Universidad Indígena de Venezuela (Indigenous University of Venezuela, UIV) is a public university created in 2010 based in Tauca, Bolívar State. Aimed at Venezuela's indigenous communities, it has campuses in Bolívar and Amazonas, and a 2010 enrolment of 810. Theindigenous peoples of Venezuela make up only around 1.5% of the population nationwide, but the proportion is nearly 50% in Amazonas.

Story:

Venezuela's first indigenous university is preparing to be incorporated into the national higher education system later this year, a move that will bringing extra funding for protecting the country's endangered cultures.
With a 100-strong student body from various tribes, the school has been named the Barefoot University, because most students arrive after wandering shoeless through savannah, watching out for boa constrictors as they go.
The campus spans grassland to thick jungle and a sign at the door asks students to clean their feet before entering to huts to take classes that cover ancient customs and myths, alongside modern law and technology.
Najiru, a 23-year-old from the Warao tribe who is currently writing a forest-farming thesis, said he had more faith in the university than in traditional aid programs that rarely give indigenous people what they need.
"(Improving) the quality of life in the indigenous towns is not from bringing us outboard motors or a toilet or material goods. For us, that is not quality of life. Quality of life is having a small sown field, a boat, a machete and tools for work. With this, we are happy. So the non-indigenous people, without understanding our culture, our situation, offer us things that do not serve us at all," said Najiru.
President Hugo Chavez has placed Venezuela's Indian identity at the heart of his home-spun revolution. Many are grateful, but others say aid projects split villages and draw people into cash economies dominated by non-Indians.
Emajyumi Torres, from the Ye´kuana tribe, is one of the school's first graduates and now a teacher. She, with the help of other students and teachers, is racing to put into writing the wisdom of elders that is not being handed down orally as in previous generations.
"The reason for having and writing knowledge is because almost all indigenous people, the ancient people who are a living library, are getting older and the university is fighting to collect all the history, myths, stories, technology and education," said Torres.
Jose Korta, a 81-year-old Jesuit priest, was among those who founded the university several years ago.
"That it is an indigenous university, that is fundamental and that at this indigenous university they recognise the context of the surrounding society, which is not easy," said Korta.
Indigenous people who attend regular schools in Venezuelan towns often sever ties with their rural homelands, but these students need no city clothes for class. They sleep in hammocks and cook on open fires.
It is hoped the university will help indigenous communities create leaders who can defend land rights and prevent a headlong rush into modernity destroying thousands of years of knowledge about forest and river life.
Meanwhile, a balance between old and new, the government and the people, remains hard to strike.

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/2011/06/13/RTV1688611/

Learning in the Wilds: Venezuela’s First Indigenous University

South American tribesmen are earnest about learning and preserving their culture while embracing technology at a university located amidst thick jungles.

Every morning, groups of tribespeople cross a jungle creek from their adobe student homes and wander barefoot through the thick undergrowth inhabited by boa constrictors to reach class at Venezuela’s first indigenous university in Cano Tauca.

The original residents of Venezuela’s jungles, these ethnic groups make up only a fraction of the 29 million people in the South American nation, now booming because of its oil industry.

Intellectual exchange: Students putting forth their thoughts and ideas during a discussion at the varsity (Photo: Reuters)

Like similar groups across the world, their habitat and way of life in a vast, long-neglected region of forests and waterways around the Orinoco river are increasingly threatened by illegal mining, ranchers and religious groups.

Adding to the mix of influences are socialist aid programmes from the country’s President Hugo Chavez, who has placed Venezuela’s Indian identity at the heart of his home-spun revolution.

Many are grateful for the help. On a campus that sprawls from grassland into wild thick jungle, about 100 students from many of the country’s 44 recognised tribes come to the university which teaches ancient customs alongside modern law and technology.

River recess: Indiginous Indian students jump into the water from a tree during a break from classes (Photo: Reuters).

“This university is the best hope for saving our respective cultures,” said Najiru, a 23-year-old student, whose Warao tribe lives scattered in the delta at the mouth of the Orinoco river.

He is currently working on a plan for a forest farming thesis on a laptop in a dirt-floor hut.

The goal is to create leaders who can defend land rights and prevent a headlong rush into modernity from destroying thousands of years of knowledge about forest and river life.

