The Rupununi Revolt
A Documentary Account
by Odeen Ishmael PhD
GuyanaJournal, January 2006
Introduction
At the beginning of January 1969, just three weeks after the rigged elections in Guyana, a group of large ranch owners in the Rupununi region, supported by a number of Amerindians, broke out in open rebellion against the Guyana Government in the savannah area near the border with Brazil. The Amerindians involved in the uprising were mainly employees of the rebel ranchers who were Guyanese of European ancestry.
In determining the causes of this insurrection, some analysts subsequently have pointed to various factors including frustrations over the recently rigged elections which returned the PNC to power, and opposition to the proposed demarcation of Amerindian lands as set out by the Amerindian Lands Commission. Whatever role these factors played cannot be fully determined, but it was clear that the rebels expressed their non-allegiance to the state and sought the assistance of a foreign government to promote the secession of part of the territory of Guyana.
The lands issue probably had a role in influencing some Amerindians to render support to the rebel ranchers. In retrospect, it was the PNC itself, nine years earlier, who first hatched the idea of an uprising in the Rupununi as part of a scenario to show Amerindians’ dislike for the PPP. The New Nation, the PNC weekly newspaper, on 27 August 1960, sensationalized a false and mischievous frontpage report in an attempt to scare Amerindians in the Rupununi which reported that the PPP government was taking over lands from the Amerindians in the Rupununi. The fictitious story, headlined “Amerindians Alarmed by Take Over Report”, stated:
“The news item over BGBS with regards to the intention of the PPP to take over the Rupununi lands has caused widespread anxiety among Rupununi Amerindians and settlers. At least two persons have volunteered to lead a revolutionary movement to safeguard Amerindian interest at all cost, if the Governor lets them down. One of them complained to some of the British priests and has threatened to join the Americans. Another [Amerindian said that the PPP will have to kill him and his family first while others have planned moving over quietly to Brazil. Others again have pinned their faith in the PNC and its leaders to support them in their struggle for ownership of their lands.”
Immediately after the New Nation report appeared, the government protested to the manager of the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS) which subsequently disclosed that it never carried any such news, although there had been a news item about Amerindians’ concerns over the Government’s land policy.
Ironically, the story the PNC concocted in 1960 began to play out when they themselves occupied the seat of government.
The Uprising
In the course of this revolt, the ranchers declared that the Rupununi District had seceded from Guyana and that they would set up a government of the "Republic of the Rupununi". Valerie Hart, a middle-aged UF candidate in the December 1968 elections in Guyana, and who was the wife of one of the rebel ranchers, shortly after declared herself as President of the "Republic". However, she and the ring-leaders, not too long after, fled to Venezuela and Brazil after the rebellion was crushed by the Guyana Defence Force (GDF).
Apparently, the Guyana Government, through its investigations, was able to prove that Venezuela helped to organize, equip and support the revolt. The rebel ranchers from the North Rupununi savannahs were transported in late December 1968 by Venezuelan aircraft to Venezuela where they were trained by the Venezuelan army and supplied with weapons. Shortly after their return to Guyana on the 1 January 1969, they attacked the administrative town of Lethem and its outlying Amerindian villages, killing five policemen and two civilians and destroying a number of Government buildings. However, the revolt was quickly crushed by the Guyana Defence Force, but most of the rebels who managed to escape, were given refuge by the Venezuelan Government who resettled them in two villages, San Martin de Turumbo and Yuruani, close to the Guyana border.
A group of about thirty Amerindians who were arrested by the Guyana security forces were later charged with the murder of the five policemen and the two civilians. However, towards the end of the year, they were acquitted after a trial in the Supreme Court in Georgetown.
Broadcast by Burnham
In a radio broadcast on the 4 January 1969, Prime Minister Burnham narrated his Government's version of the events which had taken place in the Rupununi:
“The picture of the recent disorders in the northern Rupununi savannahs has now become sufficiently clear for me to place before the public the facts of these tragic and sinister events as they have so far unfolded.
On Thursday, 2nd January 1969, at about eleven o'clock in the morning, the township of Lethem – which is the principal centre of government administration in the Rupununi District – came under heavy gun-fire attack.
The main target of the attack was the police station which was manned by twelve members of the Guyana Police Force and a number of civilian employees and which had radio communication with Police Headquarters in Georgetown.
It is now known that the attack was made by a band of heavily armed ranchers of the Rupununi District, drawn mainly, but not exclusively, from the Hart and Melville families.
The Hart ranch is at Pirara, 15 miles from Lethem – and the control centre of the operation. It was from Pirara that the terrorists had set out earlier in the morning for Lethem.
On arriving at Lethem they opened fire on the police station with a missile-throwing bazooka and with bursts from automatic weapons. Policemen rushing out of the building were fired at, and at least one was killed in this way. The attackers then entered the station and, in the struggle that ensued, shot and killed three other policemen and one civilian employee, Victor Hernandez, an Amerindian, who was at that time a member of the Board of Governors of the School of Agriculture. The senior police officer at Lethem who was at the District Commissioner's Office at the time of the attack was shot and killed there.
Nor were the security forces the only object of the attack. The Government dispenser, who came down to the police station when the firing began, was shot at and wounded as he sought to take cover by his car.
The terrorists then rounded up the residents, including the District Commissioner, Mr. Motilall Persaud, and his wife, and held them prisoners and hostages in the abattoir. Other persons were locked into their homes. At least ten thousand dollars of Government funds were taken.
One of the early acts of the terrorists immediately after their attack on the police station was to block the airstrip at Lethem with seven-ton trucks and other obstructions, thus completely isolating Lethem except by a ground approach from some other point in the area. To make this isolation more effective, the terrorists simultaneously with the move in Lethem blocked the other airstrips in the area at Good Hope, Karasabai, Koranambo and Annai.
This left only the grass strip at Manari, five miles from Lethem, and it seems that the intention of the terrorists was to use this strip themselves with light aircraft. In fact, certain missionary priests who were at Lethem when the attack occurred were allowed to leave by road for Manari later on Thursday.
