British Guiana

In all the verbal powder and smoke of the present Cuban crisis, it is fairly easy to forget about the tiny South American country on the Caribbean coast whose people have elected, by conventional parliamentary procedure, an avowed Marxist as their prime minister. Under the leadership of Dr. Cheddi Jagan, British Guiana has been attempting since 1953 to pursue a policy of gradual socialism in the domestic sphere and a policy of neutralism abroad.

Because this has entailed an attitude toward Cuba and the Soviet bloc more openly tolerant, even more friendly, than any other Latin American country has taken, it has meant that relations with both the United States and England, its former colonial master, have been at best precarious.

Although President Kennedy has on occasion made polite gestures to Dr. Jagan and his government, no proposals regarding foreign aid or technical assistance have as yet emerged from State Department channels. In his interview last spring with Alexei Adzhubie, editor of Izvestia, the President emphasized that America had no bone to pick with a democratically elected Marxist regime such as that of British Guiana. Yet all appeals of Dr. Jagan for technical development loans from the United States have come to no avail.

Indeed, British Guiana has been hard pressed of late in its attempts to secure financial assistance from Western sources. While the British government offered some aid, it was not nearly enough for any visible industrial development. And although the World Bank has offered a small capital loan of B.W.I. $2.25 million, this could only be used for credit to private individuals or cooperative societies for development in the areas of agriculture, forestry, and fishing. To a country like British Guiana, which is hoping to industrialize as rapidly as possible and needs capital to do this, agricultural loans must seem of little value. In any case, a socialist nation would certainly deplore loans designated for the use of private enterprise only.

When all these attempts to obtain financial assistance failed, Jagan's government resorted to the austerity measures that provoked the Georgetown rioting last February. The incident prompted the British government to postpone indefinitely final independence for British Guiana--something Britain has been promising since it first granted the country self-government in 1953.

After prodding by the United Nations, Britain promised that negotiations would certainly resume this September. But the United Kingdom, under great pressure from the United States to enforce some kind of economic blockade of Cuba, has become increasingly concerned about Dr. Jagan's trade relations with the Castro regime. And it does not look as if the British government is in any hurry to grant independence to a neutralist Guiana.

Dr. Jagan's government may be trying to strengthen economic ties with Cuba, but as yet it does not seem to have requested aid from the Soviet bloc countries. This does not mean, however that such aid has not been available. East Germany offered last spring to build ten factories, for example, and recently Soviet geologists discovered extensive oil fields in British Guiana--fields which similar American and British experts completely missed.

All this indicates that if the West doesn't come across soon with substantial capital loans, British Guiana may be driven from its present position of neutralism into much closer alignment with the Soviet nations. Dr. Jagan professes to believe in political democracy, even if he is a socialist in his economic orientation. Geographically and historically British Guiana identifies with the West. It would be unfortunate, then, if Dr. Jagan felt that economic necessity was forcing him into close alliance with Russian and Chinese Communism.