UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Wolpin, Susan Jackson
Dept./Program:
Art Department
Year:
1970
Degree:
M.A.
Abstract:
In October 1953, four and a half months after the first universal elections ever held in British Guiana, the Constitution of the only crown colony in South America was suspended. The charges against the dominant Peoples' Progressive Party, led by Cheddi Jagan, were that it was attempting to turn British Guiana into a Communist state.
Although the p.P.P. had implemented none of their programs. and there were sufficient checks in the legislative council to hamper any attempts they made. their multi-racial nationalist appeals for a socialist economy to better the poverty ridden existence of the Guiana, obviously frightened England's ruling Conservative Party. The Labour Party, long considered a friend of the colony's did little to support the Peoples' Progressive Party because of the P.P.P.'s affiliation with the World Federation of Trade Unions. In a short parliamentary debate the suspension of the Constitution was upheld and the colony was ruled by the appointed governor until 1951 when the Peoples' Progressive Party was again elected. Severe racial, labor, and party violence followed in the early 1960's and when the colony became independent in 1966 under the British backed Peoples National Congress, the cohesive effort to build a multi-racial state for the people of Guiana that had begun intthe 1950's was virtually obliterated.
Although the p.P.P. had implemented none of their programs. and there were sufficient checks in the legislative council to hamper any attempts they made. their multi-racial nationalist appeals for a socialist economy to better the poverty ridden existence of the Guiana, obviously frightened England's ruling Conservative Party. The Labour Party, long considered a friend of the colony's did little to support the Peoples' Progressive Party because of the P.P.P.'s affiliation with the World Federation of Trade Unions. In a short parliamentary debate the suspension of the Constitution was upheld and the colony was ruled by the appointed governor until 1951 when the Peoples' Progressive Party was again elected. Severe racial, labor, and party violence followed in the early 1960's and when the colony became independent in 1966 under the British backed Peoples National Congress, the cohesive effort to build a multi-racial state for the people of Guiana that had begun intthe 1950's was virtually obliterated.