Contrary, however, to the expectation of the terrorists, news of the attack at Lethem had reached Georgetown by lunch time on Thursday and the same afternoon a number of policemen and the GDF personnel were flown into Manari by two Guyana Airways aircraft. Both planes were fired at from the approaches to the Manari strip, but neither was hit.
Within the next eighteen hours, a fully equipped and supplied contingent of the security forces was assembled at Manari and yesterday morning (Friday) they began to move on to Lethem. With the security forces advancing, the terrorists fled Lethem, probably for Pirara. On arrival at Lethem, therefore, armed forces were able to re-assert lawful authority without any resistance.
Their arrival confirmed the casualties earlier reported, and the wounded persons were immediately flown to Georgetown. The District Commissioner is now engaged in assessing the damage, both of a public and private nature, and the security forces have been assisting in the return to normalcy.
Meanwhile the terrorist groups, that had closed down the airstrips at Good Hope and Annai on the morning of January 2, had also overrun the small police contingents there and closed radio communication between these outposts and Police Headquarters in Georgetown. So far, as we know, there was no loss of life at either Good Hope or Annai, but at both places, the policemen were tied up, placed in trucks and driven off towards Lethem.
By then, of course, Lethem was under the control of the security forces and, on discovering this, on their return journey, the terrorists dumped the bound policemen and fled.
Today, the security forces have continued their operations to restore all points in the area to normal governmental control and to pursue and capture these criminal elements that are already responsible for the loss of nine lives. The police posts at Annai and Good Hope have been relieved and the centres of terrorist activity at Pirara, Good Hope and Sunnyside have been razed to ground by our forces.
A number of persons have been arrested in the area, and this afternoon word was received from the police authorities at Boa Vista (Brazil) that seven of the terrorists have been taken into custody there in the flight from Guyana. Steps are being taken to bring these fugitives to face trial under the criminal law of the land they have defiled and betrayed.
On the basis of what I have already said, the acts of insurrection and murder that I have narrated are of the most serious nature; but they are, in fact, even more serious and sinister than would appear on the surface. One of the terrorists who surrendered to the security forces yesterday has given an account of the entire operation – an account which places it in a different category from that of mere criminal terrorism. From this account it is now known that there was a gathering of Rupununi ranchers on the 23rd December (1968) at the home of Harry Hart at Moreru in the northern savannahs. At this meeting a plan was unfolded for capturing the main government outposts in the Rupununi with assistance from the Venezuelan authorities and declaring the establishment of a separatist state in cessation from the rest of Guyana.
On the 24th December, a group of ranchers and ranch hands numbering approximately forty were flown from the Hart ranch at Pirara to Santa Theresa in Venezuela where the party spent the night. On Christmas Day, 25th December, the group were driven to an airstrip at Santa Helena and airlifted in a Venezuelan military aircraft to a Venezuelan army training camp at a point approximately two hours flying time away. They spent seven days receiving intensive training in the use of weapons with which they were supplied, including automatic weapons and bazookas. On New Year's Day, 1st January, 1969, the group were flown back to Santa Helena, again by Venezuelan military aircraft. The following morning, at dawn, they were flown to the Hart ranch at Pirara, and set out immediately for Lethem and the acts of terrorism and murder I have already related.
The insurrection as we know was planned, organized and carried out by ranchers of the Rupununi – the savannah aristocrats. Such Amerindian citizens as were involved were employed in a secondary capacity and appeared generally to have acted under duress and in response to the orders of their rancher employers. Nevertheless, within a few hours of the attack on Lethem, the Venezuelan press and radio were reporting an Amerindian uprising in the Rupununi and suggested that it arose out of the wish of these Guyanese citizens to come under the sovereignty of Venezuela.
In addition, Valerie Hart, the wife of one of the Hart brothers, and a candidate of the United Force at the recent election, was taken to Venezuela by the aircraft that brought the armed gang. In Venezuela, Valerie Hart has been provided with facilities for broadcasting appeals for assistance in support of what she describes as an uprising of the indigenous population. These appeals are beamed to the United States but call for assistance from all possible sources.
The pattern of this Venezuelan involvement is easy to discern. Going back to the Talyhardat incident, the Venezuelan authorities have sought to manipulate the Guyanese Amerindian community to promote the spurious claim to the Essequibo region of Guyana. This was followed more recently by the abortive attempt to establish and finance a Guyanese Amerindian Party and in a variety of ways to promote an Amerindian movement favourable to Venezuela's territorial ambitions.
At the twenty-third session of the General Assembly in New York last October, Guyana warned of a massive effort being made by Venezuela "to subvert the loyalty of Guyana's indigenous Amerindian people". We pointed out that it was an effort that had no lack of financial resources and which functions through hand-picked agents working under the direction of the Venezuelan authorities from bases situated on the Venezuelan side of the border.
Into the campaign of subversion the Venezuelan authorities have now recruited this group of Rupununi ranchers who have traditionally resented the authority of the central Government, more especially since independence when the authority passed from British to Guyanese hands. The results of the recent general elections, which have confirmed the process of decolonisation, was apparently the signal for insurrection among these people who have induced in themselves a conviction that the grasslands of the Rupununi are theirs and theirs alone to the exclusion of others, including the Amerindian people, and especially to the exclusion of the Government of Guyana. Not surprisingly, they have found common cause with the Government of Venezuela who have once more – and again with a traditional clumsiness and indifference to Guyanese opinion – embarked on overt interference in Guyana's internal affairs with the objective of advancing their traditional claims.
It is perhaps not without significance that at the same moment that Venezuelan representatives were sitting down with their Guyanese counterparts at a meeting of the Mixed Commission in Caracas between Christmas and New Year, Venezuelan army personnel were training and equipping saboteurs and terrorists and launching them in a campaign of insurrection in Guyana. Nor is it perhaps without significance that they chose for the scene for their campaign a part of Guyana which has a frontier, not with Venezuela, but with the friendly State of Brazil.