Students and teachers are also racing to put into writing the wisdom of elders that is not being handed down orally as in previous generations, which they think may soon vanish.

“The elders are living libraries,” said teacher and Ye’kuana Indian Emjayumi Torres, 27, one of the school’s first graduates.

Unlike peers who study in regular schools in Venezuelan towns and often sever ties with their rural homelands, these students need no city clothes for class. They come bare-chested, sleep in hammocks and cook on open fires.

Casual clothing: Students need no city clothes for class and some come bare-chested (Photo: Reuters).

Founded seven years ago, the Venezuelan Indigenous University is to be incorporated into the national higher education system this year.

While it will bring the much-needed funds for classrooms and curriculum, it also carries some risks.

In an airy classroom, Torres chalks a timeline of Venezuela’s indigenous history across a blackboard.

Students, many of whom have their faces painted with traditional symbols take down notes, while there are others fiddling with mobile phones.

“The doors have opened, so Indians can now participate in state affairs,” said Torres.

Soon after taking office in 1998, Chavez created a new constitution which, for the first time, enshrined indigenous rights, including claims to long-occupied lands.

Some 12 years later, a government presence is common even in the most remote Indian villages deep in the Amazon, where Hercules cargo planes and helicopters deliver food, medicine and doctors.

Therein lies the problem. While aid and government jobs are a welcome relief from the harsh reality of jungle life, for many Indians, the government is creating dependency and weakening traditional elders with politicised community councils.

“They are going to wipe out these cultures in no time if these policies are not corrected,” said Jose Korta, 81, a Jesuit priest who is a founder of the university.

He says money flowing into villages is often spent on alcohol in stores owned by non-Indian ranchers who have invaded their territory, pushing the Indian tribes to shrinking patches of land.

The thorny subject of recognising tribal land, much of which straddles borders with Colombia and Brazil and is rich in minerals, is bogged down as the government tries to balance economic priorities and sovereignty concerns with the obligations in the constitution.

University alumni are mapping territory using GPS (global positioning system) handsets to pinpoint hills and rivers that elders have identified for their tribes.

Out in the villages, many Indians long for modern comforts, including protection against preventable diseases.

In the village of Keipon, about 40 Enapa Indian families live in adobe huts nestled in a lush range of hills near a broad tributary of the Orinoco river. The Enapa hunt birds and grow rice, fruit and vegetables in family gardens.

Most people here work the land, unlike other hamlets where government cash lets many buy subsidised food that can cause dietary issues as pasta and flour replace traditional fare.

Like most Indian groups, the Enapa have been in contact with the world but have to put up with rapid changes.

“We need a more comfortable life,” said village nurse Kushewa, inside a crumbling adobe clinic, stocked with a small range of medicines. Officials have approved funds to build a new brick clinic, but so far only the roof has arrived.

“We have no transport and when someone falls sick here, we have no way of taking them elsewhere,” he said.

The government had also given simple laptops to schoolchildren in April. But there is no electricity supply, so the computers can only be charged with a small generator, when villagers have only gasoline to spare.

Recently a young graduate called Wine returned to his village in Keipon and initiated a project to get clean piped water from a mountain spring into villages houses.

That’s the kind of approach the university is seeking: changes that improve people’s lives without destroying their traditional ways and culture. — Reuters

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6287

Indios dominam política em São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM)

Índios dominam política em São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM)

Indígenas formaram chapa e conquistaram a prefeitura.
Em seis meses, no entanto, aliança se desfez.

Do Globo Amazônia, com informações do Jornal Nacional

Tamanho da letra

• A-
• A+

Em São Gabriel da Cachoeira, no extremo noroeste do Amazonas, assembleia de índio virou febre. Eles hoje dominam a política local e, assim como os não índios, têm de conviver com os atritos e desentendimentos que fazem parte da democracia.

Visite o site do Jornal Nacional

A cidade mais indígena do Brasil sempre foi controlada pelos brancos, fossem eles padres, militares, juízes ou prefeitos. Só que um dia, além de caçar, pescar, fazer roçado, os índios resolveram conversar, negociar, fazer política. Depois disso, tudo mudou e a Federação das Organizações Indígenas do Rio Negro (Foirn) atua há quase vinte anos.

