Twenty seven years after his death, Guyana’s first Executive President, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham will be honoured by the Government of South Africa with one of the Nation’s Highest Awards, the Oliver Tambo Award (Gold).
The Order of the Companion of OR Tambo is a South African honour which was established on the 6th December 2002 and is granted by the President of South Africa to foreign citizens who have “promoted South African interests and aspirations through co-operation, solidarity, and support.”
According to a statement from the Burnham family, the late President’s daughter Ms. Roxanne Van West Charles will travel to Johannesburg, South Africa to accept the Award.
The award ceremony will take place on the 27th April.
The South African government has decided to honour the late Guyanese President ” for his integral part in sport boycott against South Africa during the apartheid regime and support for the liberation movement and freedom fighters in South Africa.”
The Burnham family has stated that “as Prime Minister and later President of Guyana the policy of opposition to colonialism and oppression in Southern Africa and the liberation of their people was firmly maintained and sustained and this was given expression at the non-aligned Summit in Lusaka Zambia, in 1970, when Mr. Burnham announced that Guyana would make an annual contribution to the fight for the liberation of Southern Africa.”
Mr. Burnham died in 1985.
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ReplyDeleteWithin recent memory, this is the second time that discussions have surfaced, in relation to this prestigious offer of the Oliver Tambo Award to be offered to President Forbes Burnham of Guyana. Now is quite interesting and somewhat melodramatic, that an offer that had been once withdrawn under the Jacob Zuma Government, is now...under a new Government of South Africa, is being afforded a better review in its true merits. No doubt, this change may be due to proven authenticity of their own historical record of President Burnham's outstanding contribution to their past struggle as a contribution...in keeping with whatever support had been offered a few recent years ago, by some of the more honest and vocal (and even much younger too) among us as his fellow Guyanese compatriots.
A controversy had developed as a result of vengeful actions of a fellow Afro Caribbean national - a professor (not a Guyanese) who was likely residing in the U.S., along with some inputs from the Walter Rodney's family. Amid the 'public debate' that had ensued...with much utterances from among the Indo-Guyanese (P.P.P....party supporters), being inexcusably vulgar, disrespectful and even irrelevant. The passionate Professor later admitted that he was not aware of anything about Mr. Burnham's contribution to the South Africans struggle.
So therefore, his knowledge and perception of Mr Burnham, was only shaped by a misguided, prejudicial view only of what he had heard of him...in light of a Walter Rodney's controversial demise that was quite unrelated (such was years after Mr. Burnham had made his heroic pledge to South Africa, of an annual financial contribution on behalf of Guyana, at the Non Aligned Summit in 1970 in Lusaka, Zambia). Those two concerned and disgruntled subjects may have written separate letters to the Awards Committee of the South African Government of which Jacob Zuma was the then sitting President. In spite of what President Burnham's outstanding support for to his A.N.C. party (during white Apartheid rule) at a time when they were struggling, jungle-based ‘freedom fighters’ in South Africa, obliged them their requested favour to deny Forbes Burnham the government's very prestigious award offer.
On my part, as a Guyanese and also…as a Social Critic, I felt compelled to offer some objective perspective...by way of sharing a written Viewpoint on the issue. I thought that someone (a Guyanese) had to tell the truth to the South Africans and also to send a ‘message of reminder’ to their President - JACOB ZUMA, as a young member of the A.N.C. (in his seemingly selective amnesia), of Mr. Burnham, as the then Prime Minister/President of Guyana and the pre-eminence (among all others within the Caribbean region) of Guyanese gesture to embrace the struggle in their long, morbid and bloody journey to achieve 'black, majority rule' in South Africa during the decades of the 1970 and 80's. In it, I laid bare the truth as I knew it...for I was not too young...not to remember much of Mr. Burnham and his persistent national drive to request generous, public financial contribution from the Guyanese populace.
Now, 27 years on, after his demise…that the South African Government (under a different President), has earmarked him as an eligible recipient for one of their highest National Awards - the Oliver Tambo Award (gold), it is, certainly, a most deserving posthumous and noble honour. – Wil-a Pluck (Social Critic - June 7th, 2019)
file:///C:/Users/julia/Documents/National%20Orders%20Booklet%202019.pdf
ReplyDeleteI know Mr Linden Burnham give us our independence in 1966 and he is the father of our nation and his name should be mentioning more by the ruling party since the PPP civic would not do it his picture should place at the airport at Timehri so people would know he is the one take us from British Guiana to Guyana over 50 years
ReplyDeleteYes, it's one of the disturbing legacies of the race--focused, Indo-dominated Governments of Bharat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar with its entrenched policy of 'ethnic cleansing' and killing of Afro-Guyanese (roughly over 1, 000) with with impunity while in full public gaze on the 'world stage'. But since the table has now turned, and the new Collation Government , under Mr Granger, one therefore wonders why this dishonour has not yet been addressed in an appropriate manner. I therefore fully subscribe to your suggestion. So in life and in death; at home and abroad...President Burnham and even his photographs (once larger than life), continue to be unfairly attacked and vilified.
DeleteI solidly support Mr Pluck and all other similar persons in their support of this prestigious award that was bestowed posthumously on our founderleader and late first executive president of the Cooperative Republic of GUYANA.
ReplyDeleteHello there...thanks for sharing your comment in public support of a most outstanding character who will...forever remain a towering figure in Caribbean life and history.
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