I do not know where these events will lead us or what their excesses of armed interference Venezuela may be poised to embark upon. This may well be the beginning of a series of similar incursions launched by the Venezuelan Government and we must, therefore, expect further acts of aggression and intimidation from the new imperialism on our western doorstep. We must be ready as a nation to meet all eventualities and we must prepare ourselves for further attacks upon our national integrity from the combined forces of Venezuelan military authorities and disloyal and subversive elements in Guyana....”
Burnham departed for London on the following day (5 December) to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference. He felt the situation in the Rupununi, which was returning to “normalcy”, should not impede his attendance at this “specially important conference”.
Denial by Venezuela
On the 8 January 1969, four days after Burnham's broadcast, the Guyana Government delivered a note of protest to the Venezuelan Government over the Venezuelan involvement in the Rupununi revolt.
On the following day a Reuter report from Caracas revealed that the Interior Minister of Venezuela, Dr. Reinaldo Leandro Mora, had admitted that Guyanese youths indeed received military training in Venezuela, but claimed that this was at the wish of their parents. And he denied that the Venezuelan Government was in any way involved in the uprising. Dr. Leandro Mora also stated that the rebels who had fled to Venezuela were considered to be Venezuelan citizens since they inhabited part of the territory claimed by Venezuela, and that they would be given jobs and land in that country.
In response, Guyana's Acting Prime Minister, Dr. Ptolomy Reid, deputizing for Burnham who was in London, issued a press release on 10 January in which he commented on the statement of the Venezuelan Interior Minister. Referring to the admission that Guyanese youths received military training in Venezuela, Reid said that the youths had left Guyana illegally and without the knowledge of the Guyana Government, while Venezuelans had made improper entry. He considered that the refuge given to the rebels, taken in conjunction with Dr. Mora's admission about military training, provided irrefutable evidence of Venezuela's inspiration and support of the uprising. Venezuela, he said, stood indicted of the breach of every relevant principle of international law, and Dr. Mora's statement was consistent with Venezuela's behavior in the past.
Here, note must be made of the fact that just six months before, during the debate in the Guyana National Assembly on the Venezuelan Decree of the Sea, the Third Deputy Prime Minister of the then PNC-UF coalition Government, Randolph Cheeks, had stated that the Amerindians who were commuting between Venezuela and Guyana for decades "... do not recognise national boundaries or national borders", and that according to existing regulations, "Venezuelan Amerindians can come here and enjoy the same benefits as the Guyanese Amerindians and vice-versa". Therefore, if the youths, as mentioned in Reid's statement were Amerindians, then according to Cheeks, those particular youths had not left the country illegally. Thus, there was some contradiction in the statements of two different high ranking members of the Government of Guyana, albeit at different periods separated by a mere six months.
Alleged Atrocities in the Rupununi
After the uprising was crushed, claims were made by numerous Guyanese, including some Rupununi Amerindians, that particularly in the northern savannahs the security forces had harassed and even killed a large number of Amerindians in putting down the revolt and in their subsequent "mopping up" operations which continued weeks after the revolt was over. Actually, many Amerindians were so fearful of the security forces that they fled over the border to seek refuge in Brazil. The allegation of harassment and killings was subsequently denied by the Guyana Government and the administration of the Guyana Defence Force, both of which claimed that no one was killed in the suppression of the rebels.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Georgetown, the Reverend R.L. Guilly, was allowed by the Ministry of Home Affairs to make a four-day observation tour of the southern Rupununi Savannahs to see the condition of the Amerindians, most of whom were Roman Catholics. However, he was not allowed to visit the northern Rupununi where the rebellion actually took place. On his return to Georgetown, he reported that at St. Ignatius and Macusi Village (both located near Lethem) the Amerindians were still nervous and that a number of them had fled across the border to Brazil. He said that the old school building was burned to the ground, but little damage was done to the newer school building.
Despite the fact that Bishop Guilly did not actually visit the areas where there were military activities, he concluded: "I am happy to say that I am quite satisfied that there have been no atrocities."
However, the Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Jagan, who had applied to the Government to visit the Rupununi District, which was now designated a restricted area to non-Amerindians, was refused permission by the Ministry of Home Affairs to visit the area to examine the situation there. As a result of this refusal, the PPP sent two of its leading Amerindian members, Eugene Stoby, a Member of Parliament, and Basil James to the Rupununi by the Guyana Airways passenger flight to make on-the-spot observations. But on landing at the Lethem airfield, they were detained by the GDF authorities and sent back to Georgetown on the return flight. In Georgetown they were rigorously questioned by the Police before being released.
PPP Views on the Situation
Based on the refusal by the Government to allow Dr. Jagan and the two PPP Amerindian members from going to the Rupununi, the PPP expressed the view that the Government had something to hide and that, most likely, some Amerindians had been killed by the GDF in the process of stamping out the rebellion. The PPP felt that the Government's statement that no Amerindian was killed in the crushing of the rebellion was untrue since it was apparent that the army met resistance which caused it to burn down a number of buildings in which mainly Amerindian rebels had entrenched themselves. It would be unique, the PPP stated, for an army to crush an armed rebellion without inflicting any loss of life on the rebel forces.
In the July-September 1969 issue of Thunder, the theoretical journal of the PPP, Dr. Jagan in an article entitled "What the future holds for Guyana", stated:
. . . The Government, having ruthlessly crushed the rebellion . . . is moving to militarize our politics. Incessant calls are being made for greater sacrifices to build a bigger army and police so "that our nation can be protected".
The revolt had its origin in a combination of factors – resentment by the people of the Rupununi against the PNC Government for the electoral fraud and the eviction of the United Force from the coalition; dissatisfaction with the Government's high-handed action in connection with their leased lands; subversion by Venezuela in its quest for a Guyanese "fifth column".
Venezuela's claim to nearly three-fifths of our territory was part of the Anglo-American conspiracy. It was resurrected in 1962 to be used as an aggressive weapon against the PPP or any future progressive regime in an independent Guyana...
During the past four years this claim was used for jingoistic and diversionary purposes in support of US-puppet regimes in both Guyana and Venezuela. In the 1968 election, it served as an intimidatory weapon. The PNC, with its main electoral slogan, "peace not conflict", openly suggested the threat of Venezuelan aggression in case of a PPP victory.
