The ‘Hurricane of protest’ campaign of terrorism launched by British Guiana’s Premier in January 1964 is remembered as the worst episode of state-sponsored terrorism in our history. Guianese people, not British planters, were the victims of violence.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – recalled that the objective of the People’s Progressive Party’s ‘Hurricane’ was to make the colony ‘ungovernable’ in order to prevent the introduction of the Proportional Representation electoral system, to prevent the conduct of elections before Independence and to prevent the PPP’s removal from office before Independence. The Guiana Agricultural Workers Union’s strike was the pretext to demand recognition by the British Guiana Sugar Producers’ Association for sugar workers, most of whom already belonged to a rival union. The objectives of the ‘protest’ and the ‘strike’ were the same.
The British Government’s resolve to prepare for the elections in 1964 was irreversible. The British Guiana Governor’s declaration of a ‘state of emergency’, his assumption of responsibility for public security and his request for British Army reinforcements on 22nd May after 100 days of terrorism were momentous measures. The resignation of the PPP’s Minister of Home Affairs on 1st June, thereby relinquishing her responsibility for public security, was ominous.
Mr. Granger recalled that the British Army and British Guiana Police Force were able to contain the spate of arson, assault, battery, bombing, murder, rape, sabotage and displacement of residents on West Demerara between February and May. The PPP’s and GAWU’s terror campaign was extended geographically, operationally and organisationally beyond the West Demerara sugar belt and into once peaceful villages in East Demerara and West Berbice. The Mahaicony District, in this regard, was made into a zone of conflict in June, July and August.
The evidence indicated that African-Guyanese, predominantly, were the victims of terrorist violence. Eustace Waldron and Joseph Nedd were killed by machine-gun fire after five terrorists launched a three-hour wave of violence, shooting indiscriminately at fleeing residents at No. 10, Perth and Supply Villages; Reginald Blake, Joseph Campbell, Allan Griffith, Burchell Thompson and Beryl Weslie were reported ‘missing’ from Perth village while travelling to their farm in two balahoos; George Halley, Sydney Halley, Neil Bascomb, Royston Bourne, Kenneth Gibbons and Percy Richmond, all of Strath Campbell, were reported ‘missing’ from aback of Mortice.
Ivan Chung was shot dead and Cyril Robertson, Ernest D’Aguiar and his wife Alice were reported ‘missing’ after a gunman in hiding fired on them about 64 km upriver; Ernest D’Aguiar’s body – riddled by gunshots and tied to a log with barbed wire – was later found floating; four men and a woman sank into the river after being shot at by terrorists who fired on them while they travelled in their balahoos to their farms. Two members of the Sooknanan family; four members of the Ally family and seven members of the Jaikarran Family were killed in retaliation.
The British Army Garrison headquarters announced, on 30th August, that 200 persons of Indian descent, mainly, had been arrested in the Mahaicony District in security operations during the PPP’s ‘Protest’. Over 30 persons were murdered in Mahaicony between 23rd June. and 30th August.
The Former President emphasised that the PPP administration abandoned the state’s first function — ie., responsibility to protect its citizens. Terror was inflicted on unarmed, unprotected and unresisting poor folk. The Mahaicony Murders had unintended consequences which hampered social cohesion and hindered the development of the country and the community.
