Forbes Burnham: The Life and Times of the Comrade Leader

By Linden F. Lewis

It is virtually impossible to understand the history of modern Guyana without understanding the role played by Forbes Burnham. As premier of British Guiana, he led the country to independence in 1966 and spent two decades as its head of state until his death in 1985. An intensely charismatic politician, Burnham helped steer a new course for the former colony, but he was also a quintessential strongman leader, venerated by some of his citizens yet feared and despised by others.
 
Forbes Burnham: The Life and Times of the Comrade Leader is the first political biography of this complex and influential figure. It charts how the political party he founded, the People’s National Congress, combined nationalist rhetoric, socialist policies, and Pan-Africanist philosophies. It also explores how, in a country already deeply divided between the descendants of African slaves and Indian indentured servants, Burnham consolidated political power by intensifying ethnic polarizations. Drawing from historical archives as well as new interviews with the people who knew Burnham best, sociologist Linden F. Lewis examines how his dictatorial tendencies coexisted with his progressive convictions. Forbes Burnham is a compelling study of the nature of postcolonial leadership and its pitfalls.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9781978837522

Linden F. Lewis

Linden F. Lewis is associate dean of social sciences and professor of sociology at Bucknell University. He is editor of The Culture of Gender and Sexuality in the Caribbean and Caribbean Sovereignty, Development and Democracy in an Age of Globalization.

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Cover: Forbes Burnham, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE COMRADE LEADER by Linden F. Lewis

FORBES BURNHAM

CRITICAL CARIBBEAN STUDIES

Series Editors: Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Carter Mathes, and Kathleen López

Editorial Board: Carlos U. Decena, Rutgers University; Alex Dupuy, Wesleyan University; Aisha Khan, New York University; April J. Mayes, Pomona College; Patricia Mohammed, University of West Indies; Martin Munro, Florida State University; F. Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University; Michelle Stephens, Rutgers University; Deborah Thomas, University of Pennsylvania; and Lanny Thompson, University of Puerto Rico

Focused particularly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, although attentive to the context of earlier eras, this series encourages interdisciplinary approaches and methods and is open to scholarship in a variety of areas, including anthropology, cultural studies, diaspora and transnational studies, environmental studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, and sociology. The series pays particular attention to the four main research clusters of Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, where the coeditors serve as members of the executive board: Caribbean Critical Studies Theory and the Disciplines; Archipelagic Studies and Creolization; Caribbean Aesthetics, Poetics, and Politics; and Caribbean Colonialities.

For a list of all the titles in the series, please see the last page of the book.

FORBES BURNHAM

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE COMRADE LEADER

LINDEN F. LEWIS

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey

London and Oxford

Rutgers University Press is a department of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, one of the leading public research universities in the nation. By publishing worldwide, it furthers the University’s mission of dedication to excellence in teaching, scholarship, research, and clinical care.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lewis, Linden, 1953– author.

Title: Forbes Burnham : the life and times of the comrade leader / Linden F. Lewis.

Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2024] | Series: Critical Caribbean studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023018818 | ISBN 9781978837515 (hardback) | ISBN 9781978837522 (epub) | ISBN 9781978837539 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Burnham, Forbes, 1923–1985. | Guyana—Politics and government. | Guyana—History. | Guyana—Foreign relations—Great Britain. | Great Britain—Foreign relations—Guyana. | Politicians—Guyana—Biography.

Classification: LCC F2384 .B875 2024 | DDC 988.103/2092 [B]—dc23/eng/20230526

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023018818

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2024 by Linden F. Lewis

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Rutgers University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

rutgersuniversitypress.org

This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents, Florence and Winston Lewis, and to my late siblings, Gwendolyn and Winslow. It is also dedicated to the memory of my daughter, Sénami Lewis.

CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

1 FORBES BURNHAM

The Making of a Postcolonial Caribbean Leader

2 BRITISH GUIANA

The Genesis of the Postcolonial Struggle

3 IMPERIAL OBSTRUCTION AND BURNHAM’S DESIGN ON POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

4 THE CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

5 FRONTIERS OF DYSTOPIA AND THE CRISIS OF CHARISMA

6 THE DEMISE OF THE COMRADE LEADER

7 AN AMBIVALENT LEGACY

PHOTO GALLERY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ABBREVIATIONS

FORBES BURNHAM

Introduction

IWAS BORN in what was then British Guiana (now Guyana), four years after Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham had returned to the country from his law studies in London. ¹ He was, at that time, hailed as a brilliant son of the soil, who was destined for greatness. Most African Guianese were proud of the accomplishments of the young lawyer and aspiring politician. My father, Winston D. Lewis, was among those Guianese who felt enormously proud of Burnham’s success. It is therefore no surprise that, at my birth, my father decided to name me after this young lawyer, and so I was registered in the Georgetown Public Hospital as Linden Forbes Lewis.

My father, on seeing Forbes Burnham on Croal Street in Georgetown, where many of the law offices were located, shouted at him, Forbes, we just named this boy after you, to which Burnham replied: I hope he has better luck than I do. Burnham might not yet have envisioned the political figure he would become. A few years later, my father took me to the political meetings at Bourda Green to hear this man, who many had argued was the best public speaker in Guyana and perhaps even in the Caribbean. These meetings were just an evening out for me, for at the time politics were the least of my childhood concerns.

My father was born in Guiana to Barbadian parents. He worked at the Daily Argosy and Guyana Chronicle newspapers from where he was recruited in 1960, to work at the fledgling Advocate newspaper in Barbados. My mother, brother, sister, and I joined my father in 1962. My next eighteen years were spent in Barbados, where, ironically enough, I began to learn more about the man whose name I bore, along with the label mudhead—a derisive term used by Barbadians at the time to describe people from Guyana, known for its many rivers and brown muddy water. It was there also that my father’s admiration for Forbes Burnham began to wane, for a variety of reasons that need not detain us at this stage but are captured in chapter 4, on Burnham’s consolidation of power.

Over the years, I developed a keen interest not merely in things Guyanese, but in Guyanese politics, particularly the ethnically polarized nature of the country and the reputation it had garnered around the Caribbean for political rancor, rioting, looting, and industrial unrest. These concerns led me to an interest in Dr. Cheddi Jagan, whom I had long admired as a principled, determined, and committed politician. As time passed, I began to develop an academic interest in Jagan, and became interested in writing his biography. Jagan was a frequent visitor to Barbados. I had watched him on the news on television and had been present at one of his addresses on the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies, where I was an undergraduate student.

I mentioned my interest in Jagan to one of my wife’s relatives, who was living in Barbados at the time, and at whose house, Jagan was staying on one of his many visits to the island. Perhaps this was one of those more sanguine periods, when it was still possible among Guyanese for friendships to transcend purely partisan and ideological fault lines, and for some to view each other as human and as patriots. On December 20, 1989, there was a reception for Jagan at the house of Dr. Aubrey Armstrong to which I had been invited; I had also been promised an introduction to the former. In addition to Dr. Armstrong and his wife Elizabeth, among those in attendance were Andaiye, the Guyanese political activist, Rickey Singh, the renowned Caribbean journalist, Raheem Bacchus, a law professor at the University of the West Indies, and Dr. George Belle, a political science lecturer also at the University of the West Indies. At the end of the small reception, I was introduced to Cheddi Jagan around midnight. Dr. Armstrong said to Jagan: This young man, is interested in working on your biography. Jagan’s face lit up, after which he told me to wait a while, so he could say goodbye to the other guests and then return to me. I was so shocked by his response that when I returned to my home I sat and wrote out how this encounter unfolded.