“Nessa maloca que vocês estão vendo aqui, já recebemos vários ministros de estado”, diz Renato da Silva Matos, presidente do conselho da Foirn. Gerenciamos aqui recursos de 11 milhões por ano! Daqui a gente se prepara para ir para políticas públicas”.

A grande vitória da entidade foi a demarcação e a homologação de um território indígena do tamanho de Portugal, em 1998. “Tinha que comemorar muito. A gente sentiu assim como se fosse resgatar um filho que você tinha, mas não reconhecia, não tinha nome”, justifica Abrahaão de Oliveira França, presidente da Foirn. Depois, novas lideranças foram surgindo.

“A melhor escola que eu tive foi esse período de 20 e poucos anos que eu fiquei no movimento indígena”, conta Pedro Garcia, prefeito de São Gabriel da Cachoeira, primeiro de uma chapa 100% indígena no Brasil.

“A dificuldade maior foi unir as etnias tukano com baniwa”, diz Antônio Cardoso de Araújo, vereador pelo PDT. Garcia, do PT, é um tariano criado entre os tukanos. O vice-prefeito, André Fernando, do PV, é baniwa. Eles fizeram história ao conquistar o poder.

“Na câmara, no momento, ainda ninguém levantou a voz da oposição”, afirma Williams Kleber Ferreira Alves , vereador do PRP.

http://www.globoamazonia.com/Amazonia/0,,MUL1315718-16052,00-INDIOS+DOMINAM+POLITICA+EM+SAO+GABRIEL+DA+CACHOEIRA+AM.html

Tuyuka Indians in the Amazon uses their own method to educate children

In the Amazon,Tuyuka ( Indians) school use its own methods to educate Children  27/09/2009

Older Indians pass on experience to children/students.

Portuguese language is taught to the children after knowing how to read and write in their first language

Since its establishment in the community of San Pedro, in San Gabriel da Cachoeira (in the Amazon) on the border between Brazil and Colombia, an Indigenous School adopts  a western type method of education and Indian traditional knowlegde in its educational plan.

The most important thing in Pedagogy Tuyuka is the idea in which the experience must always be valued. The students learn since early from those who have long experience, for example the elders who need to be listened to and respected. All the elders in the community participates in the classes as especial teachers.

They are the ones who respond to issues about nature and the forest, about life and death. “The old people serve as history books”, said Odilon Resende, a Tuyuka, Indian student. The secrets of nature revealed by the elders are recorded in books written by the students in Tuyuka language, then after goes to a library which is monted by the students themselves.

Literacy is all in Tuyuka base in findings:  a child learns better in the language which he/she speaks at home. The learning of Portuguese comes after, when the children already know to read and write in their first language.

Being a creative school, snacks is even provided from the forest, The Tuyukas Indians offers Brazil a new model of education, the contrary to what happens in other schools in surrounding districts and states, where ten thousand Indians from the villages of Saint Gabriel studies in precarious schools conditions sometimes divided in sub classes or, worse yet, without any classroom. It’s like that that they prepare for National Exam set for next month, where not even the most optimistic teachers hope for a good performance from the students.

No Amazonas, escola tuyuka usa métodos próprios para educar crianças

Índios mais velhos passam experiência aos alunos.
Língua portuguesa só é ensinada após a alfabetização.

Desde que foi instalado na comunidade tuyuka de São Pedro, em São gabriel da Cachoeira (AM), quase na fronteira do Brasil com a Colômbia, um projeto de educação indígena diferenciada tenta unir a tecnologia dos brancos e os conhecimentos tradicionais dos índios.

Visite o site do Jornal Nacional 

O ponto central da pedagogia tuyuka é a ideia de que a experiência deve ser sempre valorizada. Os alunos aprendem desde cedo que quem vive há mais tempo que eles merece ser ouvido e respeitado. Os velhos todos da comunidade participam das aulas como professores especiais.

São eles quem respondem as grandes dúvidas sobre a natureza e a floresta, sobre a vida e a morte. "Os velhos aqui servem como um livro de história”, conta Odilon Resende, aluno tuyuka.

 

Os segredos da natureza revelados pelos velhos são anotados e viram livros feitos pelos alunos, que irão para uma biblioteca que está sendo montada com os relatos escritos em tuyuka.