These were the reasons for the failure of the PNC-UF coalition to take to the UN Security Council Venezuela's aggression (occupation of the whole of Ankoko Island), threat of aggression (Venezuela's edict authorising its Navy to patrol Guyana's offshore waters), and subversion. The USA, while not wishing to be placed in a position of deciding between Guyana's "right" and Venezuela's "might", wants at the same time the Venezuelan claim to remain open indefinitely.
Indeed, there is every likelihood that the USA either backed or connived at Venezuelan support (military training and refuge) for the Rupununi rebels. This is just one way in which the United States not only expressed disapproval of the expulsion of the pro-capitalist-imperialist UF from the Government, but also intends to keep the PNC regime in line politically. . .
The National Security Act
During early February 1969, the PNC Government rushed a National Security Act through the National Assembly in the teeth of strong opposition from the PPP. The Government claimed that the Act was aimed at curbing subversion in the country. In the October-December 1969 issue of Thunder, under the article, "The Erosion of Civil Liberties", a leading Executive Member of the PPP, Ranji Chandisingh (who later defected to the PNC in 1976) commented on this Act and the aftermath of the Rupununi revolt:
During the debate in Parliament (on the National Security Act of 1969 to restrict the movement of persons within Guyana and to prevent Guyanese leaving the country), Opposition members pointed out that in the vast Rupununi area – following the short-lived uprising – the Government imposed administratively a complete ban on persons entering the area. The charge was made that the Government had something to hide; it was not telling the whole truth about the situation in the Rupununi – particularly with respect to the treatment of the Amerindians. There was much speculation as to the number of deaths.
The PPP sent two of its Amerindian members – one an organiser, the other a Member of Parliament – to investigate. They bought airplane tickets from the Guyana Airways Corporation and duly boarded the plane. Shortly after they landed, however, they were rounded up by police and sent back to Georgetown. Even priests who had served in the area were hustled out and prevented from returning. The Government had actually sealed off the entire area, long after there could be any military justification for this. Only Government officials and certain PNC activists were allowed in.
At that time the Government was acting without any legal or constitutional authority. It was only subsequently that the Government – through this Act (National Security Act, 1969) – gave itself legal authority for such action.
Shortly after the National Security Act was passed, a Defence Levy tax of three percent on imported goods was imposed. The aim of this new tax, according to the Government, was to raise revenue to strengthen Guyana's defence capabilities.
Amerindian Conference
Nearly two months after the Rupununi uprising, Prime Minister Burnham invited all Amerindian Touchaus (Chiefs) to Georgetown for a four-day conference, from the 28 February to 3 March 1969, ostensibly aimed at formulating a far-reaching program of Amerindian development. At the end of the conference, the Amerindian chiefs, in condemning the Rupununi revolt, passed the following resolution:
Acknowledging our duties to the State of Guyana and prepared to share also with our brothers in Guyana responsibilities for the development and the defence of Guyana;
Concerned over the claims of Venezuela to that part of Guyana in which many of us live in peace and harmony with the other people of Guyana – hereby declare that we:
1. Pledge our whole-hearted loyalty to the Government of Guyana which we consider our only Government;
2. Reject the unjust claims of Venezuela to any part of the territory of Guyana;
3. Deplore the action of those misguided persons who conspire with foreigners to the detriment of our State;
4. Condemn all persons who seek to overthrow by force the lawful authority of the Government of Guyana;
5. Call upon all Guyanese to resist by all means any attempt by Venezuela or any other State to take or gain control of any part of Guyana;
6. Inform all nations of the world that we will never agree to the destruction or division of our country or recognize the claim of Venezuela or any other nation to any of the territory of Guyana.
Rupununi Revolt Reported to the UN
As part of its diplomatic offensive, Guyana used the forum of the 24th session of the UN General Assembly to highlight the failed insurrection. On 6 October 1969, Guyana's Attorney General and Minister of External Affairs, Shridath Ramphal, in the general debate informed the delegates of the Venezuelan involvement in the Rupununi revolt. Of special interest was his statement that the leaders of the revolt were ranchers, "many of whom were not even citizens of Guyana", and all of whom resented the authority of the PNC Government.
On the following day, the Permanent Representative of Venezuela, claiming the right to reply, accused Guyana of using the UN to propagate its internal policies by bringing charges of "invented aggression by Venezuela" before that body. He claimed that the Guyana Government was attempting to draw attention away from the troubled racial situation – left by British imperialism – and from the economic problems facing the country at home. He added that Venezuela was justified in warning foreign companies that their land rights granted by Guyana might not apply when the disputed territory should become "part of Venezuela".
Then on 8 October, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Patterson Thompson, in a rebuttal, admitted that Guyana had its share of economic and social problems. But, he said, for Venezuela to attempt to present these matters as a reason for Guyana's justified complaints in the General Assembly against Venezuelan hostility, was to seek the flimsiest pretext for inhibiting discussion in the General Assembly and to divert attention from the real motives underlying that hostility.
Afterword
Time has a way of unraveling the past. On 13 March 2005, the Caracas daily, Ultimas Noticias, carried an article by Diaz Rangel commenting on a recently US declassified document outlining a plan by the Venezuelan government in 1964 to seek support from the US to overthrow the PPP government of that period and replace it with the PNC and the UF, and in the process to kidnap Cheddi and Janet Jagan and imprison them in Venezuela. Rangel mentioned that the Accion Democratica administration in 1968 gave support to the separatist movement in the Rupununi. The article revealed that “military troops and the police force, apparently commanded by General Yépez Daga, were ready to back the Amerindian separatist movement in the Essequibo which failed. Assault troops and paratroops were left waiting.”
Note: Leopoldo Talyhardat, Vice-Consul for Venezuela in Guyana, was expelled from Guyana on 1 May 1967 after the government claimed that he was involved in a clandestine meeting two weeks earlier with Amerindians at Kabakaburi in the Pomeroon.
This article was first published in 1995 as part of the longer documentary, The Trail of Diplomacy. The current version is more or less the same.