When Cheddi Jagan returned to where I was standing, he seemed enormously flattered by my interest in him, which dumbfounded me. I knew, for example, that if I had expressed a similar interest in Errol Barrow or J.M.G.M. Tom Adams, respectively the first and second prime ministers of Barbados, they might not have been impressed at all. I was not sure if Jagan’s reaction was due in part to the fact that an African man born in Guyana, given the country’s racial history, was demonstrating an interest in the political figure of Indian Guyanese descent. Perhaps also, given Jagan’s modesty and humble beginnings, he was awed by the idea that someone might have developed an academic interest in him and his political contribution. Regardless of the reason for his reaction to my solicitation, I eventually abandoned this initial project, and though I interacted with Jagan on a couple more occasions subsequently, my interest began to shift.

Enter George Lamming

A couple of years passed, and on one of my almost yearly visits to Barbados from the United States, I made my regular trek to the east coast of the island to visit the Barbadian writer George Lamming. These visits were often extended disquisitions on myriad topics, and were usually only interrupted by lunch. On one of these wide-ranging discussions, I told George that I was planning on doing a biography on Cheddi Jagan. He seemed surprised, and then he turned to me and said: Why would you do a biography on Cheddi? He continued: Burnham was a much more interesting and far more complex figure. He proceeded to develop his argument more fully from that point on. By the time I left George in Bathsheba, in the parish of St. Joseph, it became clear to me that to work on Burnham was far more intriguing and nuanced than I anticipated would have been the case for Jagan. I also rationalized that though there are few autobiographies written by Caribbean political leaders, Jagan had very carefully documented his time in the political spotlight in Guyana in a number of books, beginning with The West on Trial (1966). Having covered a significant portion of the life of Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, I can honestly say that George’s advice to me, and my decision to follow that advice, convinced me, at least, that I made the correct decision.

What is interesting to note, however, is that the suggestion to work on Forbes Burnham came from George Lamming who, many would agree, was no fan or supporter of Burnham. In fact, George was openly critical of the Burnham administration and Burnham’s policies in his public speeches, despite the fact that the two men were friends at one point. Some of this friendship is discussed later in chapters 1 and 6. When I interviewed Burnham’s widow, Viola Burnham, in 2002, I had mentioned that it was George Lamming who encouraged me to work on a biography of her husband. She had a curt response to my disclosure: That man did not like my husband. The fact that Lamming was able not only to look past all Burnham’s character flaws, which he later identified, in his estimation of the man, but also to discern the complexity of his life was to me a measure of his perspicacity.

Burnham and Political Polarization

One of the uglier features of British colonialism is its legacy of racial and ethnic conflict in Guyana. The abolition of slavery in 1838 ushered in another system of labor exploitation, that of indentured service, which was in many ways similar to slavery. The system of indenture brought Indians, Chinese, and Portuguese workers to Guyana to shore up the labor supply occasioned by the abolition of the slave trade. As discussed in chapter 2, Indian indentured workers were the biggest group, and in an attempt to thwart any labor solidarity between Africans and Indians, these two groups were essentially pitted against each other. In the early twentieth century, these misgivings were magnified in the early nationalist struggle. When that struggle manifested itself in two different parties, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), led by Cheddi Jagan, and the People’s National Congress (PNC), led by Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, two charismatic political leaders from the major ethnic groups, the political polarization began in earnest. From the early 1950s to today, Guyana remains locked in a system of racial and political polarization, which colors just about everything.

In undertaking the task of writing a biography of Forbes Burnham, I was aware from the very beginning that the country and its political parties were so polarized along racial and ethnic lines that there was little room to embrace neutrality. I was also aware that regardless of what I wrote, there would be those who would think that my assessment of Burnham was not harsh enough, and those who would argue that I was unfair to him. My first exposure to this type of assessment was at a presentation I made at the Caribbean Studies Association in St. Lucia, in 2000. My paper, which was later published, was entitled Forbes Burnham: Unraveling the Paradox of Post-Colonial Charismatic Leadership in Guyana. After my presentation, a well-known Guyanese-born overseas-based academic reported to another Guyanese colleague that I was clearly a member of the PNC. I assumed that my paper was not sufficiently critical of Burnham for me to be regarded as objective. Having lived outside of Guyana for most of my life, I found the charge rather baffling. Indeed, I have never been a member of the PNC, PPP, the United Force, or even the Working People’s Alliance (WPA). I undertook this biographical project not to promote the interests of anyone or any particular political party. My goal was simply to assess the rise and fall of one of the most influential Caribbean political figures of the twentieth century.

