British Guyana

Britain had only one colony in mainland South America – a coastal state next to Venezuela that it grabbed from the Dutch more than 200 years ago. This was British Guyana.

By the 1950s, Britain had had enough – and the plan was to hold elections so the Guyanese could take over. But then the man they elected said he was inspired by Soviet Russia. The story of Britain's long exit from Guyana takes in the CIA, MI5, rigged elections and a beautiful American whom JFK considered one of the most dangerous communists in the western hemisphere.

Ros Taylor spoke to historian of Guyana Clem Seecheran, who is the author of Sweetening Bitter Sugar: Jock Campbell, the Booker Reformer in British Guiana 1934-1966, and Rod Westmaas of Guyana Speaks. You can hear Seecheran talking at more length at the National Archives.

Cheddi Jagan's life and work is archived at the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre, which also includes declassified British documents relating to the suspension of the constitution in 1953, from which the readings in this episode were taken. This 1866 history of British Guyana is also interesting. I drew on the National Security Archive's account of the CIA's involvement in British Guyana and on MI5's in The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew,  

You can see and hear Cheddi Jagan in the footage from News Room Guyana.

Thanks to Yvonne Singh for suggestions of whom to contact. 

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