Simon Schama TV - Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre TV - Document: Radio 4 - Ken Puddicombe - Cheddi Jagan - Simon Reeve TV -
But the English counties weren’t the only place where it was said something had to be done to avert bloodshed. In Suriname, Guyana and in Jamaica a push to the edge by hope and desperation there had been slave rebellions put down with a ferocity which made Peterloo look like a picnic. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Forces of Nature
November 1978: For about the last thirty hours we here at NBC News have been trying to establish what happened last night in Guyana on the northern coast of South America. The searching American soldiers have finished counting the bodies in Jonestown, Guyana: 910 … Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre, news helicopter, CI 2018
British Guyana 1963: Independence was looming for the South American colony … This document appears to show that the British government was setting out to deliberately scupper its own conference. Document: 30/08/2010, BBC Radio 4
In April came a general strike. It lasted for 80 days and paralysed the country. ibid.
It was the personal intervention of President John F Kennedy himself that finally sealed British Guyana’s fate. ibid.
A decade earlier Britain had sent in the gunboats. ibid.
To be honest, it’s a real relief to go to Canada where I can be among my relatives. Just the kind of break I need. Strange enough, when I’m there, I can’t wait to get back to Guyana. There’s something that’s always calling me back, something in the blood, I guess. Ken Puddicombe, Racing with the Rain, Father Martin to Carl Dias
Britain has handled us and the question of our independence not in our interest but in theirs … [We] have been part of a barter deal with the USA: part of the price paid for the US government’s defence of Empire interests. Cheddi Jagan
Successive US and UK governments have achieved their purpose by force, fraud and rigged elections. Cheddi Jagan