Guyana Sees Its Dream of Socialist Success Fading Away

The people in power still call one another “comrade,” but the term seems quaintly outdated. Guyana’s official dream of socialist success in South America has faded and crumbled like the gingerbread trim on so many of Georgetown’s dilapidated wooden mansions.

Desmond Hoyte, president since 1985, has replaced the leftist rhetoric once favored in his ruling party with pragmatic proposals for solving the country’s serious economic problems. Private foreign investment and friendly relations with the United States now figure prominently in his program.

At the same time, however, Hoyte pragmatically avoids open confrontation with more steadfastly socialist factions of his party, the People’s National Congress.

Compromise Version

“He can’t throw aside socialism completely,” said a foreign diplomat. But his compromise version is “difficult to differentiate from what would be a typical, unthreatening, United Kingdom-type of social democracy,” the diplomat said.

The revision of Guyanese socialism is part of 22-year-old Guyana’s search for national identity, a painful process in a country that fits no mold.

Stranded on the northeast edge of South America, Guyana is the only English-speaking country in a continent dominated by Spanish and Portuguese. The majority of the people are descendants of indentured servants from India, while the government is controlled by descendants of African slaves.

The political structure implanted by the British colonial powers before they cut the new country loose in 1966 has been radically revamped.

Forbes Burnham, the new nation’s first leader, customized the traditional parliamentary system and renamed the country the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. Steering an erratic leftward course, he nationalized the main industries, sugar and bauxite mining, and strengthened ties with Moscow and Havana. Relations with Washington and London cooled, and the Guyana economy slumped into stagnation.

Policies Put on Ice

Hoyte, who held the No. 2 position of prime minister when Burnham died in 1985, moved up to the presidency. Burnham’s body was sent to Moscow for embalming, and his leftist policies were quietly put on ice.

More than three years later, however, no economic turnaround has come. Of Guyana’s $1.7-billion foreign debt, staggering for such a small economy, about $1.2 billion is overdue. Foreign credit has dried up. Inflation is running at 50% a year, and wages are rapidly losing buying power.

A carpenter makes the equivalent of less than $4 a day at the legal bank exchange rate. A primary school teacher makes less than $50 a month. Many of Guyana’s most skilled workers and professionals have left the country in search of better opportunities.

“We have been terribly hurt by the brain drain,” said Kester Alves, an official in the Ministry of Information.

According to rough but knowledgeable estimates, 200,000 Guyanese expatriates live in the United States, 200,000 in England, 100,000 in Canada and 100,000 in Caribbean countries. That leaves about 755,000 still living in Guyana, and the number continues to dwindle.

Besides low salaries, those who stay here face frequent shortages of many basic food items, clothing, medicine and replacement parts. As other occupations become less attractive, one that is growing rapidly is “huckster,” a traveling merchant who trades currency on the black market and brings in scarce consumer goods from Miami and other Caribbean cities.

Expatriates regularly send cardboard shipping barrels full of food, clothing and other goods to their relatives here.

“Most Guyanese have relatives in the United States, so most Guyanese families, I would say, have at one time or another received the barrels,” Alves said. “It helps.”

Another hardship is daily blackouts. Guyana’s power-generating plants are all but worn out, and the government cannot afford to fix them.

President Hoyte was making the rounds at a crowded reception in a large auditorium the other night when the lights went out, leaving him and hundreds of others in deep darkness. Hoyte calmly made his way to the door and waited patiently until the lights returned about a half-hour later.

Despite such problems, there are some bright signs. Many, if not most, of Georgetown’s wooden buildings are weathered and decayed--but growing numbers of them shine with fresh paint. The tropical city’s wide, palmy avenues are pocked with potholes, but they teem with new jitneys that leave the inefficient government bus fleet in the dust.

Symbol of Private Enterprise

The jitneys, van-sized vehicles imported by private operators, are the first visible result of Hoyte’s promise to let private enterprise move into areas of the economy previously reserved for government-run companies. The government also announced recently that it was selling a state timber enterprise.

Ten foreign companies have been awarded concessions to explore for gold and other minerals, and contracts for petroleum exploration have been signed with others. In a recent speech to labor leaders, Hoyte emphasized his policy on private enterprise.

“The role of the private sector, both local and foreign, is crucial,” he said.

The government is negotiating an agreement with the International Monetary Fund that is likely to be based on reductions in government spending and reliance on free market forces. As in other Third World countries, the IMF talks are criticized by Guyana’s leftist opposition.

In Guyana, the major opposition party is the Marxist, pro-Soviet People’s Progressive Party, headed by Cheddi Jagan. Jagan said in an interview that Hoyte and his government are turning to the right in a play for U.S. favor.

“They are desperately in need of money, and money is obviously not going to come unless they toe the line,” Jagan said. But he said the captains of “bureaucratic state capitalism” are unwilling to shrink the government’s preponderant role in the economy.

‘Big Jobs, Big Power’

“They have big jobs, big power,” he said. “State corruption is very large, so they don’t want to give that up.” He added that the government, which provides 80% of all employment in the country, also relies on its control over jobs to control political affairs.

Other observers say the government’s political controls have loosened significantly since Hoyte took office. Seven trade unions, including the country’s four biggest, recently bolted the officially controlled labor federation and formed their own federation. An independent press association has been meeting openly, sometimes taking positions critical of the government. Authorities have allowed the start-up of a new independent daily newspaper, the Stabroek News, and have relaxed pressures on the weekly Catholic Standard.

The Standard is edited by Father Andrew Morrison, a British-born Jesuit who relishes his role as the national gadfly. Morrison is skeptical about how far the liberalization will go.

“Hoyte makes sounds as if he wants to free up the society, but the party is very much in control still,” he said in an interview. “Their main priority was to stay in power, and it still is, and this is our trouble.”

The Reagan Administration, which shunned Burnham’s government, does not hide its enthusiasm for the changes represented by Hoyte. In an interview here, U.S. Ambassador Teresa Tull expressed satisfaction with what she called the “liberalizing trend” in political policy and the more open economy.

“It has been a gradual process, but one that I think has accelerated in the last year,” she said.

When Hoyte went to Washington on an unofficial visit in August, he was ushered in to see both Secretary of State George P. Shultz and President Reagan. “The fact of the visit and the fact that he was received cordially was significant and a natural result of the improving relationship,” Tull said.