A Documentary Account
by Odeen Ishmael PhD
GuyanaJournal, January 2006
Introduction
At the beginning of January 1969, just three weeks after the rigged elections in Guyana, a group of large ranch owners in the Rupununi region, supported by a number of Amerindians, broke out in open rebellion against the Guyana Government in the savannah area near the border with Brazil. The Amerindians involved in the uprising were mainly employees of the rebel ranchers who were Guyanese of European ancestry.
In determining the causes of this insurrection, some analysts subsequently have pointed to various factors including frustrations over the recently rigged elections which returned the PNC to power, and opposition to the proposed demarcation of Amerindian lands as set out by the Amerindian Lands Commission. Whatever role these factors played cannot be fully determined, but it was clear that the rebels expressed their non-allegiance to the state and sought the assistance of a foreign government to promote the secession of part of the territory of Guyana.
The lands issue probably had a role in influencing some Amerindians to render support to the rebel ranchers. In retrospect, it was the PNC itself, nine years earlier, who first hatched the idea of an uprising in the Rupununi as part of a scenario to show Amerindians’ dislike for the PPP. The New Nation, the PNC weekly newspaper, on 27 August 1960, sensationalized a false and mischievous frontpage report in an attempt to scare Amerindians in the Rupununi which reported that the PPP government was taking over lands from the Amerindians in the Rupununi. The fictitious story, headlined “Amerindians Alarmed by Take Over Report”, stated:
“The news item over BGBS with regards to the intention of the PPP to take over the Rupununi lands has caused widespread anxiety among Rupununi Amerindians and settlers. At least two persons have volunteered to lead a revolutionary movement to safeguard Amerindian interest at all cost, if the Governor lets them down. One of them complained to some of the British priests and has threatened to join the Americans. Another [Amerindian said that the PPP will have to kill him and his family first while others have planned moving over quietly to Brazil. Others again have pinned their faith in the PNC and its leaders to support them in their struggle for ownership of their lands.”
Immediately after the New Nation report appeared, the government protested to the manager of the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS) which subsequently disclosed that it never carried any such news, although there had been a news item about Amerindians’ concerns over the Government’s land policy.
Ironically, the story the PNC concocted in 1960 began to play out when they themselves occupied the seat of government.
The Uprising
In the course of this revolt, the ranchers declared that the Rupununi District had seceded from Guyana and that they would set up a government of the "Republic of the Rupununi". Valerie Hart, a middle-aged UF candidate in the December 1968 elections in Guyana, and who was the wife of one of the rebel ranchers, shortly after declared herself as President of the "Republic". However, she and the ring-leaders, not too long after, fled to Venezuela and Brazil after the rebellion was crushed by the Guyana Defence Force (GDF).
Apparently, the Guyana Government, through its investigations, was able to prove that Venezuela helped to organize, equip and support the revolt. The rebel ranchers from the North Rupununi savannahs were transported in late December 1968 by Venezuelan aircraft to Venezuela where they were trained by the Venezuelan army and supplied with weapons. Shortly after their return to Guyana on the 1 January 1969, they attacked the administrative town of Lethem and its outlying Amerindian villages, killing five policemen and two civilians and destroying a number of Government buildings. However, the revolt was quickly crushed by the Guyana Defence Force, but most of the rebels who managed to escape, were given refuge by the Venezuelan Government who resettled them in two villages, San Martin de Turumbo and Yuruani, close to the Guyana border.
A group of about thirty Amerindians who were arrested by the Guyana security forces were later charged with the murder of the five policemen and the two civilians. However, towards the end of the year, they were acquitted after a trial in the Supreme Court in Georgetown.
Broadcast by Burnham
In a radio broadcast on the 4 January 1969, Prime Minister Burnham narrated his Government's version of the events which had taken place in the Rupununi:
“The picture of the recent disorders in the northern Rupununi savannahs has now become sufficiently clear for me to place before the public the facts of these tragic and sinister events as they have so far unfolded.
On Thursday, 2nd January 1969, at about eleven o'clock in the morning, the township of Lethem – which is the principal centre of government administration in the Rupununi District – came under heavy gun-fire attack.
The main target of the attack was the police station which was manned by twelve members of the Guyana Police Force and a number of civilian employees and which had radio communication with Police Headquarters in Georgetown.
It is now known that the attack was made by a band of heavily armed ranchers of the Rupununi District, drawn mainly, but not exclusively, from the Hart and Melville families.
The Hart ranch is at Pirara, 15 miles from Lethem – and the control centre of the operation. It was from Pirara that the terrorists had set out earlier in the morning for Lethem.
On arriving at Lethem they opened fire on the police station with a missile-throwing bazooka and with bursts from automatic weapons. Policemen rushing out of the building were fired at, and at least one was killed in this way. The attackers then entered the station and, in the struggle that ensued, shot and killed three other policemen and one civilian employee, Victor Hernandez, an Amerindian, who was at that time a member of the Board of Governors of the School of Agriculture. The senior police officer at Lethem who was at the District Commissioner's Office at the time of the attack was shot and killed there.
Nor were the security forces the only object of the attack. The Government dispenser, who came down to the police station when the firing began, was shot at and wounded as he sought to take cover by his car.
The terrorists then rounded up the residents, including the District Commissioner, Mr. Motilall Persaud, and his wife, and held them prisoners and hostages in the abattoir. Other persons were locked into their homes. At least ten thousand dollars of Government funds were taken.
One of the early acts of the terrorists immediately after their attack on the police station was to block the airstrip at Lethem with seven-ton trucks and other obstructions, thus completely isolating Lethem except by a ground approach from some other point in the area. To make this isolation more effective, the terrorists simultaneously with the move in Lethem blocked the other airstrips in the area at Good Hope, Karasabai, Koranambo and Annai.
This left only the grass strip at Manari, five miles from Lethem, and it seems that the intention of the terrorists was to use this strip themselves with light aircraft. In fact, certain missionary priests who were at Lethem when the attack occurred were allowed to leave by road for Manari later on Thursday.
