GUYANA - Janet Jagan among world's 16 most rebellious women

Former Guyana president, the late Janet Jagan has been named among the 16 most rebellious women in the world.

The influential American publication, Time Magazine, said in a special publication that the Chicago-born Jagan followed her future husband, the late Dr Cheddi Jagan, to Guyana "with Lenin's writings in hand, to his homeland in 1943".

"Setting up shop as a dental assistant, she set out on a path that would lead to her becoming Guyana's first female president," the magazine said.

Time said that in the late 1940s, the Jagans inspired strikes by domestic workers in what was then referred to as British Guiana.

It said the movement attracted the ire of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who put the Jagans in jail.

Political survivor

"But Janet Jagan proved to be a political survivor, remaining in the game despite various attempts to purge her from leadership posts," the magazine said.

"An impolitic PR (public relations) campaign singing the praises of the Cuban revolution in the 1960s attracted the attention of John F. Kennedy (late United States president), who, in turn, targeted Guyana's labour unions," it added.

"Relegated to the sidelines after a leftist government flopped in the 1960s, Jagan took to the pages of the Mirror newspaper, becoming its editor. By the time she was elected president in 1997, the country had achieved the independence from Britain that she had sought, and had nationalised much of its economy," Time said.

The magazine wrote that on May 3, 1963, Mrs Jagan was "the most controversial woman in South American politics since Evita Perón", the second wife of the late Argentinian President Juan Perón.

"Not only is she a white woman in a volatile land of East Indians and Negroes; she is also a strident Marxist and believed by many to be the brains and backbone behind her husband's Castro-lining government," Time said. "Violent enemies call her 'the devil'."

It said Mrs Jagan was a "firebrand Young Communist Leaguer in Chicago long before" her husband came on the scene to study dentistry.

Angry speeches

"She hit it off with the ever-smiling East Indian, and when they returned as a married couple to British Guiana, Cheddi was making angry speeches condemning foreign 'oppressors' and spouting the Marxist line.

"Wherever Cheddi went, Janet went too, making her own fiery speeches. She campaigned even when she was pregnant and ignored the rotten eggs thrown at her," Time Magazine added.

Mrs Jagan, who died on March 28, 2009, at 88, served as Guyana's president from December 1997 to August 1999.

She had previously served as prime minister from March 17, 1997 to December 19, 1997.

Also named in the magazine's top 16 rebellious women are Tawakul Karman (Yemen); Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma); Corazon Aquino (the Philippines); Phoolan Devi (India); Golda Meir (Israel); Angela Davis, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman (US); Vilma Lucila Espín (Cuba); Jiang Qing (China); Nadezhda Krupskaya (Russia); Emmeline Pankhurst, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Boudica (Britain); and Joan of Arc (France).

- CMC