Tributes to Cheddi Jagan
South Africa’s posthumous award to Dr Cheddi Jagan--
A great honour for the Guyanese nation
MRS Janet Jagan, widow of the late President Cheddi Jagan, on May 7, 2005 received the Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo in Gold, the highest award given to foreigners by South Africa.
SIGNAL HONOUR: Mrs Janet Jagan receives the award from PPP General Secretary Donald Ramotar yesterday. (Mike Norville photo)
The award was bestowed posthumously on Dr Jagan by South African President Thabo Mbeki for his exceptional contribution to the struggle against racial oppression and colonial exploitation. This Order is awarded for friendship shown to South Africa and is an order of peace, co-operation and active expression of solidarity and support.
It was formally received in Pretoria on April 27, South Africa’s Freedom Day, by General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party Donald Ramotar on behalf of Mrs Jagan who was unable to attend the grand ceremony.
At a ceremony at the PPP Freedom House headquarters in Georgetown, Mrs Jagan said, “I am happy because finally Cheddi (Jagan) is ranked where he belonged all along.”
She said she was pleased to accept the outstanding award for Guyana’s hero.
Mr Ramotar noted that Dr Jagan fought for democracy and an end to colonialism and saw the struggle in Guyana as linked to the struggles in the international community.
The award also recognised Dr Jagan as a leading advocate against apartheid in South Africa and for his committed opposition to oppression and exploitation.
The elements of the award include a walking stick entwined with a golden snake, which represents the support and solidarity given to South Africa, a neck badge and a miniature and lapel rosette.
Ramotar yesterday said he was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who went up to him and honoured the memory of the late President while he was in South Africa.
The Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo is named after the longest serving African National Congress (ANC) President Oliver R. Tambo who is credited with playing a major role in the growth and development of the international movement of solidarity against racism and apartheid. Dr Jagan and Tambo were close friends.
South Africa’s posthumous award to Dr Cheddi Jagan
‘It is to the credit of all our fore-parents that those who came after them successfully forged a society in which there are high levels of ethnic tolerance.’
FORMER President of Guyana, the late Dr Cheddi Jagan was recently awarded, posthumously, with South Africa’s national honour on independence heroes. Presenting the award was South African President Thabo Mbeki. Other recipients of awards included India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indonesia’s founding President, Sukarno. Receiving the award on behalf of Dr Jagan was Mr. Donald Ramotar, who succeeded Dr Jagan as General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party following his death in 1997.
The South African award to one of the leading architects in the fight for Guyana’s freedom and Independence must be seen therefore as a great honour not only to Dr Jagan and the party he founded, the People’s Progressive Party, but also to the nation as a whole, especially having regard to the country’s size and geo-political significance. The award is in a sense an acknowledgement of the principled and consistent position taken by Guyana on the South African issue.
It is no secret that the People’s Progressive Party and the African National Congress enjoyed close fraternal relations, with the PPP lending its voice and support to the liberation struggle and the eventual dismantling of the apartheid system in South Africa. South Africa is today regarded as a model of inter-ethnic tolerance and peaceful co-existence, despite the bitterness of the past. In this regard, there is much to learn from the South African experience in terms of putting the past behind us and forging a new beginning on the basis of democracy and respect for the rule of law.
It is significant that the award comes at a time when the country is making preparations for the observance of its own Independence celebrations from Britain some 39 years ago. Guyana, as we all know, gained its Independence from Britain on May 26, 1966, after some 150 years of British colonial rule.
And while it is perhaps true to say that the struggle for freedom and Independence was not as prolonged and bloody as that of South Africa, Guyana’s Independence struggle was not without its share of frustrations and intrigues at the hands of the dominant powers, which did everything possible to deny Independence to the colony under a PPP-led administration. These intrigues were well captured in Dr Jagan’s political masterpiece, “The West on Trial” which I would like to recommend to all Guyanese, in particular those with an interest in the political history of the country.
We have come a long way since the early days of colonisation by our imperial masters, whose sole interest was the extraction of maximum wealth for export to the metropolis. Like so many other countries of the developing world, the basis for our underdevelopment was firmly laid during that period and remained a challenge, which we have to overcome.
It is significant that we observe Arrival Day this month to reflect on the arrival to this country of our diverse ethnic groups. Arrival Day has been made by this current PPP/Civic administration a national holiday. Except for our indigenous peoples, who, it is estimated, landed on our shores some 5,000 years ago, all the other ethnic groups came here to provide cheap labour to serve the commercial interests of the European planter class. In this regard, we inherited what could be considered a transplanted society drawn from a variety of culture areas, including India, Africa, China and Europe.
It is to the credit of all our fore-parents that those who came after them successfully forged a society in which there are high levels of ethnic tolerance. This point was reinforced by Mr. Roelf Meyer, a South African specialist in race relations, who visited the country recently. According to Mr. Meyer, he found no evidence of ethnic tension. A similar observation was made a few years earlier by a United Nations Rapporteur on race relations who in his analysis of race relations found that there is a high level of trust and cordiality among the ethnic groups in Guyana.
Let us take comfort from this fact as we strive to create a united and peaceful society