A alfabetização é toda em tuyuka, com base numa constatação óbvia: a criança aprende melhor se for na língua que fala em casa. O aprendizado do português vem depois, quando elas já estão alfabetizadas.


As crianças são livres para sair da sala, mas ninguém quer. O que pode ser mais divertido do que uma aula de matemática?

Com uma escola criativa, que tira da floresta até a merenda escolar, os tuyukas oferecem ao Brasil um novo modelo de educação, ao contrário do que acontece em outras escolas da região, a Cabeça do Cachorro.


Dez mil indiozinhos das aldeias de São Gabriel da Cachoeira estudam em escolas precárias, algumas vezes com turmas dividindo salas ou, em caso pior, sem sala alguma.

 http://www.globoamazonia.com/Amazonia/0,,MUL1319020-16052,00-NO+AMAZONAS+ESCOLA+TUYUKA+USA+METODOS+PROPRIOS+PARA+EDUCAR+CRIANCAS.html

Coolies: How Britain Reinvented Slavery

The 18th and 19th centuries were a time where Britain owned and operated colonies throughout the entire world. There was not any given moment in time where the sun did not shine on a portion of British soil from the beaches of the Bohemian sugar islands, to the horn of Africa, to the mountains of the Himalayas. These vast stretches of colonies of course were acquired through the destruction of indigenous people and built tall and glorious on the broken backs of slaves. However when in 1838 the British government outlawed the trade and use of slaves, labor was still needed to operate the many plantations throughout the Britain of the new and old world. So in an effort to preserve their financial interests the British ventured into the lands of Asia, especially India, in search of a new labor force. They lured the unsuspecting peoples of these lands to mass depots where one stamp of their finger to a contract was all that was needed. They were signing their lives over to the British empire. These new indentured laborers were sent to the very posts that the former "freed" slaves were once forced into, to be driven by the same cracker and watched by the same overseer. This secret slave trade of contracted laborers spanned far beyond that of the "freedom" date in 1838. In fact this secret slavery stretched well up until World War I in the early twentieth century. These modern slaves were eventually given French and British citizenship during the 1920's after nearly 100 years of unjust and toilsome labor.

