SUMMARY

Guyana is a former British colony, independent since 1966, that has experienced very limited organized violence throughout its post-independence history. The country's political landscape has been shaped primarily by ethnic divisions between its two largest communities, Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese, rather than by ideology.

Since 1989, Guyana has experienced the one-sided category of organized violence, as defined by UCDP.

Recorded violence

Guyana's politics had been based primarily on ethnicity rather than ideology since independence. The PNC (People's National Congress), mainly supported by Afro-Guyanese, and the PPP (People's Progressive Party), mainly backed by Indo-Guyanese, dominated the country's political landscape. From 1964 to 1985, the country was ruled by the PNC government, which systematically marginalized the Indo-Guyanese community. The first elections considered free and fair were held in 1992, when the PPP’s presidential candidate was elected. However, underlying ethnic tensions were not addressed nor solved, thus the period from 1998 to 2008 was marked by episodes of ethnic violence triggered by contested elections, as well as by extrajudicial killings attributed to security forces.

The only instance of organized violence recorded by UCDP in Guyana occurred in 2008, when the Buxton gang carried out a series of attacks against civilians. On 26 January 2008, gang members attacked the village of Lusignan in East Coast Demerara, killing eleven people, among them five children. On 17 February 2008, the gang carried out a second massacre in the town of Bartica in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni region, killing twelve people including three police officers.

Pre-1989

The pre-independence and early post-independence periods were marked by significant political violence. In 1962 and 1964, ethnically charged riots between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese communities resulted in dozens of deaths and widespread destruction in Georgetown, fueled in part by external interference from the United States and the United Kingdom, who sought to prevent the PPP government from taking power. These vents deepened the ethnic divisions that would continue to shape Guyanese politics for decades.