely evil but the scale of the suffering and their ability to reshape nations to their whim really is unmatched.

Jagan then made possibly his greatest blunder yet, when he told US officials that if they weren’t willing to loan him money then perhaps he’d be forced to ask for a loan from the USSR instead.

Rookie error.

​

 

[Gary Oswald]

I realise it's very bold to suddenly do part 5 of a series over 2 years after part 4 went up.

But for those of you who remembered those four articles I did about the Caribbean Cold War in late 2022, I've decided to come back to that. There should be another three articles on the way.

Spoiler there is another series which I haven't updated for even longer which I am also coming back to at some point.

My thanks to @Charles EP M. for the pictures. The pictures of young Jagan and Burnham when they were still allies when you know how its going to go and they don't really adds something to the piece I think.

 

[Charles EP M.]

It was really handy that Jagan and Kennedy have a free-to-use photo of them meeting!

 

[Indicus]

I’ve always been disturbed by Afro- and Indo-Caribbean race relations ever since I learned how bad it often is, this is a very good article showing one case of that.

 

[RyanF]

I realise it's very bold to suddenly do part 5 of a series over 2 years after part 4 went up.

A least you didn't go for the current fashion of doing a part 5 years after part 4 but ignoring everything aside from part 1.

I wonder how much the non-US reaction and prioritising anti-communism over anti-imperialism in 1953 over Guyana might have convinced Eden, tthen Foreign Secretary under Churchill, that the same would hold true over the invasion of Egypt in 1956 to remove Nasser.

Similarly, wonder how much that might have played in Macmillan's later reluctance to send the military to Guyana in 1962.

 

[Time Enough]

The British and American reaction to Janga’s Government and Janga’s own attempts to try and gain a loan from the Americans before swivelling to the Soviets reminds me of Kwame Nkrumah and his attempts to build up Ghana in the late 50s and 60s.

I do wonder how things would be different in a scenario where Labour is in power during any one of those flashpoints. Now there’s the possibility they just kowtow to Washington but maybe not, or they may just cut and run instead of sticking around until Burnham had won.

 

[OwenM]

The bit of Cold War politics where the CIA basically ended up propping up a communist regime is fun, the details.... less so, though obviously still interesting

 

[Alex Richards]

My gut instinct is that with someone else in power in '53 the PPP stays in power until independence but then fractures shortly afterwards- quite possibly with CIA assistance though it may not require that. There just seem to be too many flashpoints along the urban/rural interethnic divide to sustain it- especially given the likelyhood of clashes at the cabinet between ambitious men.

Doesn't make ethnic violence inevitable- certainly nor at historic levels- but I just can't see Jagan agreeing to both PR and handing over to Burnham in a deal and it feels like he'd be demanding both inevitably (the former to fix an underrepresentation issue, the latter for his own ambitions). Either Jagan agrees to a deal where he hands over power but tries to force a majority of his own supporters in the government on Burnham, or I can see PR being agreed and the unified slate collapsing for the new election. Or Burnham just walking out on the government and the resulting elections being much more balanced because its all happened after independence.

 

[Warthog]

Truly fascinating. It is hard to see a much better outcome for the 70s, the cold war did really try to push the creation of 2 sides in any 3rd world country, it would have taken a remarkable amount of resilience from Jagan and Burnham* to avoid a split.

*given his powerbase in Georgetown and environs, if he wasn't president, he should have been nicknamed "King in the North" like his namesa-

[I'll get my hat

 

[Andrew J Harvey]

Thank you for the fascinating article Gary. I did flinch at the unfortunate use of 'thanks' in the opening sentence of paragraph 2. I presume you meant 'as a result of the' ?

In 1800 there were around 100,000 black slaves in Guyana but over the next forty years that number had dropped to 85,000 thanks to the high death rates of the slaves.

If, however, you used the term as some sort of hint to a 'secret history' it would imply those who were responsible for creating that death rate would equal (and possibly surpass) one of Elizabeth Moon's villains from the Serrano Legacy series which I have been binging on for the last couple of days.

 

[Alex Richards]

Thank you for the fascinating article Gary. I did flinch at the unfortunate use of 'thanks' in the opening sentence of paragraph 2. I presume you meant 'as a result of the' ?

In 1800 there were around 100,000 black slaves in Guyana but over the next forty years that number had dropped to 85,000 thanks to the high death rates of the slaves.

If, however, you used the term as some sort of hint to a 'secret history' it would imply those who were responsible for creating that death rate would equal (and possibly surpass) one of Elizabeth Moon's villains from the Serrano Legacy series which I have been binging on for the last couple of days.

'Thanks to' as an equivalent to 'because of' is an extremely common usage this side of the pond.

 

[Gary Oswald]

'Thanks to' as an equivalent to 'because of' is an extremely common usage this side of the pond.

Yeah, I did it without thinking.

Hadn't realised it read awkwardly to an Australian audience @Andrew J Harvey. Two countries seperated by a common language and all that.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

Rookie error.

Though in fairness, it's clear Jagan would rather have a loan from the US, he was just trying to gain leverage in the most idiotic way imaginable.