Word: jagan
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Dates: during 1953-1953
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Beetle-browed Cheddi Jagan, 35. had flown to Britain, confidently expecting a bonanza of Socialist sympathy. With him, flashing the three-fingered salute of the P.P.P.. was his Minister of Education; an Oxford-educated Negro named Linden Forbes Burnham. The pair were met at London Airport by a bunch of British Communists, but before they could mount a soapbox, Scotland Yard whisked them away to a private office on the Opposition side of the House of Commons. Clement Attlee, whose government had prepared the way for self-government in Guiana, had urgent questions to ask. He had been disturbed...
...direct question, "Are you Communists?", got only evasive replies. To a man. the Labor leaders were revolted by Burnham's doubletalk. "It's a tragedy." said one, "that such an opportunity should have been thrown away by such terrible men . . ." "Burnham is 20 times more astute than Jagan," said another. "His answers were so slick that sometimes you were almost caught by them...
Limited Indictment. Next day, in the House of Commons, the Laborites disowned Jagan and all his works, stoutly endorsed Lyttelton's pronouncement: "Her Majesty's government are not prepared to tolerate the setting up of Communist states in the British Commonwealth." Attlee added his bit: "It is quite clear that [P.P.P.'s leaders] speak the language of Communists and feed on Communist literature." Attlee approved the sending of troops and the firing of Jagan, questioning only whether it had been necessary to suspend the colony's constitution...
...Opposition was worried that Lyttelton's "sledgehammer" tactics might give the Reds in other British colonies a new rallying cry. "Wouldn't it have been better," asked Attlee, "to charge Jagan & Co. in a court of law, or ... dissolve the Parliament and have fresh elections?" Attlee's conclusion: "We have no dispute whatever about the danger and about the need for action. Our indictment is that there were other methods...
...vote sustained Lyttelton, 294 to 256-"a highly satisfactory majority," commented one Tory. Jagan and Burnham, who had watched the performance from the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery, noisily stalked out. At a London rally, they told their Communist friends: "Bullets have replaced ballots...