The breadbasket

During the past weeks, there has been much public discussion about Barbados' immigration policy for CARICOM nationals.

In May, Prime Minister David Thompson declared an amnesty for CARICOM nationals who had overstayed their time, giving them six months to turn themselves in, with a chance of being regularised.

The discourse however, has been mainly about the high influx of Guyanese into Barbados, their alleged ill-treatment by immigration officials and the strain that these illegals put on the island's resources.

Last Sunday, Part 1 of a series looking at the historical journey of Guyana/Barbados relations was published. Part 2 appeared on Wednesday. Today, we bring Part 3

by CHARLES HARDING

GUYANA, with its vast land resources, has always been regarded as the 'breadbasket' of the wider Caribbean, which has obviously led to waves of West Indians, especially Barbadians, moving to Guyana in search of the proverbial "greener pastures" and improved social and economic opportunities.

It is felt in some places that had British Guiana opted to be part of the ill-fated West Indies Federation of 1958-62, that experiment in Caribbean political unity would have survived its numerous challenges, including freedom of movement, which were blamed for its collapse four years after its inauguration.

Although freedom of movement was enshrined in the Federal Constitution, some West Indian governments were concerned that their islands were too small and ill-equipped to handle influxes of citizens from neighbouring countries.

Political commentators promoted British Guiana, its vast 83 000 square miles (a total land area of 33 000 square miles, including areas of arable land in the coastal belt and vast forest tracks in the central areas) as the ideal location for West Indians' settlement, investment and development.

The point must be made that although Barbadians, searching for economic opportunities outside their homeland, had emigrated to such places as the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curacao, the British and United States Virgin Islands, Antigua, Cuba and Panama, they seemed to have had a strong preference for British Guiana in the post-emancipation years.

Employment

Several were employed at the Canadian-owned Demerara Bauxite Company (DEMBA) at Linden (formerly MacKenzie), some 65 miles from Georgetown, up the Demerara River, and at bauxite mines at Ituni and Kwakwani.

The lowest-paid worker at DEMBA earned $10 an hour in 1960.

The American Manganese Mines at Matthews Ridge in the North West District, which started mining in 1960, was producing about 800 tonnes of manganese (iron ore) concentrate per day and employing no fewer than 100 Barbadians at one time in 1964-65, before it closed operations and the area was transformed into an agricultural community in 1969.

Barbadians also held various positions in the then mainly-owned Bookers sugar industry, working at the more than one dozen sugar mills as electrical and mechanical engineers, machinists, wielders, plumbers.

A Bajan was at the centre of almost every activity associated with the reaping of cane and production of sugar.

They served as deacons and priests at the established Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian churches and held senior offices with other denominations.

They worked as teachers and administrators at church schools - primary and secondary.

They earned swift promotion in the Police Force, and were known for excellent tutelage as instructors at the Police Training School at Eve Leary, Georgetown.

Apart from Forbes Burnham, whose roots are in Barbados, it is also known that one of his regional ministers, Roy Bancroft, brother of a now retired senior officer in the Police Mounted Branch, was born in Barbados.

Cricketers

The late Sir Clyde Walcott, one of the famous cricketing triumvirate of Walcott, Weekes and Worrell, served Guyana as a cricketing coach, and was partly responsible for the discovery and eminence of West Indies Test cricketers Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher and Joe Solomon.

While Barbados was exporting teachers, cricketers, racing cyclists, engineers and labourers to Georgetown, Guyana was despatching to this country, sugar boilers, rice, wallaba wood and coals and in later years educators, health care professionals and shopkeepers.

They included sculptor Karl Broodhagen, who came to Barbados in 1928 and taught art to generations of Combermerians from 1948 until his retirement at the age of 86 in 1998.

Insurance executive Cecil DeCaires, broadcaster Dame Olga Lopes-Seale, Senior Medical Officer, Dr Elizabeth Ferdinand; educator, the late Dr Richard Allsopp, and musician Derry Etkins, are all products of Guyana.

DeCaires, who was in the vanguard of Barbados' campaign for the 2007 Cricket World Cup, emigrated to this country in 1961, earned distinction in the insurance industry and served as chairman of Life of Barbados.

He was awarded Barbados' second highest honour, the Companion of Honour in 1995.

Dame Olga or "Auntie Olga" as she is affectionately known in Guyana and Barbados also holds the Barbados Silver Star and Golden Crown of Merit.

Apart from Broodhagen, DeCaires, Lopes-Seale, Ferdinand, Allsopp and Etkins, Guyanese honoured by the Guyana government in 2002 for outstanding contributions to Barbados were: Nurse Doreen Boyce, hotelier Leena Mansingh, plantation supervisor Karan Persaud, Baker Basdeo Samaroo, lumber executive Rohit Sugrin and community worker Elsie Yong.

Charles Harding, a veteran Caribbean journalist, was born in Barbados of Barbadian and Guyanese parentage. He was a founder member of The Nation Publishing Company Limited.