The Politics of Fear

One of the more remarkable features of the Burnham legacy that has struck me while working on this biography and visiting Guyana is the tremendous fear that he continues to engender in many Guyanese despite the fact this was a leader who died in 1985. There were many people whom I contacted in relation to this project who declined to be interviewed or did not want to be identified. There were some who were very close to the former president who either bluntly refused to speak about him or avoided taking calls from me. There seemed to be a feeling that attitudes toward the former head of government were so intense that to say anything uncomplimentary or critical would generate a backlash against any critic. Of course, there was also a racial element to this fear. It would not have been politic for African Guyanese to be overly critical of Burnham, especially since he was largely, though not entirely, vilified in the Indian Guyanese community. For the African Guyanese to be critical of Burnham was close to being traitorous. As I have discussed in chapter 3, some people refused to speak on the record or would only speak under the cloak of anonymity. I found it perplexing that Burnham left such a legacy of fear, which not only paralyzes the freedom of expression but attests to the social and psychic trauma visited on a people who were socialized through a modality of authoritarianism.

The political trajectory of Forbes Burnham, his charismatic leadership, the domination of the party he led, the PNC, and his nationalist philosophy represent a unique perspective from which to understand Guyanese colonial and postcolonial history—a history that is marked by British authoritarian rule that presided over slavery and indenture. A biography of Forbes Burnham is essentially a political and cultural history of a country in transition from a colony to a republic. It is virtually impossible to understand the history of modern Guyana without understanding the role played by Burnham in shaping its development, from his contribution to colonial resistance to his consolidation of an independent country. Burnham had been a formidable Caribbean leader. He was in the forefront of significant regional economic and political initiatives.

In contrast however, a biography of Forbes Burnham is also a textbook example of what happens when charisma is not enough and gives way to practices of authoritarianism and oppression. It is a study of both the appeal and disdain of the authoritarian leader. Burnham maintained himself in power through an elaborate system of vote rigging, nationally and internationally via overseas proxy voting. The rationale behind this project is therefore to attempt to understand the complexity of this political leader and the way that charisma and authoritarianism, as well as popular nationalism, intersect. It is also an attempt to discern the ways in which a society creates the space in which such an authoritarian personality emerges, and how such dictatorial tendencies are combined with promoting a sense of national pride, leadership in the arts, and international and regionally progressive politics. This biography is also an analysis of the nature of postcolonial leadership and its pitfalls.

CHAPTER 1

Forbes Burnham

The Making of a Postcolonial Caribbean Leader

FOR THOSE READERS who are familiar with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, the term genealogy might resonate with some understanding of philosophical arguments about archaeology, history, and discourse. ¹ This introduction to the life and times of Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham is not intended to extend such arguments, apply them to the Guyanese context, or for that matter, even to refute such intellectual formulations. Rather, this chapter has as its focus the genealogy of being. It is an attempt to understand the nature and the essence of a man who emerged from humble beginnings to lead a poor South American and Caribbean country. In the process, he, like others of his generation throughout the Caribbean, had to overcome the internalized logic of the dominant colonial education and socialization of his day to begin to imagine himself as the leader of an independent country in the family of nations. As Sylvia Wynter argues, he had to unsettle the coloniality of being. ² In short, the intent in this chapter is to examine some of the circumstances that shaped Forbes Burnham’s sense of being by tracing the social and political philosophy of the man through his history and practice. At various moments of this history his leadership was visionary, contradictory, controversial, and ultimately flawed. Through all of the colonial and postcolonial struggles, Burnham occupied an important space and role on the regional and international stage. The genealogy of being, then, refers to an attempt to understand the bricolage that shaped the core sense of who he was, his worldview, and how others came to view the man who left an indelible mark on the history of his native Guyana.

Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham was born on February 20, 1923, in Kitty, a working-class area of Greater Georgetown, British Guiana. Kitty was the first residential area of Georgetown going east on the Seawall, roughly a little over a mile from the Demerara River. Kitty is one of the most densely populated districts today. The philosophy of his being was formed in the context of the awareness of the lived experience of the people among whom he coexisted. Based on some of Forbes Burnham’s reflections about his upbringing, it is this thinking, this sense of his own subjectivity, and the consciousness of his social and historical conditions that remained with him throughout his life. In 1981, Burnham, then president of Guyana, designated a plot of land, formerly owned by his family, at the corner of Pike Street and Stanley Place in Kitty as a playground for children in the area.

Forbes Burnham’s parents were James Ethelbert and Rachael Abigail née Sampson. James Burnham’s father was of Barbadian lineage and connected to plantation slavery at the time. Upon emancipation some members of the Burnham family moved to then British Guiana. George Lamming once remarked to this author that it would not have been surprising for someone of Burnham’s age to have a Barbadian background. Indeed, the Guyanese historian and political activist Walter Rodney had earlier pointed out the waves of Barbadian migration to British Guiana. According to Rodney, there were three distinct periods of recorded Barbadian immigration into British Guiana: 1835–1846, 1863–1886, and 1920–1928.³ James Burnham was a schoolmaster and lay preacher who was married twice. He had two children from the first marriage, Olga and Freddie, and three from the second, Jessie, Flora and Forbes. James Burnham was a disciplinarian. It is worth noting that, according to Eusi Kwayana, Burnham’s father was a strong supporter of Cheddi Jagan, who would later become Burnham’s long-term political rival.⁴ Burnham himself told me that his father believed in Cheddi as strongly as Indians believe in tadjah.⁵ It is his father’s church involvement and Burnham’s attendance at church services and Sunday School that later earned him a reputation as proficient in the Scriptures of the Christian Bible. I had to go to morning Sunday School, Burnham recalled, then morning service, afternoon meeting and the evening Sunday School. We also had Bible class and then Evening Service. It means that in one Sunday I was in church six times.⁶ Many of his friends, colleagues, and relatives have stated that he was able to quote many passages of the Bible from memory, and that if someone started a Bible verse, he was often able to complete it. This facility should, however, in no way be construed as a measure of his sanctimony. Forbes Burnham clearly had a phenomenal memory in so far as he was able to quote many passages in Latin and cite verbatim lengthy passages from Shakespeare, Chaucer, Yeats, and others.

---

Forbes Burnham was premier, prime minister, and first executive president of the Co-Operative Republic of Guyana. He died while still in office on August 6, 1985, of apparent heart failure while undergoing throat surgery for leukoplasia—a condition characterized by mucous membranes on the voice box. By the time of his death, Burnham had amassed a total of twenty-one years as head of government of Guyana and leader of the PNC. He had in effect become one of the longest-serving leaders in government in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In some ways Forbes Burnham was typical of the emerging postcolonial leadership of the Caribbean. As with his Caribbean contemporaries, Cheddi Jagan of Guyana, Errol Barrow of Barbados, Eric Williams of Trinidad, Grantley Adams of Barbados, Lynden Pindling of the Bahamas, and Norman Manley of Jamaica, among others, he was educated outside of the Caribbean. Many were classically trained in law, economics, history or dentistry. Burnham was an outstanding and brilliant individual, whose intellectual capacity and ambition were recognized early on. He was educated at the Kitty Methodist School. This school was later renamed in honor of his late father, James Burnham. Forbes Burnham also attended Central High School and later Queen’s College, the premier boys’ school in British Guiana at the time. It was there that he won an internal scholarship that provided the financial resources that were needed to facilitate successful completion of his education at this level. According to one of his childhood friends, Dr. Richard Allsopp, He was always first in Latin and French and English. He knew that he could be first but he didn’t leave things to chance.⁷ In 1937, he won the Percival Exhibition Award and in 1942 Burnham won the prestigious Guiana Scholarship, awarded annually to the brightest high school student in the country. This award provided the recipient with a scholarship to pursue a program of study leading to a degree at a British university.

