For a country that has a 50 per cent Indian population, plus a president of Indian origin, Guyana is a particularly unsafe place for people of Indian persuasion. That stark fact was reinforced on January 11 when roving gangs of Afro-Guyanese gunmen with assault rifles raided the mostly Indian-majority village of Lusignan and murdered 11 people, including five children. In a country divided along deep racial fault lines, the reaction was swift and violent. Protests erupted after the shootings, as thousands of ethnic Indians faced off with police and soldiers and set fire to tires on a major thoroughfare, raising concerns of further ethnic tensions.
“The killing in the village of Lusignan was a cowardly act by sick, demented criminals,” said President Bharrat Jagdeo, addressing his country and appealing for calm. “We have to ensure this does not spread ethnic tension,” said Jagdeo. “These are criminals. We have to hunt them down.”
The targeted village's population is mainly of East Indian heritage. Guyana’s two main ethnic groups are the descendants of East Indian indentured laborers and the descendants of black African slaves. Lusignan is a stronghold of the president’s People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), located 16 km east of the capital Georgetown. The gunmen kicked down the doors of five wooden homes in Lusignan and shot their victims dead. Those killed included a couple and their granddaughter in one house, and a mother and her two children in another. Shocked residents howled and wept in grief as they mourned their dead. “They didn’t come here to rob, they came here to slaughter,” says Lusignan resident Jag Singh.
If Jag Singh is terrified, he isn’t alone. Guyana has seen a series of concerted attacks against Indians in the recent past. Reports of daily lynchings or beatings by roving gangs of African origin people is trickling out of the country.
Originally a Dutch colony in the 17th century, by 1815 Guyana had become a British possession. The abolition of slavery led to black settlement of urban areas and the importation of indentured servants from India to work the sugar plantations. This ethno-cultural divide has persisted and has led to turbulent politics.
A majority of Indo-Guyanese have traditionally backed the PPPC. Rice farmers and sugar workers in the rural areas form the bulk of the party support. Indo-Guyanese who dominate the country’s urban business community also have provided important support to both parties, depending on which was in power at the time.
Guyana’s government is a patchwork of ethnic compromises. While it has an elected government mostly comprising Indian-origin people, the defence forces and police are black-dominated. The blacks who comprise around 36 per cent of the population are feeling increasingly marginalised as the Indian population increases rapidly. Also, with the Indians forming most of the middle classes, their dominance is complete—a fact that hasn’t gone down well at all with the blacks.
So far Guyana has been light years from India’s collective consciousness. With Indians facing the heat, and a Fiji-like situation not in the realm of impossibility, it remains to be seen how the Indian government will help the diaspora. If at all.
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