Burnham Leans to the Left

As five huge fans whirled lazily overhead, the mace-bearing sergeant at arms stomped into Georgetown's 19th century House of Assembly to declare the presence of the Speaker of Guyana's Parliament. Opening last week's regular session on the eve of the former British colony's tenth anniversary of independence, the Speaker then interrupted a droning debate about a pension scheme, with a notable announcement: after a three-year boycott, the opposition People's Progressive Party, led by dedicated Marxist Cheddi Jagan, had agreed to take its seats in Parliament. The return of the opposition did not mean that Jagan, who misruled Guyana into economic chaos during the early 1960s, had mellowed. In fact, Jagan noted that Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, his political archrival and head of the governing People's National Congress, was the one who had really changed.

On that point, Jagan was surely right. Under Burnham, the Guyana government has shifted markedly to the left, most visibly in cultivating relations with Jagan's idol, Cuban Premier Fidel Castro. Washington, which lavished millions on Guyana in development projects to encourage Burnham's election in 1964, is upset. So are neighboring Venezuela and Brazil. Outsiders' suspicion has provoked a kind of fortress mentality on the part of Burnham, who optimistically called Jagan's return to Parliament "a warning to our enemies that we are a united people."

Small Network. In fact, Guyanese are far from united, but the country stands out in South America these days because of its surge toward a socialist economy. Guyana began nationalizing its major industries in 1971 with the takeover of the Canadian-owned Demerara Bauxite Co. Declaring that "I was always a socialist," Burnham has said that he hopes to establish not a Marxist state but a "cooperative republic"; so far, however, a network of small farming, marketing and labor cooperatives involves only a fraction of Guyanese society. Last week, as Opposition Leader Jagan noted with satisfaction, the government announced the nationalization of the British-owned Bookers Sugar Co., which controls about 40% of the country's economy.

What really nettles Guyana's friends and neighbors is not Burnham's economic policies but the political rapprochement with Cuba. Burnham chilled relations with the Communist island in 1964, but in 1972 he not only recognized Cuba but urged such Caribbean countries as Jamaica and Barbados to do the same. Castro visited Guyana in 1975, and exchange programs began between the two countries. During Havana's Angolan offensive last winter, two empty Cuban planes returning from Africa refueled in Georgetown. Officially, Guyana has denied that a third plane, which stopped for fuel on its way to Angola, ever came through Guyana. Privately a high Guyanese official admits: "We did not know there were troops aboard when they asked permission to land, but even if we had known, we probably would have let them land."

Brazil charged that Cuba had found a new base from which to propagate Communism. Venezuela, because of a longstanding territorial claim to more than half the country, had more specific reasons to challenge Guyana. * The rightist newsweekly Venezuelan Resumen claimed the existence of three Communist military camps in Guyana, harboring more than 18,000 Cuban and --astonishingly--Chinese troops, all training revolutionaries.

Doctors on Loan. TIME'S Rio de Janeiro bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand visited Guyana last week and found no sign of any such occupying force. "Disregarding the 50 to 75 Cuban shrimp fishermen who use the capital as a port," he cabled, "they number barely more than the Americans. There are perhaps 20 diplomats and staff at the Cuban Embassy, ten language teachers, six doctors on loan, two or three staff members of Cubana Airlines and a team of technicians at an airport fuel depot."

Burnham has tried to evoke some conspiratorial themes of his own. Guyana, says the government, is being subjected to rumors "designed to shake the confidence of the country" and to economic pressure--meaning a reluctance on the part of banks and international agencies to lend money. In fact, Guyana can show no such reluctance from the World Bank or the Inter-American Loan Fund. Guyana also claims there has been an increase in Brazilian troop strength on the southern border; Hillenbrand found no signs of tension.

More significant than any external threat--real or imagined--to the Burnham regime is the narrow, racially divided base upon which his "cooperative republic" tries to stand. Burnham consolidated his power through elections that were gimmicked in favor of the 40% of Guyana's 800,000 population who are black; Marxist Jagan and his P.P.P. draw much of their strength from the resentments of the 52% that is East Indian (the remainder are native peoples, known locally as Amerindians). The black P.N.C. retains a relative monopoly on patronage, and the laboring Indian majority believes Burnham's socialism to be a means of gaining black control of the economy. One consequence is that Burnham's cooperative program has failed to take hold in Guyana's predominantly Indian farming areas. Says one bitter rice planter: "I don't need the African to run my business and tell me what to do."

Under the circumstances, it is no surprise that Jagan decided to re-enter the parliamentary arena. As Burnham moves left, he adopts positions that Jagan long and loudly held. Says Jagan: "We are not concerned with whether Burnham is doing it for purely political reasons to stay in power. We are only concerned with the direction the country is taking." Clearly, it is a direction to Jagan's liking.

*Neigh boring Surinam also claims Guyanese territory in a dispute over riparian boundaries.

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