Contrary, however, to the expectation of the terrorists, news of the attack at Lethem had reached Georgetown by lunch time on Thursday and the same afternoon a number of policemen and the GDF personnel were flown into Manari by two Guyana Airways aircraft. Both planes were fired at from the approaches to the Manari strip, but neither was hit.
Within the next eighteen hours, a fully equipped and supplied contingent of the security forces was assembled at Manari and yesterday morning (Friday) they began to move on to Lethem. With the security forces advancing, the terrorists fled Lethem, probably for Pirara. On arrival at Lethem, therefore, armed forces were able to re-assert lawful authority without any resistance.
Their arrival confirmed the casualties earlier reported, and the wounded persons were immediately flown to Georgetown. The District Commissioner is now engaged in assessing the damage, both of a public and private nature, and the security forces have been assisting in the return to normalcy.
Meanwhile the terrorist groups, that had closed down the airstrips at Good Hope and Annai on the morning of January 2, had also overrun the small police contingents there and closed radio communication between these outposts and Police Headquarters in Georgetown. So far, as we know, there was no loss of life at either Good Hope or Annai, but at both places, the policemen were tied up, placed in trucks and driven off towards Lethem.
By then, of course, Lethem was under the control of the security forces and, on discovering this, on their return journey, the terrorists dumped the bound policemen and fled.
Today, the security forces have continued their operations to restore all points in the area to normal governmental control and to pursue and capture these criminal elements that are already responsible for the loss of nine lives. The police posts at Annai and Good Hope have been relieved and the centres of terrorist activity at Pirara, Good Hope and Sunnyside have been razed to ground by our forces.
A number of persons have been arrested in the area, and this afternoon word was received from the police authorities at Boa Vista (Brazil) that seven of the terrorists have been taken into custody there in the flight from Guyana. Steps are being taken to bring these fugitives to face trial under the criminal law of the land they have defiled and betrayed.
On the basis of what I have already said, the acts of insurrection and murder that I have narrated are of the most serious nature; but they are, in fact, even more serious and sinister than would appear on the surface. One of the terrorists who surrendered to the security forces yesterday has given an account of the entire operation – an account which places it in a different category from that of mere criminal terrorism. From this account it is now known that there was a gathering of Rupununi ranchers on the 23rd December (1968) at the home of Harry Hart at Moreru in the northern savannahs. At this meeting a plan was unfolded for capturing the main government outposts in the Rupununi with assistance from the Venezuelan authorities and declaring the establishment of a separatist state in cessation from the rest of Guyana.
On the 24th December, a group of ranchers and ranch hands numbering approximately forty were flown from the Hart ranch at Pirara to Santa Theresa in Venezuela where the party spent the night. On Christmas Day, 25th December, the group were driven to an airstrip at Santa Helena and airlifted in a Venezuelan military aircraft to a Venezuelan army training camp at a point approximately two hours flying time away. They spent seven days receiving intensive training in the use of weapons with which they were supplied, including automatic weapons and bazookas. On New Year's Day, 1st January, 1969, the group were flown back to Santa Helena, again by Venezuelan military aircraft. The following morning, at dawn, they were flown to the Hart ranch at Pirara, and set out immediately for Lethem and the acts of terrorism and murder I have already related.
The insurrection as we know was planned, organized and carried out by ranchers of the Rupununi – the savannah aristocrats. Such Amerindian citizens as were involved were employed in a secondary capacity and appeared generally to have acted under duress and in response to the orders of their rancher employers. Nevertheless, within a few hours of the attack on Lethem, the Venezuelan press and radio were reporting an Amerindian uprising in the Rupununi and suggested that it arose out of the wish of these Guyanese citizens to come under the sovereignty of Venezuela.
In addition, Valerie Hart, the wife of one of the Hart brothers, and a candidate of the United Force at the recent election, was taken to Venezuela by the aircraft that brought the armed gang. In Venezuela, Valerie Hart has been provided with facilities for broadcasting appeals for assistance in support of what she describes as an uprising of the indigenous population. These appeals are beamed to the United States but call for assistance from all possible sources.
The pattern of this Venezuelan involvement is easy to discern. Going back to the Talyhardat incident, the Venezuelan authorities have sought to manipulate the Guyanese Amerindian community to promote the spurious claim to the Essequibo region of Guyana. This was followed more recently by the abortive attempt to establish and finance a Guyanese Amerindian Party and in a variety of ways to promote an Amerindian movement favourable to Venezuela's territorial ambitions.
At the twenty-third session of the General Assembly in New York last October, Guyana warned of a massive effort being made by Venezuela "to subvert the loyalty of Guyana's indigenous Amerindian people". We pointed out that it was an effort that had no lack of financial resources and which functions through hand-picked agents working under the direction of the Venezuelan authorities from bases situated on the Venezuelan side of the border.
Into the campaign of subversion the Venezuelan authorities have now recruited this group of Rupununi ranchers who have traditionally resented the authority of the central Government, more especially since independence when the authority passed from British to Guyanese hands. The results of the recent general elections, which have confirmed the process of decolonisation, was apparently the signal for insurrection among these people who have induced in themselves a conviction that the grasslands of the Rupununi are theirs and theirs alone to the exclusion of others, including the Amerindian people, and especially to the exclusion of the Government of Guyana. Not surprisingly, they have found common cause with the Government of Venezuela who have once more – and again with a traditional clumsiness and indifference to Guyanese opinion – embarked on overt interference in Guyana's internal affairs with the objective of advancing their traditional claims.
It is perhaps not without significance that at the same moment that Venezuelan representatives were sitting down with their Guyanese counterparts at a meeting of the Mixed Commission in Caracas between Christmas and New Year, Venezuelan army personnel were training and equipping saboteurs and terrorists and launching them in a campaign of insurrection in Guyana. Nor is it perhaps without significance that they chose for the scene for their campaign a part of Guyana which has a frontier, not with Venezuela, but with the friendly State of Brazil.
