Burnt by the fire of the PPP protest- Granger

Late President Mrs. Janet Jagan, writing in the Weekend Mirror newspaper of 6-7 October 2007, stirred the ashes of the smouldering controversy about the fatal fire in which several members of the Abraham family were murdered. That sad massacre on 12^th June 1964 seared the soul of society and remains a sordid episode in this country’s history. The controversy was reignited in several newspapers.

Mr. Frederick Kissoon, writing in the Kaieteur News newspaper of 20 September 2007, recalled that he had been told that “the Abraham family was wiped out because Mr. Abraham stored explosives in his home…My take on the Abraham family is that, as a permanent secretary in the government, he was helping the opposition forces, especially the United Force. He was targeted by PPP groups and seven of his nine-member family were burnt alive in a fire that all the evidence pointed to was the work of arsonists.”

Ms. Diane Abraham, Mr. Arthur Abraham’s daughter who survived the massacre, then wrote a letter to the Stabroek News newspaper on 23 September calling on Mr. Kissoon to retract his statement which suggested that her father “was helping the opposition forces, especially the United Force.” Mr. Kissoon declined to do so and explained the reason for his decision.   Dr. Nigel Westmaas wrote a long letter to the Stabroek News, also on 20 September, referring to other unsolved murders “including the fire that killed Arthur Abraham and family in 1964 under the PPP administration’s watch…”

Mrs. Jagan then wrote her piece in October, apparently in support of Ms. Abraham’s response to Mr. Kissoon, remarking that she knew Ms. Abraham’s father “…an intelligent, pleasant, upright civil servant who, in fact, did the job he was given to the best of his ability without prejudices one way or the other.” Mrs. Jagan’s recollections, however, did not fully accord with the facts of the matter.

Dr. Cheddi Jagan − writing in The West on Trial: The Fight for Guyana’s Freedom − placed the massacre in the context of the disturbances spawned by the PPP’s ‘Hurricane of Protest’ campaign in January 1964 to reject the electoral and constitutional changes imposed by the UK government and in the strike started in the sugar belt by the Guiana Agricultural Workers Union, in February 1964. Dr. Jagan wrote that “the ending of the sugar strike brought an end to the disturbances in 1964.” To the rational reader, the identities of those who started and stopped ‘the disturbances in 1964’ should be evident.

Mrs. Jagan seemed oblivious of certain well-known events involving members of the Abraham family which preceded the massacre. The facts are that Ms. Anne Abraham, Mr. Arthur Abraham’s daughter, an employee of Barclay’s Bank DCO and an executive member of the Guiana United Youth Society — the youth arm of the United Force — had actually been arrested and charged with seditious libel.  Four other UF officials – Mr. Peter D’Aguiar, member of the Legislative Assembly; Ms. Anne Jardim, member of the Senate; Mr. Winston Rodrigues, a Barclay’s Bank clerk; and Mr. Christopher Nascimento, general manager of the Daily Chronicle newspaper – were summoned for a similar offence in August 1963.

The charges alleged that they conspired to commit seditious libel by publishing that Her Majesty’s Government of British Guiana had received certain sums of money by mail order transfers through Barclay’s Bank from the Ministry of Education in Moscow, USSR. It was claimed, also, that the transfer was endorsed by PPP treasurer, Mr.  Boysie Ramkarran.

Mrs. Jagan, serving as Minister of Home Affairs and General Secretary of the PPP at the time of the arrests, searches and charges, personally held press conferences to deny the allegation that the USSR had transferred money to the PPP. The Daily Chronicle newspaper, however, published credible evidence of the money transfer. The PPP’s case against the UF officials collapsed. Mr. Gordon Gillette, Director of Public Prosecutions was obliged to enter a nolle prosequi in April 1964 and the charges against Ms. Abraham and others were withdrawn.

Ms. Abraham at that time lived in her father’s Hadfield Street house which was also searched by the police for evidence related to that case. Mr. Arthur Abraham, in another curious twist, was transferred suddenly to Mr. Boysie Ramkarran’s office at the Ministry of Works and Hydraulics.

Mrs. Jagan resigned as Minister of Home Affairs on 1 June 1964. The massacre, occurred on Friday 12th June 1964 at the Abraham family home at 47 Hadfield Street in Georgetown, ten days after Mrs. Jagan had relinquished responsibility for public security. The massacre – coming after the revelation of the money transfer, sedition charges, press conference, failure of prosecution, Mrs. Jagan’s resignation and Mr. Abraham’s transfer – was not happenstance.

Mr. Carl Austin, Police Crime Chief and Mr. Lubert Watkins, Fire Chief at the time, both expressed their belief that the fire was the result of ‘arson’. Even Dr. Cheddi Jagan himself wrote that the house “was set on fire.”

The morning after the massacre, on 13th June, the police arrested thirty-two PPP members including Mr. Brindley Benn, PPP chairman and deputy premier; Mr. Moses Bhagwan, PYO chairman; Mr. Harry Lall, GAWU president; and Mr. Neville Annibourne PYO general secretary. Two members of the PNC were also arrested. All were detained at Sibley Hall, Mazaruni, without trial. The numbers tell their own story.