Burnham’s departure to study in England had to be delayed owing to World War II. Instead, he pursued external studies for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of London, successfully completing this course of study in 1944. He finally set off for England in 1947, where he studied law at the University of London, finishing the program of study with honors, and was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in 1948.

Burnham’s interest in politics seems to have been nurtured from very early. In an interview in 1973 with the African American writer and political activist Julian Mayfield, he reminisced: "When I was quite young really. The circumstances were, firstly, the consciousness of my poverty and the poverty of everyone around me; secondly, the fact that everybody with power in the world in which I lived seemed to be white, and I thought that was wrong; and thirdly, my father was a schoolmaster who was interested in politics like most schoolmasters. To the extent that he named me after Forbes Welba [sic] who was a radical politician of his time."⁸

The above comment represents an important insight into Burnham’s consciousness of being. One must bear in mind that Kitty in Burnham’s youth would not have been the kind of environment that would have nurtured that type of awareness in a youngster, so that his father’s influence on his sense of being would have had to be quite significant. It was therefore his father’s positions as schoolmaster and preacher that would have been an important repository of social and political issues for Burnham. In addition, there is the realization of his own understanding of the significance of the politics of naming undertaken by his father, which accounted for his early political interest. One of his father’s friends, B. K. Persaud, explained the naming of Burnham in the following way: "I will tell you something few people know and that is how he got his three Christian names. His father’s best friend, who was also a tailor named Linden. Then there was Forbes Webber, who used to be at the Chronicle. J. E. Burnham was greatly impressed by this forceful politician. He told me one day.… ‘If I ever get a son, I would name him Forbes,’ and so he did. For Sampson, oh! That was his mother’s maiden name."⁹ It should be noted that all of the siblings from the second marriage of James E. Burnham used both their mother’s maiden name and their father’s family name. Burnham was either directly informed by his father or had been able later to discern the importance of why his father would have given him that name. The name Forbes came from Albert Raymond Forbes Webber, the Tobago-born statesman, who moved to Guiana at age nineteen and remained in his adopted country until his death at fifty-two, in 1932.

Forbes Webber was a writer, poet, journalist and politician in British Guiana. He was appointed editor of the Daily Chronicle in 1919.¹⁰ Gordon Lewis noted of Webber, As editor, party organizer and Council member, [he] fought with a defiant pertinacity equal to [A. A.] Thorne’s all the evils of colonial government.¹¹ Though initially Webber represented the interests of the planter class in Guiana, and was identified with that class, he later became much more identified with the interests of working people.¹² He is reported to have said: I have always fought for the black man’s place in the sun.¹³ More important is that Webber was in contact with the radical currents and organization in the Caribbean at the time, particularly the progressive trade union movement. Selwyn Cudjoe observed that, by 1925, Webber had become the acknowledged leader and champion of the Afro-Guyanese and East Indian peoples.¹⁴ Burnham once recalled that his father had expressed a desire for him to follow Webber’s example in the field of politics. The other person whose name would have been held out as an example to Burnham by his father was that of Edmund Fitzgerald Fredericks.

Edmund Fredericks’s name was already established in British Guiana as a person of tremendous intellect. He was a polyglot who hailed from Buxton Village, in the Demerara region. As was the case with Burnham’s father, Fredericks became a headmaster, in his case at Concordia Presbyterian School in Wakenaam. In 1903, he moved to the United States to study law.¹⁵ We can never know what vision of leadership James Burnham had discerned in the character of