A Venezuelan Farewell to Cde Janet Jagan

Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez

On Saturday March 28, at 88 years old and still active in the service of the best causes of humanity, Comrade Janet Jagan has died. Her death occurred in the beautiful city of Georgetown, the capital of our neighbouring country, on the eastern side of Guyana.

This sad and unfortunate news was communicated to me immediately by my esteemed friend Odeen Ishmael, Ambassador of the said country in ours and someone who knows about the fraternal ties of friendship for many years that I was privileged to cultivate with Janet and her late husband Cheddi Jagan. News, incidentally, that I have not encountered so far in any of the numerous so-called “news” that broadcast here or from the spokespersons of both the opposition and the government. In contrast, for example, the death in these same days of former Argentinean president Raúl Alfonsín, faithful servant of capitalism and monopolies, has received extraordinary attention.

This can be explained, logically, given that Janet Jagan represented in several ways something of the best of humanity. She as a human being was a role model for the future equality of women and men, without fuss or alleged feminist legal matches. Also, in a no less important aspect, that still just gleams in the future, she managed to fully overcome that major barrier of skin colour that still divides us as human beings.

Similarly, she also successfully overcame another barrier that in today’s world still retains its absurd historical significance, reason for which, millions and millions of people have lost their lives or endured enormous sufferings. I refer to these invisible borders in place that unfortunately, stems from artificial national and religious conceptions.

I believe the first time we met was when she came as a delegate of her party, the People’s Progressive Party of Guyana, known by its initials of PPP, to participate in the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Venezuela, held on the 23 January 1971 in the Edifice Cantaclaro which was still under construction. The PCV was emerging from the crisis generated by the defection of a third of its Central Committee, who fled from their responsibility of defeat in our attempted armed struggle, and she told us: “In today’s world today people that are oppressed and exploited are constantly winning battles against imperialism. You, our comrades of the PCV, have been through difficult times but have emerged victorious. The crisis of yesterday will bring you closer in the future and strengthen your struggle. Your struggle is our struggle. “(” PCV Fourth Congress Documents and Resolutions, “Caracas, June 1971, 384 pp.)

Janet also warned us thus: “The border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela was deliberately planned to be used as a weapon against anti-imperialist forces when they become sufficiently strong so as to threaten their interests.” A warning that is still relevant now, I would add.

Cde Janet Jagan

I had the opportunity to meet Cheddi Jagan, when he and Salvador Allende travelled from Caracas to Havana, invited to the May Day Parade of 1960, as were our Comrade Eduardo Gallegos Mancera and I. We immediately liked each other and created a friendship which was strengthened by my several visits to that country and his to ours.

When Cheddi died in 1997, also in March, this Optica Mundial (Worldview) carried the headline: Cheddi Jagan: Statesman of noble causes. Today, our departed Janet, who also was president of Guyana, can bear the same headline under her name.

(Published in the weekly La Razón, No. 743, Caracas, 4 April 2009)[The writer is the President of the Communist Party of Venezuela.]