All week long, raging mobs of Negroes surged through British Guiana's Georgetown capital, looting stores, mercilessly beating any East Indian in their path. What started as a peaceful strike by British Guiana's Negro-dominated unions against Marxist Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan's highhanded government became a bloody fight with ugly racial overtones. It pitted the East Indians (49% of the population), who loyally follow their countryman Jagan, against the Negroes (45% ), who regard him as a dangerous Communist.
Jagan's reaction to the conflict served only to inflame it. When a crowd pelted his...
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