Brindley Horatio Benn’s courage and patriotism always inspired his countrymen – Kaieteur News

Brindley Horatio Benn’s courage and patriotism will always inspire his countrymen


DEAR EDITOR,

Kindly let me have a place in your newspaper to inform the nation that January 24, 2021 was the ninety-eight birthday of an outstanding patriot from Guyana, Mr Brindley Horatio Benn, CCH. Minister Benn was Deputy Premier of Premier Dr. Cheddi B. Jagan, and had ministerial portfolios in Community Development and Education and Agriculture and Natural Resources. He founded Guyana’s School of Agriculture in 1963, demanding a “scientific agriculture” practice and initiated major projects including the Black Bush Polder Scheme and Boerasirie Conservancy in the early 1960s. This was during the last campaign in the struggle for independence, and Mr Benn not only participated in the London Conferences demanding that his country become a sovereign nation, but he traveled widely, carrying the flame of self-determination to the whole world. the world. colonies at the time. In this effort, he met many leaders, including Nehru of India, Nkrumah of Ghana, Selassie of Ethiopia, Ben Bella of Algeria, Chou-en-lai from China, and others, gaining unity for the cause of British Guiana, and manage what would later become an Alignment Movement.
Three years later, “restricting movement” and his later imprisonment at Her Majesty’s Punishment Colony at Sibley Hall only strengthened his determination to help liberate his nation from British colonialism.
He formed his own Vanguard Working Peoples Party in 1968, unquestionably deepening this commitment, now against the Burnham dictatorship, and the new colonialism represented by the IMF. In remarks dripping with contempt and mixed with sadness, he described to his children one day how the “Third World” nations had to “hang out mouths where the soup is leaking” to get a little help from the nations that give.
In his small handwritten mimeographed bulletins (when not confiscated by the police), he was one of the first to sound the alarm about regime blindness with the “Jonestown experiment.
When the PPP was returned to office in 1992, Brindley Benn was appointed High Commissioner to Canada, where he served with distinction, and helped rekindle love for their native land in exile Guyanese. He was awarded the Cacique Crown of Honor by President Jagan for his fight for democracy, and his outstanding service to his country.
Editor, I would particularly like to point out that it was Benn, the Minister of Education and Community Development, who featured in his feature speech at the October 1957 celebration of National History and Culture Week, which he famously urged: “British Guiana can make a unique contribution to history only if we weld ourselves into one people, one nation, and pursue one destiny. ”His words were later co-opted as the national motto, and they must stand out as a signpost for Guyana’s present and future.
Brindley Horatio Benn’s courage and patriotism will always inspire his countrymen.
A book detailing this rich legacy will be published in a month’s time.

Lena Platt (nee Benn)



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