1763 Berbice Slave Revolt Part 3

On the 4th July 1762, the Dutch slave-ship de Eenigheyt slipped over the bar at the entrance to the Berbice River, and taking the deeper eastern channel past Crab Island, dropped anchor in front of Post St. Andries. Among the two hundred and eighty-six slaves packed in her reeking hold was a young man named Atta, who was destined to become one of the great leaders of the 1763 Uprising. Chained near to him was his ship-brother Quabi, who was to follow him loyally to the end of his life. At this point, Atta had less than two years to live, but before he met his death, he and others would rock the Dutch plantation system in the Guianas to its very foundations. Before the Dutch would be able to reassert control over their colony, they would have been forced to mount the most massive military expedition against their former slaves ever seen in that part of the hemisphere. Never again until 1791 would any European nation come so close to losing an entire colony to its slaves.
Part II
The Background to the Uprising
Dutch regulations against revolt
Like the other West Indian colonies, the Dutch passed regulations to try and reduce the likelihood of revolt. The Company had a rule about black:white ratios, for example, which was never really enforced. According to the regulation, a plantation had to have one White for every 15 Blacks. The biggest transgressor of this rule, however, was the Company itself, whose average plantation ratio of 1:26 was well above that of the average private ratio of 1:12, although many private plantations broke the rule too. As it happened, those plantations which led the Uprising in 1763 did not have unusual ratios, while some of the plantations with very high black:white ratios took no part in it.
The Dutch had introduced Pass Laws into Berbice in order to restrict slave movement and make it difficult for slaves on different plantations to conspire together. As in other colonies, a slave was not allowed beyond the boundaries of his plantation without a written pass from his master. Two ordinances on the subject from 1735 and 1738 were completely ignored by everyone, and in 1739, the administration tried a different approach by ordering the chaining-up of corials at weekends. As with the earlier ones, it would appear that this ordinance too was totally disregarded by all and sundry.
In order to ensure that the seeds of revolt were not imported from outside, an ordinance was passed in 1762, prohibiting planters from bringing in slaves from another colony if those slaves had ever been before the courts there.
Ordinance of 1739
On closer reflection regarding the disorders which are caused daily by the frequent roaming of negro slaves on the river, especially on Saturday and Sunday nights, His Excellency the Governor and Councilors have thought fit … to order … both Colony planters and free inhabitants … to ensure that all the boats, namely the small canoes or corials which are on the plantations under their management, and which belong to the plantation or to the slaves are chained up early at the aforementioned period, to wit Saturday and Sunday evening in order thus to prevent the roaming around at night of the aforementioned slaves; and those who might not have a chain are earnestly instructed to obtain one within the period of one year on pain of a fine of 25 guilders …
Van Hoogenheim, 1764
Besides letting them [i.e] the slaves roam around at night is one of the greatest mistakes in the handling of slaves. It has always happened here and I complained about it frequently. Probably it is one of the chief causes of then entire revolution.
Conditions in Berbice unfavourable to revolt
Despite the laxity of the Dutch authorities and planters, the great Uprising of 1763 is, at first impression, a surprising event in terms of West Indian history. Some of the conditions normally associated with revolt simply did not exist in Berbice. The slave population was very mixed, and there was no large concentration of any one linguistic group who could have organized a rebellion. In fact, there was simply no large concentration of population anywhere in Berbice. A handful of plantations in the same parish could easily supply a body of 1,000 men in Jamaica, but in Berbice the manpower of nearly an entire division had to be mustered in order to achieve that total.
From the point of view of revolt, geographical conditions were not really in the slaves' favour either, owing to the ribbon-like lay-out of plantations. Organization and secrecy would have presented major problems in such circumstances. There was also the difficulty of the Amerindians. It would not have been easy to plot a large-scale uprising without the plantation Amerindians, at least, knowing about it. Some plantation Amerindians may well have been sympathetic to the slaves, but this was certainly not something that conspiring slaves could have relied upon. If a small revolt actually got underway, its chances of success were severely limited by the presence of the bush tribes, who normally assisted the Dutch in stamping out maroon communities.
From Head Division upwards, where the river is much narrower, it was also easy for plantations on the opposite side to come to the aid of a beleaguered planter. The river acted as a sounding board, amplifying noises on the other bank, so that unless rebels were very discreet, they attracted attention to themselves long before they had time to spread the revolt to other estates, or make good their escape into the bush.
Earlier revolts
Not surprisingly, therefore, revolts were not all that common in Berbice. Of the few that occurred before 1763, all were very small-scale. The first recorded revolt was in Canje in 1733 or 4, and involved a dozen Company slaves. These had been hired out to employees of the Vernesobre family who were laying out their new plantation of Monbijoux. The slaves were so brutally treated that they finally decided to kill their tormentors and run away. The Indians killed some of them, and brought in the rest from the bush.
In 1749 and 1752, there were two small revolts in Upper Division. These also involved small groups, both of which attempted to set up maroon camps in the bush. Owing to the noise they made, they soon attracted attention to themselves, and their efforts were easily frustrated.
In 1762, another similar incident occurred. On this occasion, however, the Dutch proved very incompetent in dealing with the situation, and the episode had some very far-reaching consequences. The slaves from two plantations in Upper Divison belonging to the same planter ran away and set up a maroon encampment beyond "Savonette. For one reason or another, it took the Dutch nearly two months to wipe out the settlement of only twenty-six people. For one thing, the Amerindians proved very unwilling for once to co-operate with the Dutch in attacking the camp. Van Hoogenheim was extremely angry and complained that "the cowardice of our Indians is indescribable, as they had the ability to overpower such a small number of vagabonds". The accusation of cowardice might have been more aptly applied to the Governor's own burgher-militia, as the Amerindians were very quick to point out. They said that they thought that the Whites had behaved in a cowardly fashion, and had not appeared to want to put themselves out, so they hardly saw why they (the Indians) should do so. They also complained that arrows and bows were of little use against rebels armed with muskets. This last point, at least, was taken to heart by the Dutch, who issued their Amerindian supporters with firearms in the Great Uprising of 1763.
http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/berbice.html

Forbes Burnham's Inaugural Speech 1964 Guyana

Historical Diary of the PNC/Reform

1942

Mr. Forbes Burnham at 19 won the British Guiana Scholarship; 

Entered University of London in 1945: LLB Degree in 1947 -Gray's Inn, 

London, England.

