Co-operative Republic of Guyana

Co-operative Republic of Guyana Guiana
Flag Coat of arms
Capital and largest city	Georgetown
Official languages	English
Demonym(s)	Guyanese
Dominant mode of production	Capitalism
Government	Unitary parliamentary republic with an executive presidency under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie
• President	Irfaan Ali
• Prime Minister and First Vice President	Mark Phillips
Area
• Total	214,970 km²
Population
• 2026 estimate	1,025,200
Currency	Guyanese dollar (GYD)
Calling code	+592
ISO 3166 code	GY
Internet TLD	.gy

Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the north coast of South America. It is surrounded by Brazil to the south, Venezuela to the west, Suriname to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the north.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA attempted to undermine the government of democratic socialist Cheddi Jagan, who was the prime minister of British Guiana at the time.

History

Spanish and Dutch colonialism

The Spanish were the first country to colonize what is now Guyana. In the early 17th century, the Dutch took over what is now Suriname and eastern Guyana. In 1777, the Captaincy General of Venezuela signed a treaty defining the Esequibo River as the border between Dutch and British territories.

British colonialism

After the Statesian Revolution, the British moved their colonial efforts to South America and plotted to take over Guyana from the Dutch.

Following the 1794 Batavian Revolution in the Netherlands, Guyanese slave owners allowed the British to take over Guyana because they worried that the Dutch would abolish slavery like France did. In 1823, following a slave revolt, the British declared martial law and killed 250 rebels.

In 1815, Britain recognized the 1777 borders of Venezuela. In 1822, under the orders of Simón Bolívar, Ambassador José Rafael Revenga criticized British intrusions west of the Esequibo. After Gran Colombia broke apart, the Michelena-Pombo Treaty of 1833 divided the Guajira Peninsula roughly in half between Colombia and Venezuela. The Venezuelan parliament rejected the treaty and continued to dispute the region until 1883. The British also annexed the Dutch region of Tigri, which Suriname still claims to this day.

In 1840, the Royal Geographic Society of London sent Robert Schomburgk, a German geographer, to map the border between Venezuela and British Guyana. His map claimed the sparsely populated Guayana Esequiba and Tigri regions as part of Guyana. In 1841, Alejo Fortique, the Venezuelan ambassador to the UK, argued the Esequibo issue and made the British agree to future negotiations on the border. After he died in 1845, Venezuela agreed to postpone border negotiations.

In 1895, the United States asserted the Monroe Doctrine, which considers the Americas to be territory for colonization by the USA rather than colonization by Europe. The UK initially refused to negotiate until the USA threatened war. In 1897, after the UK refused to negotiate with Venezuela, which it considered uncivilized, the USA decided to negotiate on Venezuela's behalf without taking its interests into account. The UK and USA created a tribunal of six people: two from the UK and three from the USA. The last member, Frederick Fyodor Martens, was a Russian diplomat who wanted Russia and Britain to cooperate in invading Central Asia. In 1899, the tribunal created the Paris Arbitration Award, which surrendered Guayana Esequibo the British. The affair was an early instance of the Monroe Doctrine being invoked and the U.S. asserting itself as an imperial power.

Independence movement

Statesian cult leader Jim Jones funded rebels who began race riots against Marxist Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan in February 1962. Jagan declared a state of emergency and called in British troops to put down the uprising. Jones's CIA supervisor, Richard Welch, introduced him to Forbes Burnham, the pro-CIA candidate who won the 1964 election after Jagan's government was discredited. The USA also worked with the British to change the electoral system to prevent Jagan's People's Progressive Party (PPP) being re-elected. After Burnham took power, the British lent their support to the new government and granted it independence in May 1966.

Forbes Burnam — Prime Minister and President from 1964–1985

Via a rigged election in 1968, Forbes Burnham was able to secure political independence from the right-wing United Force party, with whom he'd collaborated while gaining support support from his CIA and British backers. In February 1970, Burnham named Guyana a "Cooperative Republic," with an ideology of "cooperative socialism." This form of socialism would apply Marxism-Leninism in a manner appropriate to the conditions and history of Guyana. It would be similar to the DPRK's Juche ideology in that Burnham would be the maximum leader whose ideas would shape the destiny of the young nation.

From 1970 until his death in 1985, Burnham would frequently collaborate with and draw inspiration from the DPRK. Both Guyana and the DPRK followed a more idiosyncratic approach to Marxism-Leninism than the Soviet Union, Cuba, or China, and both had an outsized figure at the helm. This made their collaboration important since most socialist countries engaged with Guyana and the DPRK rather tentatively. Guyana held Mass Games fashioned after those of the DPRK, featuring gymnastics and dance performances by the country's youth. Behind the performers was, like in the DPRK, a giant stand where children sat holding a grid of colored cards that were switched every few minutes to create different images. In addition to helping Guyana initiate its Mass Games, the DPRK sent numerous professionals to train the Guyanese population in fields like medicine, engineering, chemistry, and agriculture, and also assisted in military preparedness.

The engagement with the DPRK, as opposed to the Soviet Union or China, ended up sparing Guyana from the blowback from the British or CIA that might otherwise have been associated with Burnham's turn towards socialism. Since the Soviet Union and Cuba favored Jagan's PPP, and supplied it with resources and military training, Burnham still seemed like a useful counterbalance to the influence of the Soviet bloc during the latter stages of the Cold War. And Burnham's rise to power via a period of increased racial hostilities fanned by the CIA ensured that his enduring presence was seen by non-Black Guyanese as a continued affront to their political agency, which would enable the West to continue promulgating race-based animosity in the future if needed.

Land Dispute with Venezuela

Guyana's border disputes with Venezuela and Suriname

When Guyana became independent from the British in 1966, Venezuela agreed to temporarily leave the Esequibo region under Guyana's control until they could reach a permanent solution. However, Venezuela did not recognize Guyananese authority over the disputed region. In 1970, with the Port of Spain Protocol, Prime Minister Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago made an agreement that Guyana and Venezuela would maintain bilateral ties and that Venezuela would not claim the Esequibo until 1982.