For decades, the Caribbean region navigated the treacherous currents of the Cold War with a fierce, if sometimes imperfect, commitment to its sovereignty. We understood that our small size did not necessitate a small spirit. Today, as we watch a new generation of leaders fall over themselves to appease Washington’s latest crusade against Cuba, one cannot help but feel a profound sense of shame, and a longing for the audacity of a leader like Forbes Burnham.
In the 1970s, when the United States demanded that its hemispheric neighbours isolate Cuba, Burnham’s Guyana refused to be a vassal. While other leaders in the region, the obsequious prototypes of today’s elites, rushed to sever ties with Havana, Burnham understood that Cuba was not a threat to our people, but a partner. He understood that a relationship that served the interests of Caribbean people, providing healthcare, and technical expertise, was not something to be discarded because a superpower in Washington willed it. The US demand was never about our welfare; it was, and remains, designed to bring Cuba to heel. They offered no promise to fill the gap left by Cuba’s departure, for they do not care if Caribbean peoples suffer. Their interest is, and always was, geopolitical domination .
For his resistance, Burnham suffered the consequences. He was labeled a radical, a dictator, and a nuisance. US diplomatic cables from the time describe him as “proud, complex, difficult, determined,” a man they had to deal with but could not control . But while he resisted the imperial sway, he also organized this country to do what the elites said was impossible: to feed, clothe, and house itself.
Burnham launched the monumental “Feed, Clothe, and House Yourself” campaign. It was a vision of economic independence to match our political independence. He understood that true sovereignty meant that a Guyanese child should not depend on a shipment of white, processed, diabetes-causing flour from the North to survive . His agencies innovated. They created alternatives. They asked us to eat what we grow. For this, the audacity of suggesting we value local provisions over imported status symbols, the local elites excoriated him. They demanded their canned goods and their processed foods, acting, as Burnham recognized, with the mentality of servants who mistake their masters’ preferences for civilization .
Burnham’s methods were often described as heavy-handed, and his government was not without sin. However, it never demonstrated the corruption, the extrajudicial murders, or the abject servility to foreign powers that have become the hallmark of the PPP, a stain on the Guyanese people. And yet, on the one question that matters most for a small nation, the question of national dignity and self-reliance, Burnham’s compass pointed true. He proved that a Caribbean nation could chart its own course, even if the price was difficulty and disapproval.
Contrast that backbone with the obsequious behaviors we witness today. Look at Trinidad’s Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has been accused of breaking with CARICOM solidarity to align unilaterally with US military interests in the region, dismissing regional consensus as an inconvenience . More recently, we watch leaders across the Caribbean rush to assure Washington that they will comply with demands to end their medical cooperation with Cuba. The US has threatened to label countries “human traffickers” for accepting Cuban doctors; doctors who run dialysis units, who save the lives of the poor, who staff the hospitals that the West forgot .
And where are our leaders? With rare exceptions, they bow. They assure the US of their loyalty. They distance themselves from Cuba, hoping to avoid the wrath of a superpower that offers them nothing but threats in return. Guyana’s own President, Irfaan Ali, while ensuring contracts are legal, has to operate in an environment where the very existence of these life-saving partnerships is under imperial attack . The boldness of Burnham, who would have told Washington to mind its own business while quietly pursuing the nation’s interest, has been replaced by the meekness of those who seek only to avoid trouble .
Today, as we see the Caribbean split and falter under pressure, we feel nothing but shame. The US offers no alternative to the Cuban doctors. They offer no plan to save our diabetic patients or to staff our rural clinics. They offer only the demand that we obey. And too many of our leaders are proving to be good little servants, eager to prove their loyalty to a master who despises them.
Burnham once rejected IMF demands for devaluation, calling them “a recipe for riot,” and chose the hard path of national self-sufficiency . We are now led by those who choose the easy path of submission. History will not judge them kindly. And neither, I suspect, will the people who must now suffer the consequences of their leaders’ cowardice.