 

1947

Mr. Forbes Burnham is elected President of the West Indian Student 

Union (London). Mr. Burnham won the Best Speaker’s Cup (London).

 

1949

Mr. Forbes Burnham, Esq. return to British Guiana and is called to the 

Bar at the age of 25.

 

January 1, 1950

Mr. Forbes Burnham, Esq. co-founded the People’s Progressive Party and 

is elected Chairman, while Dr. Cheddi Jagan is appointed leader.

 

1952

Mr. Forbes Burnham, Esq., 29, is elected to the Georgetown City Council.

 

March 24, 1953

Mr. Forbes Burnham, Esq. 30, elected to the Legislative Council with 

an overwhelming majority - no other PPP Candidate came close to match 

his election success. In his victory speech after the election, 

Mr. Forbes Burnham, declared that “a new era had dawned for British 

Guiana and we shall walk the road together to peace, progress and 

porsperity beneath the banner of the People’s Progressive Party!”

 

May 30, 1953

The opening of the new Legislative Council for the 1953-57 Term and the 

inauguration of the Government. Mr. Forbes Burnham, Esq., 30, is 

elected by the Council as Minister of Education.

 

October 9, 1953

The British Government suspended the Constitution, Legislative Council 

and callout the troops to quell the disturbances by the PPP and the GIWU.

 

1955

Open public split between Marxist-Communist (Jaganites) and Moderate 

Guyanese (Burnhmites) factions in the PPP.   J.P. Lachmansingh, 

supported Hon. Mr. Forbes Burnham for the leadership of the PPP.  

Hon. Mr. Burnham argued that by proclaiming the adherence to Marxist 

Leninist, Dr. Jagan was building obstacles in the road for Guiana’s 

independence.

 

1957

General Elections are held, under the Revised constitution, returning the 

PPP to Government. Dr. Cheddi Jagan declared that the People’s 

Progressive Party and the Government will be led by the principles of 

Marxist Leninist (i.e. Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and Fidel Castro). 

Dr. Jagan declared that all private owned businesses and assets would 

be nationalized for the good of the party.

 

During the 1957 elections and onwards the PPP leadership promoted 

the slogan “ apan-jaat ”(vote for your race).

 

Hon. Mr. Forbes Burnham is elected Leader of the Opposition and 

President of the Guyana Bar Association.

 

1957

The Official Birth Date of the People’s National Congress.  

Hon. Mr. Forbes Burnham is elected Parliamentary Leader; 

J.P. Latchmansingh elected Chairman; Eusi Kwayana (Sidney King) 

elected First Vice Chairman; F.A. DeSilva elected as Second Vice 

Chairman; Jai Nrine Singh elected General Secretary with Jessie 

Burnham as Assistant General Secretary. PPP Burnhamite faction 

win seats in the House of Assembly.

 

1959-64

Hon. Mr. Forbes Burnham is elected Mayor of Georgetown

 

1961

The People’s National Congress is elected to the Legislative Council.

 

December 12, 1964

The People’s National Congress joined with the United Force Party to 

establish a coalition government. Hon. Mr. Forbes Burnham is elected 

Premier.

 

The People’s Progressive Party launches a terror campaign with the help 

of Marxist guerrillas from Cuba, Venezuela and the Soviet Union against 

the Guyanese people.

 

1965 - 1968

The People's Progressive Party suffered mass defections of members 

and leaders to the People’s National Congress

 

May 26, 1966

Guyana becomes independent. His Excellency, the Right Honourable 

Mr. Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, S.C., O.E,  the Leader of the 

People’s National Congress becomes the country’s 1st Prime Minister 

and Founding Father.

 

October 1966

Venezuelan Armed Forces occupied the Guyana’s portion of Ankoko 

Island at the confluence of the Cuyuni and Wenamu Rivers.

 

December 1967

Suriname Armed Forces tried to occupy the New River Triangle. 

The Party and Guyana Defense Force acted decisively and secured 

the entire area.

 

December 1968

The People’s National Congress is return to Office with a majority.

 

January of 1969

Ranchers in Rupununi Region rebel again the Guyanese Nation. 

The Guyana Police Force and Guyana Defense Force restore order 

after the Ranchers murder a number of local officials and police officers.

