Guyana THE ARMED FORCES
Guyana Defence Force guard of honor in front of the Bank of Guyana
building, Georgetown
Courtesy Embassy of Guyana, Washington
The Special Service Unit (SSU) began as a constabulary force in
1964. It became the Guyana Defence Force in 1965. Governor Richard
Luyt created the SSU to aid the police in maintaining internal
order in British Guiana, as the country was then called. The
colonial government's goal was for the SSU to evolve into Guyana's
army after independence was granted. A British officer, Colonel
Ronald Pope, aided by a British military instructional unit,
organized and trained the SSU. The Guyanese component of the SSU's
officers and noncommissioned officers was drawn heavily from the
Volunteer Force, a reserve unit composed predominantly of AfroGuyanese civil servants. However, officer candidates were also
selected from outside the Volunteer Force and trained in Britain.
Once training was completed, the Guyanese officers were rapidly
promoted and positioned to assume command from the British upon
independence.
The British government strove to ensure an ethnic balance
within the SSU. Its reasons were twofold: Guyana was already
racially polarized in the 1960s, and the police force consisted
mostly of Afro-Guyanese. The British were successful in recruiting
a balance of Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese cadets to fill the
junior officer ranks. Indo-Guyanese were also well-represented
among students at the Mons Officer Cadet Training School in
Britain.
The SSU was renamed the Guyana Defence Force in 1965. The
transition to complete Guyanese control of the GDF began in 1966,
shortly after independence was granted. Prime Minister Linden
Forbes Burnham, who also served as minister of defense, oversaw the
transition. Major Raymond Sataur, an Indo-Guyanese officer and
graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, was heir
apparent to the British GDF commander. But perhaps because of
ethnic considerations, Burnham selected an Afro-Guyanese officer,
Major Clarence Price, as the new commander. After the 1968
election, Burnham began to purge Indo-Guyanese from the GDF's
officer corps. By 1970 Afro-Guyanese dominated both the officer and
the enlisted ranks of the GDF.
Training of Guyanese officer cadets in Britain ceased in the
1970s. The Guyanese government then established a six-month cadet
course at Timehri Airport, south of Georgetown. The ruling PNC
began using political and ethnic criteria in selecting officer
cadets, instead of relying on educational requirements as had been
done in the past
(see The Cooperative Republic
, ch. 1).
The PNC attempted both to consolidate and expand the loyalty of
the GDF by manipulating racial symbols and by materially rewarding
loyal soldiers. Politically minded officers portrayed the PNC as
the sole protector of Afro-Guyanese interests. These same officers
also portrayed the opposition People's Progressive Party (PPP) as
an Indo-Guyanese organization whose victory would result in
economic and political domination of Afro-Guyanese by IndoGuyanese . In 1973, an aide to Forbes Burnham openly advocated that
the GDF pledge its allegiance to the PNC in addition to its loyalty
to the nation. This recommendation was made policy the following
year. Although the recommendation was unpopular among career
officers, disagreement was not voiced openly for fear of losing
high salaries, duty-free cars, housing, and other privileges.
Nevertheless, throughout the 1970s and 1980s an undercurrent of
tension existed between officers who favored a politically neutral
GDF and those who favored political activism.
Data as of January 1992
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