I do not know where these events will lead us or what their excesses of armed interference Venezuela may be poised to embark upon. This may well be the beginning of a series of similar incursions launched by the Venezuelan Government and we must, therefore, expect further acts of aggression and intimidation from the new imperialism on our western doorstep. We must be ready as a nation to meet all eventualities and we must prepare ourselves for further attacks upon our national integrity from the combined forces of Venezuelan military authorities and disloyal and subversive elements in Guyana....”
Burnham departed for London on the following day (5 December) to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference. He felt the situation in the Rupununi, which was returning to “normalcy”, should not impede his attendance at this “specially important conference”.
Denial by Venezuela
On the 8 January 1969, four days after Burnham's broadcast, the Guyana Government delivered a note of protest to the Venezuelan Government over the Venezuelan involvement in the Rupununi revolt.
On the following day a Reuter report from Caracas revealed that the Interior Minister of Venezuela, Dr. Reinaldo Leandro Mora, had admitted that Guyanese youths indeed received military training in Venezuela, but claimed that this was at the wish of their parents. And he denied that the Venezuelan Government was in any way involved in the uprising. Dr. Leandro Mora also stated that the rebels who had fled to Venezuela were considered to be Venezuelan citizens since they inhabited part of the territory claimed by Venezuela, and that they would be given jobs and land in that country.
In response, Guyana's Acting Prime Minister, Dr. Ptolomy Reid, deputizing for Burnham who was in London, issued a press release on 10 January in which he commented on the statement of the Venezuelan Interior Minister. Referring to the admission that Guyanese youths received military training in Venezuela, Reid said that the youths had left Guyana illegally and without the knowledge of the Guyana Government, while Venezuelans had made improper entry. He considered that the refuge given to the rebels, taken in conjunction with Dr. Mora's admission about military training, provided irrefutable evidence of Venezuela's inspiration and support of the uprising. Venezuela, he said, stood indicted of the breach of every relevant principle of international law, and Dr. Mora's statement was consistent with Venezuela's behavior in the past.
Here, note must be made of the fact that just six months before, during the debate in the Guyana National Assembly on the Venezuelan Decree of the Sea, the Third Deputy Prime Minister of the then PNC-UF coalition Government, Randolph Cheeks, had stated that the Amerindians who were commuting between Venezuela and Guyana for decades "... do not recognise national boundaries or national borders", and that according to existing regulations, "Venezuelan Amerindians can come here and enjoy the same benefits as the Guyanese Amerindians and vice-versa". Therefore, if the youths, as mentioned in Reid's statement were Amerindians, then according to Cheeks, those particular youths had not left the country illegally. Thus, there was some contradiction in the statements of two different high ranking members of the Government of Guyana, albeit at different periods separated by a mere six months.
Alleged Atrocities in the Rupununi
After the uprising was crushed, claims were made by numerous Guyanese, including some Rupununi Amerindians, that particularly in the northern savannahs the security forces had harassed and even killed a large number of Amerindians in putting down the revolt and in their subsequent "mopping up" operations which continued weeks after the revolt was over. Actually, many Amerindians were so fearful of the security forces that they fled over the border to seek refuge in Brazil. The allegation of harassment and killings was subsequently denied by the Guyana Government and the administration of the Guyana Defence Force, both of which claimed that no one was killed in the suppression of the rebels.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Georgetown, the Reverend R.L. Guilly, was allowed by the Ministry of Home Affairs to make a four-day observation tour of the southern Rupununi Savannahs to see the condition of the Amerindians, most of whom were Roman Catholics. However, he was not allowed to visit the northern Rupununi where the rebellion actually took place. On his return to Georgetown, he reported that at St. Ignatius and Macusi Village (both located near Lethem) the Amerindians were still nervous and that a number of them had fled across the border to Brazil. He said that the old school building was burned to the ground, but little damage was done to the newer school building.
Despite the fact that Bishop Guilly did not actually visit the areas where there were military activities, he concluded: "I am happy to say that I am quite satisfied that there have been no atrocities."
However, the Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Jagan, who had applied to the Government to visit the Rupununi District, which was now designated a restricted area to non-Amerindians, was refused permission by the Ministry of Home Affairs to visit the area to examine the situation there. As a result of this refusal, the PPP sent two of its leading Amerindian members, Eugene Stoby, a Member of Parliament, and Basil James to the Rupununi by the Guyana Airways passenger flight to make on-the-spot observations. But on landing at the Lethem airfield, they were detained by the GDF authorities and sent back to Georgetown on the return flight. In Georgetown they were rigorously questioned by the Police before being released.
PPP Views on the Situation
Based on the refusal by the Government to allow Dr. Jagan and the two PPP Amerindian members from going to the Rupununi, the PPP expressed the view that the Government had something to hide and that, most likely, some Amerindians had been killed by the GDF in the process of stamping out the rebellion. The PPP felt that the Government's statement that no Amerindian was killed in the crushing of the rebellion was untrue since it was apparent that the army met resistance which caused it to burn down a number of buildings in which mainly Amerindian rebels had entrenched themselves. It would be unique, the PPP stated, for an army to crush an armed rebellion without inflicting any loss of life on the rebel forces.
In the July-September 1969 issue of Thunder, the theoretical journal of the PPP, Dr. Jagan in an article entitled "What the future holds for Guyana", stated:
. . . The Government, having ruthlessly crushed the rebellion . . . is moving to militarize our politics. Incessant calls are being made for greater sacrifices to build a bigger army and police so "that our nation can be protected".
The revolt had its origin in a combination of factors – resentment by the people of the Rupununi against the PNC Government for the electoral fraud and the eviction of the United Force from the coalition; dissatisfaction with the Government's high-handed action in connection with their leased lands; subversion by Venezuela in its quest for a Guyanese "fifth column".
Venezuela's claim to nearly three-fifths of our territory was part of the Anglo-American conspiracy. It was resurrected in 1962 to be used as an aggressive weapon against the PPP or any future progressive regime in an independent Guyana...
During the past four years this claim was used for jingoistic and diversionary purposes in support of US-puppet regimes in both Guyana and Venezuela. In the 1968 election, it served as an intimidatory weapon. The PNC, with its main electoral slogan, "peace not conflict", openly suggested the threat of Venezuelan aggression in case of a PPP victory.
