Burnham Was Able Jagan Lieutenant
(N.Z.PJL.-Reuter—Copyright) GEORGETOWN, December 12. Linden Forbes Sampson Bumham, who has been asked to lead the new British Guiana Government, is a 41-year-old barrister, who, during his political career, has been in the dock as well as at the counsels’ bench.
He was arrested In London in March, 1960, but was cleared of the charge of using insulting words during an anti-aparthied demonstratton in Trafalgar square. Last August he was arrested on a charge of failing to surrender ammunition to security forces under an emergency order of British Guiana’s Governor, Sir Richard Luyt, but the charge was dismissed by a Magistrate on September 7. A big, smiling man with a small black moustache, he was one of Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s ablest lieutenants in the 1953 Government, in which he served as Minister of Education.
He brought Dr. Jagan’s People’s progressive Party the the big Negro vote of Georgetown to back those Dr. Jagan was already sure of from voters of Indian descent.
But within a few years the P.P.P. had split into two wings, behind Dr. Jagan and Mr Burnham. According to Mr Burnham, the Jaganites followed a Marxist line too rigidly, whereas he wanted a Socialist path adapted to local conditions and needs. Critics say Mr Burnham lacks Dr. Jagan’s capacity for continuous hard work and grasp of details. His admirers say his more flexible approach to local and national matters makes him and his People’s National Congress Party better suited to give stable leadership in a divided country. Dr. Jagan, who Is 46, has campaigned long and bitterly for independence for British Guiana, where he has twice headed the Government. The son of a sugar estate foreman, he is descended from the indentured labourers brought from India to work the caneflelds when freed Negro slaves refused to do so after emancipation. He qualified as a dentist in Chicago and there met his wife Janet, daughter of a middle-class Chicago family.
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Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30625, 16 December 1964, Page 11
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326Burnham Was Able Jagan Lieutenant Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30625, 16 December 1964, Page 11
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