At the Confluence of Cold War and Decolonization: Independence in Guyana

This paper will explore the convergence of the Cold War and decolonization in Guyana. Political ambition and outside intervention led to near civil war along ethnic lines as the Leftist government of East Indian political and labor leader Cheddi Jagan fought for power against a coalition led by African political and labor leader Forbes Burnham. The paper's focus will be on the political and labor conflict at the heart of Guyana's movment toward independence from the United Kingdom, and the the incredible multiplicity of interventions by the Western and Eastern Blocs; neighbors like the British Caribbean islands and Surinam, which believed that Jagan's Leftist orientation was harming their own movements toward independence; neighboring Venezuela's fear that Jagan would join the Communist Bloc and the Venezuelan government's hope to use a border dispute with Guyana as a means to expand the nation's territory while neutralizing radical nationalists in the military; and neutrals like India, Ghana, and Israel, each of which had its own goals in assisting the colony in its quest for independence.