Dear Editor,
In response to Clement Rohee’s, “Cheddi Jagan was the central figure in the October 5th story,” (KW, October 8, 2026), I would like to remind Rohee that October 5th was actually the second half of the ‘Cheddi Jagan October story’, and were it not for the first half, there would have been no need for a second half.
On October 9, 1953, after only 133 days since the PPP won a landslide in British Guiana’s elections under adult suffrage, then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, ordered a military operation he codenamed ‘Operation Windsor’.
The day earlier, on October 8, 1953, British warships and hundreds of troops arrived in British Guiana, and, the following day, October 9th, the then Governor-General of British Guiana, Alfred Savage, suspended the constitution, dismissed then Chief Minister Cheddi Jagan, and his cabinet, and imposed a state of emergency.
I won’t rehash the immediate aftermath Cheddi Jagan and the PPP endured after that October 9 ouster, suffice to say that the ouster was premised on Cold War fears of that era. Basically, the U.S-led West took action in British Guiana to prevent the PPP government from pursuing political, economic, social and labour reforms that could usher in a Marxist revolution and a communist state.
The West openly backed Forbes Burnham, not because of racial reasons as many have surmised, but ideological reasons. And despite promoting democracy, looked the other way when elections were rigged in 1968 and 1973, and again when the 1978 referendum was rigged, leading to the 1980 Constitution. The Cold War was still in effect during those developments.
After President Ronald Reagan was sworn in as U.S President on January 20, 1981, he took a strong stance against the former Soviet Union and its communist ideology, which then Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev appeared adamant about promoting when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up the socialist government in Kabul.
Brezhnev would die on November 10, 1982, and was succeeded by Andropov (1982-1984) and Chernenko (1984-1985). But during the Soviet invasion, the U.S covertly financed, armed and trained the Afghan mujahadeen to repel the Soviet troops, and the world watched as the Soviet Union withdrew its troops in humiliating defeat in February 1989.
The very next month, March 1989, the Soviet Union held its first ‘free elections’ under Mikhail Gorbachev, who became President on March 11, 1985, and introduced glasnost (openness and freedom of speech) and perestroika (economic restructuring) only to collapse on December 26, 1991.
By the time Cheddi Jagan became President on October 5, 1992, therefore, the former Soviet Union no longer existed as a superpower and was no longer a threat to the so-called ‘free world’. That signal ideological collapse opened the door for the West to no longer see the need for the PNC to keep rigging elections at the expense of the Jagan-led PPP. The last PNC government rigging of elections happened in 1985.
Against that backdrop, Rohee’s claim that Cheddi Jagan was the central figure in the October 5 (1992) story requires historical context that says, Cheddi was also the central figure in the October 9 (1953) story. Remove communism from Cheddi Jagan’s ideological vision in 1953 and there is no telling where Guyana would have been today under a truly visionary leader.
Unfortunately, with Cheddi out of the picture since March 1997, the PPP he founded to cater to the ordinary man and woman in Guyana has been hijacked by Bharrat Jagdeo to serve as a vehicle for self-empowerment and self-enrichment at the trough of government. And it just ironic that, in 2026, we can still read letters from PPP ‘old timers’ addressing everything except what the Jagdeo-led PPP is doing. Whereas the ‘C in PPP/C once stood for ‘Civic’, many believe the ‘C’ now stands for ‘Corrupt’.
Guyanese literally had to wait for Burnham to die in 1985 before the PNC started taking baby steps towards change, so do Guyanese now have to wait for Jagdeo to pass on before another attempt at change can be considered by the PPP? Maybe Rohee can tell Guyanese who is the second coming of Cheddi Jagan, sans the communism and the corruption.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
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