Colin Palmer, one of the foremost chroniclers of twentieth-century British and U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean, here tells the story of British Guiana's struggle for independence. At the center of the story is Cheddi Jagan, who was the colony's first premier following the institution of universal adult suffrage in 1953. Informed by the first use of many British, U.S., and Guyanese archival sources, Palmer's work details Jagan's rise and fall, from his initial electoral victory in the spring of 1953 to the aftermath of the British-orchestrated coup d'etat that led to the suspension of the constitution and the removal of Jagan's independence-minded administration. Jagan's political odyssey continued--he was reelected to the premiership in 1957--but in 1964 he fell out of power again under pressure from Guianese, British, and U.S. officials suspicious of Marxist influences on the People's Progressive Party, founded in 1950 by Jagan and his activist wife, Janet Rosenberg. But Jagan's political life was not over--after decades in the opposition, he became Guyana's president in 1992. Subtly analyzing the actual role of Marxism in Caribbean anticolonial struggles and bringing the larger story of Caribbean colonialism into view, Palmer examines the often malevolent roles played by leaders at home and abroad and shows how violence, police corruption, political chicanery, racial politics, and poor leadership delayed Guyana's independence until 1966, scarring the body politic in the process.

In the first published account of the massive U.S. covert intervention in British Guiana between 1953 and 1969, Stephen G. Rabe uncovers a Cold War story of imperialism, gender bias, and racism. When the South American colony now known as Guyana was due to gain independence from Britain in the 1960s, U.S. officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations feared it would become a communist nation under the leadership of Cheddi Jagan, a Marxist who was very popular among the South Asian (mostly Indian) majority. Although to this day the CIA refuses to confirm or deny involvement, Rabe presents evidence that CIA funding, through a program run by the AFL-CIO, helped foment the labor unrest, race riots, and general chaos that led to Jagan's replacement in 1964. The political leader preferred by the United States, Forbes Burnham, went on to lead a twenty-year dictatorship in which he persecuted the majority Indian population. Considering race, gender, religion, and ethnicity along with traditional approaches to diplomatic history, Rabe's analysis of this Cold War tragedy serves as a needed corrective to interpretations that depict the Cold War as an unsullied U.S. triumph.

Hinds presents a useful guide at large for understanding the problem of governance, democracy, and society in ethnically divided countries and how to create a framework aimed at solving the problem.

Having more in common than their deaths on the same day in 1997, the late Cheddi Jagan of Guyana and Michael Manley of Jamaica both represented a radical perspective in modern Caribbean politics. Jagan and Manley each had a bold and creative ability to connect labor and politics and made it their priority to minimize poverty and inequality and to enhance the welfare of the Caribbean's disadvantaged and dispossessed. Caribbean Labor and Politics looks closely at the legacies of Jagan and Manley and their ramifications for the political and economic struggles of the Caribbean region and the world. This edited volume brings together a variety of studies on the lives, works, and intellectual and practical contributions of these two stalwart political leaders. The chapters focus primarily on Jagan's and Manley's years as heads of state of their respective countries and also encapsulate their pre-political years-mainly their growing-up experiences and their organizational work in the labor movement. The core contributions of these men are characterized in terms of their pivotal struggles towards the realization of what we term the "working class project."

Freedom's Children: The 1938 Labor Rebellion and the Birth of Modern Jamaica

The deeply moving personal account of the struggle against imperialism by one of the Caribbean's leading political personalities.

The history of the Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, indentured Portuguese, Chinese, and Indian laborers provides an in-depth view of the evolution of the Guyanese people. It provides evidence of their strong cultural identity and reveals their ambitions, sense of direction, and perseverance to strive for well-being and happiness in the best possible life. A chain of events began in 1953 when British Guiana elected its first native-born leader, Dr. Cheddi Jagan. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, suspended British Guiana’s Constitution, ordered the dissolution of the Government, and imprisonment of the elected leader, his wife, and members of his cabinet as they were not compatible to Churchill’s taste. The United States of America had difficulty appreciating how different forms of government and economic systems are applied in different countries. In 1961, President John F Kennedy ordered his Central Intelligence Agency to subvert the elected leader of British Guiana. The leader fell and the CIA’s men, accomplishing their task, moved on to another. Thirty years later, the fallen leader was again democratically elected to lead his country. President Kennedy’s ruthless subversion of democracy became the policy for subsequent elections of using the divisive concept of racial and ethnic segregations. The racial and ethnic prejudices have affected the distribution of power, opportunity, and wealth and creating enduring social stratifications. The children became adults with a poor understanding of how imperialism, the ancestral slaves and indentured laborers influenced their lives and their country, and the powerful and lasting effects they have.