These were the reasons for the failure of the PNC-UF coalition to take to the UN Security Council Venezuela's aggression (occupation of the whole of Ankoko Island), threat of aggression (Venezuela's edict authorising its Navy to patrol Guyana's offshore waters), and subversion. The USA, while not wishing to be placed in a position of deciding between Guyana's "right" and Venezuela's "might", wants at the same time the Venezuelan claim to remain open indefinitely.
Indeed, there is every likelihood that the USA either backed or connived at Venezuelan support (military training and refuge) for the Rupununi rebels. This is just one way in which the United States not only expressed disapproval of the expulsion of the pro-capitalist-imperialist UF from the Government, but also intends to keep the PNC regime in line politically. . .
The National Security Act
During early February 1969, the PNC Government rushed a National Security Act through the National Assembly in the teeth of strong opposition from the PPP. The Government claimed that the Act was aimed at curbing subversion in the country. In the October-December 1969 issue of Thunder, under the article, "The Erosion of Civil Liberties", a leading Executive Member of the PPP, Ranji Chandisingh (who later defected to the PNC in 1976) commented on this Act and the aftermath of the Rupununi revolt:
During the debate in Parliament (on the National Security Act of 1969 to restrict the movement of persons within Guyana and to prevent Guyanese leaving the country), Opposition members pointed out that in the vast Rupununi area – following the short-lived uprising – the Government imposed administratively a complete ban on persons entering the area. The charge was made that the Government had something to hide; it was not telling the whole truth about the situation in the Rupununi – particularly with respect to the treatment of the Amerindians. There was much speculation as to the number of deaths.
The PPP sent two of its Amerindian members – one an organiser, the other a Member of Parliament – to investigate. They bought airplane tickets from the Guyana Airways Corporation and duly boarded the plane. Shortly after they landed, however, they were rounded up by police and sent back to Georgetown. Even priests who had served in the area were hustled out and prevented from returning. The Government had actually sealed off the entire area, long after there could be any military justification for this. Only Government officials and certain PNC activists were allowed in.
At that time the Government was acting without any legal or constitutional authority. It was only subsequently that the Government – through this Act (National Security Act, 1969) – gave itself legal authority for such action.
Shortly after the National Security Act was passed, a Defence Levy tax of three percent on imported goods was imposed. The aim of this new tax, according to the Government, was to raise revenue to strengthen Guyana's defence capabilities.
Amerindian Conference
Nearly two months after the Rupununi uprising, Prime Minister Burnham invited all Amerindian Touchaus (Chiefs) to Georgetown for a four-day conference, from the 28 February to 3 March 1969, ostensibly aimed at formulating a far-reaching program of Amerindian development. At the end of the conference, the Amerindian chiefs, in condemning the Rupununi revolt, passed the following resolution:
Acknowledging our duties to the State of Guyana and prepared to share also with our brothers in Guyana responsibilities for the development and the defence of Guyana;
Concerned over the claims of Venezuela to that part of Guyana in which many of us live in peace and harmony with the other people of Guyana – hereby declare that we:
1. Pledge our whole-hearted loyalty to the Government of Guyana which we consider our only Government;
2. Reject the unjust claims of Venezuela to any part of the territory of Guyana;
3. Deplore the action of those misguided persons who conspire with foreigners to the detriment of our State;
4. Condemn all persons who seek to overthrow by force the lawful authority of the Government of Guyana;
5. Call upon all Guyanese to resist by all means any attempt by Venezuela or any other State to take or gain control of any part of Guyana;
6. Inform all nations of the world that we will never agree to the destruction or division of our country or recognize the claim of Venezuela or any other nation to any of the territory of Guyana.
Rupununi Revolt Reported to the UN
As part of its diplomatic offensive, Guyana used the forum of the 24th session of the UN General Assembly to highlight the failed insurrection. On 6 October 1969, Guyana's Attorney General and Minister of External Affairs, Shridath Ramphal, in the general debate informed the delegates of the Venezuelan involvement in the Rupununi revolt. Of special interest was his statement that the leaders of the revolt were ranchers, "many of whom were not even citizens of Guyana", and all of whom resented the authority of the PNC Government.
On the following day, the Permanent Representative of Venezuela, claiming the right to reply, accused Guyana of using the UN to propagate its internal policies by bringing charges of "invented aggression by Venezuela" before that body. He claimed that the Guyana Government was attempting to draw attention away from the troubled racial situation – left by British imperialism – and from the economic problems facing the country at home. He added that Venezuela was justified in warning foreign companies that their land rights granted by Guyana might not apply when the disputed territory should become "part of Venezuela".
Then on 8 October, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Patterson Thompson, in a rebuttal, admitted that Guyana had its share of economic and social problems. But, he said, for Venezuela to attempt to present these matters as a reason for Guyana's justified complaints in the General Assembly against Venezuelan hostility, was to seek the flimsiest pretext for inhibiting discussion in the General Assembly and to divert attention from the real motives underlying that hostility.
Afterword
Time has a way of unraveling the past. On 13 March 2005, the Caracas daily, Ultimas Noticias, carried an article by Diaz Rangel commenting on a recently US declassified document outlining a plan by the Venezuelan government in 1964 to seek support from the US to overthrow the PPP government of that period and replace it with the PNC and the UF, and in the process to kidnap Cheddi and Janet Jagan and imprison them in Venezuela. Rangel mentioned that the Accion Democratica administration in 1968 gave support to the separatist movement in the Rupununi. The article revealed that “military troops and the police force, apparently commanded by General Yépez Daga, were ready to back the Amerindian separatist movement in the Essequibo which failed. Assault troops and paratroops were left waiting.”
Note: Leopoldo Talyhardat, Vice-Consul for Venezuela in Guyana, was expelled from Guyana on 1 May 1967 after the government claimed that he was involved in a clandestine meeting two weeks earlier with Amerindians at Kabakaburi in the Pomeroon.
This article was first published in 1995 as part of the longer documentary, The Trail of Diplomacy. The current version is more or less the same.
Main
Writings