Cheddi and Janet Jagan – Wedding Photo – Chicago/USA – 1943
Photo Credit: Cheddi Jagan Research Centre

On Saturday, at the People’s Climate Los Angeles – Building Blocks against Climate Change, I had the opportunity to chat with the leader of the small contingent from the Communist Party USA. I learned that he had visited Guyana in 1967.

In the 1960s, in what was then British Guiana, the Catholic Church had drilled the fear of communism into my young impressionable mind. Those were the days of the Cold War. With their dread of the Soviet Union and fear of another Cuba in their backyard, the US government covertly ousted from power Guyana’s populist East Indian leader, the Marxist Cheddi Jagan.

“I met Cheddi Jagan and his wife, Janet,” the white American male said with pride. Continue reading →