 

February 23, 1970

Guyana becomes a Co-operative Republic with the Honourable

Mr. Justice Arthur Chung (March 1970 to October 1980) elected by

the National Assembly as the First Guyanese Head of State.

 

February 23^rd is proclaimed Republic Day to coincide with the

anniversary of the Berbice Slave Revolt of 1763. The Berbice Revolt was

led by Cuffy, who was also proclaimed National Hero of the Co-operative

Republic.

 

July 10, 1973

The People’s National Congress is return to Government with a two-thirds

majority.

 

1975

The PPP ended its boycott of parliament and arm resistance against the

Guyanese people.  Instead the People's Progressive Party offered critical

support to the PNC led administration.

 

Ranji Chandisingh and Vincent Teekah, senior members of the PPP’s

Central and Executive Committee joins the PNC.  Ranji Chandisingh is

appointed the General Secretary of the PNC and Deputy Prime Minister,

while Vincent Teekah became Minister of Education.

 

July 1978

National referendum on Constitutional Reforms is overwhelming approved

by the Guyanese electorate. 

 

1979

The National Assembly by a two-third majority approved reforms to

the Constitution.

  

October 1979

Minister of Education Vincent Teekah and former raising star of the

PPP was allegedly murdered.

 

December 15, 1980

Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, S.C., O.E. is elected Guyana’s First

Executive President.

 

June 8, 1985

President Forbes Burnham, S.C., O.E. dies in office.

 

July 8, 1985

Prime Minister Hugh Desmond Hoyte, S.C. succeeds President Forbes

Burnham, S.C., O.E., as Leader of the Party and second Executive

President of Guyana.

 

December 1985

The PNC returns to Government under the leadership of His Excellency,

the Right Honourable Mr. Hugh Desmond Hoyte, S.C. who becomes

the Second PNC member to hold the reins of the Presidency of Guyana

  

November 11, 1988

President Desmond Hoyte, S.C., launch the Government's Economic

Recovery Program (ERP).

 

October 5, 1992

The Party narrowly loses a General Election for the first time and goes

into Opposition.  Former President Hoyte, S.C., becomes Leader of the

Opposition.

 

July 1994

Former President Desmond Hoyte, re-elected Leader of the People’s

National Congress.

 

August 1997

President Hugh Desmond Hoyte, S.C., is elected the party’s Presidential

Candidate by the party’s Biennial Congress.

 

December 15, 1997

The People’s Progressive Party Regime rigged the elections and gave

itself over 55 percent of the votes. Guyanese in massive peaceful protest

took to the street against the regged elections by the PPP.

 

January 17, 1998

The PPP signed the Herdmanston Accord and the St. Lucia Agreement,

which called for an audit of the elections and political reforms. 

Mr. Judge Cross, head of the CARICOM Audit team, found no fraudulent

ballot boxes, but declared that the Audit Team cannot declared the PPP

the winners of the 1997 Elections.  The Elections Court Case brought

by an elector against the Elections Commission and the PPP have

uncovered massive election fraud.

 

January 1999

Constitution Reform Commission swears in and submits a draft Constitution

to the National Assembly on July 17, 1999.

 

March 1999

Former President Desmond Hoyte, S.C., Leader of the People’s National

Congress and Maurice King, QC, Caricom Facilitator met with Janet Jagan,

PPP executive member to discussed pace of constitutional and political

reform.

  

July 1999

The Constitution Reform Commission submit a draft Constitution to the

Special Select Committee of the National Assembly.

  

April 19, 2000

PNC leader, Desmond Hoyte, S.C. is elected Leader of the Opposition

 

August 25-27, 2000

Former President Desmond Hoyte, re-elected Leader of the People’s

National Congress Reform.

August 16th - 18th, 2002

Former President Desmond Hoyte, re-elected Leader of the People’s

National Congress Reform.

December 22, 2002

His Excellency, Honourable Mr. Hugh Desmond Hoyte, S.C. M.P., dies.

December 2002

Due to the sudden death of Mr. Hugh Desmond Hoyte, SC, MP, Leader of the PNCR 

and Leader of the Opposition on 22 December 2002 and in accordance with the provisions of the Party’s constitution, Attorney-at-law, Mr. Robert Herman Orlando Corbin, MP, hasassumed the functions of Leader.

http://www.guyanapnc.org/InfoCentre/PNCHistory/history.html