Bring on the Tommies

The first time Cheddi Jagan, 43, the East Indian dentist-turned-politician, won the prime ministership of British Guiana in 1953, his aggressive Marxism and strident anti-imperialism so outraged Her Majesty's government that 1,600 British troops landed in Georgetown to throw him out of office. Now, still breathing defiance of imperialism, Jagan is Prime Minister again, and last week had to call on British tommies for help--to save him from mobs roaming the streets calling for Cheddi Jagan's hide.

British Guiana is divided by a long-festering racial struggle between the 294,000 rural East Indians, who gave Jagan his majority, and the 187,000 Negroes, who live in the towns and see Jagan as just another coolie. What set off the up roar was a Jagan budget that he claimed would ''soak the rich'' but seemed more likely to soak everybody, with increased tariffs on consumer goods and a compulsory savings plan. Even a state visit by Prince Philip did not quench the anger among Negro merchants and workers.

After Philip left, the protests flared into a general strike. When panicky police met some 10,000 demonstrators with tear gas and bullets, Georgetown blacks set fire to Indian-owned shops. Finally 150 troops of the Royal Hampshire Regiment drove off the rioters at bayonet point. But the fires destroyed almost 20% of the city.

Predictably, Jagan blamed it all on a "rightist plot," but union leaders as well as businessmen were behind the strike.

At week's end, an uneasy peace was imposed. At least six were dead, scores injured. The fire loss was reckoned in the millions. The loss to Jagan may prove irreparable. Neither he nor his racially torn country seems ready for the independence Jagan so insistently demands.

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