In the previous column, I explained that these articles on Forbes Burnham came from a talk I gave to PNCR’s confab on its contemporary relevance and based on my desire to find a political narrative, without undue prejudice that could contribute to Guyana’s difficult struggle for national unity. I argued that communist expansion was against western interests and the West tried to decide that Guyana did not take that path. I concluded where the PNC took sole government in 1968 and in 1970 I announced Guyana as a Co-operative republic. With independence and the West just out of the way giving Burnham some policy space, he immediately developed and sought to implement his own national priorities based on his ambitions, experiences, contextual assessment and the resources available to it.
Two days before Guyana’s independence on 26 May 1966 John Chamberlain wrote that Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egyptian president and founder of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), had advised Fidel Castro that he should ‘play both ends (West) and East’ against the middle ‘to win Western support. However, while Castro was unable to do so because he was already overly committed to communism, Chamberlain believed that Burnham was not so committed, and up to about 1980 played a rather promising East / West hand. (https://news.google.com/newspapers? nid = 1979 & dat = 19660524 & id = w YwiAAAAIBAJ & sjid = BaoFAAAAIBAJ & pg = 990,4924914).