March 28: The Founding Mother of Guyana

Janet Jagan (Rosenberg), who served as President of Guyana from December 19, 1997, to August 11, 1999 — making her the first elected female head of state in South America — died in Georgetown, the capital of her country, on this date in 2009. Born in Chicago to radical Jewish parents, Jagan became the wife and political partner of Cheddi Jagan, whom she met in the U.S. in 1943. The Jagans founded the leftwing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) of Guyana while running a dental clinic. She became active in the British colony’s first labor union and helped to organize domestic servants and sugar workers in the face of bloody police attacks. In 1954, the Britain suspended Guyana’s constitution and ousted the newly elected, radical government headed by Cheddi. The Jagans were imprisoned for six months, despite Janet’s having just birthed their second child. The 1957 elections again established Cheddi as chief minister,and Janet became a widely admired minister of labor, health and housing. “Among her accomplishments were establishing health centers, maternity and child welfare clinics and improving wage and work conditions,” according to the PBS show, Independent Lens. Four years later, President John F. Kennedy ordered the CIA to destabilize the Jagan government, which it did through a campaign of lies and sabotage leading to race riots between Afro- and Indo-Guyanese, and the deaths of thousands. Forbes Burnham, a former Jagan ally who then came to power, established Guyana as a “cooperative republic” and police state for more than two decades, during which time nearly half the country’s population fled. Burnham died in office in 1985. In 1992, Cheddi was elected president, and Janet won the post after her husband’s death. Her writings included five children’s books. In 1997, she was awarded the Gandhi Gold Medal for Peace, Democracy and Women’s Rights by UNECSO. “In the ’60s I could not be seen for years. I couldn’t be seen or they would start attacking, burning, killing. I had to just lie low for a long time.” —Janet Jagan