Guyana INDEPENDENCE AND THE BURNHAM ERA
Saint George's Anglican Church in Georgetown, built in 1889, is one
of the tallest wooden buildings in the world.
Courtesy Embassy of Guyana, Washington
Burnham in Power
In the first year under Burnham, conditions in the colony began
to stabilize. The new coalition administration broke diplomatic
ties with Cuba and implemented policies that favored local
investors and foreign industry. The colony applied the renewed flow
of Western aid to further development of its infrastructure. A
constitutional conference was held in London; the conference set
May 26, 1966 as the date for the colony's independence. By the time
independence was achieved, the country was enjoying economic growth
and relative domestic peace.
The newly independent Guyana at first sought to improve
relations with its neighbors. For instance, in December 1965 the
country had become a charter member of the Caribbean Free Trade
Association (Carifta). Relations with Venezuela were not so placid,
however. In 1962 Venezuela had announced that it was rejecting the
1899 boundary and would renew its claim to all of Guyana west of
the Essequibo River. In 1966 Venezuela seized the Guyanese half of
Ankoko Island, in the Cuyuni River, and two years later claimed a
strip of sea along Guyana's western coast.
Another challenge to the newly independent government came at
the beginning of January 1969, with the Rupununi Rebellion. In the
Rupununi region in southwest Guyana, along the Venezuelan border,
white settlers and Amerindians rebelled against the central
government. Several Guyanese policemen in the area were killed, and
spokesmen for the rebels declared the area independent and asked
for Venezuelan aid. Troops arrived from Georgetown within days, and
the rebellion was quickly put down. Although the rebellion was not
a large affair, it exposed underlying tensions in the new state and
the Amerindians' marginalized role in the country's political and
social life.
Data as of January 1992
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