El conflicto de Guyana - Alcan y la nacionalización de Demba

Authors

  • Norman Girvan

Abstract

Guyana's Prime Minister Forbes Burnham announced his government's decision to nationalize the Demerara Bauxite Company (DEMBA), the leading foreign exchange and tax revenue generating company in Guyana, owned by Alcan Aluminum Limited. This decision implied a fundamental change in the organization of the Guyana economy and constituted the first concrete deviation, on the part of a Caribbean Commonwealth government, from the policy of accommodation to external capital. This is a preliminary analysis of the economic policy that determined the relations between ALCAN and Guyana from the beginning of the same, more than fifty years ago. This paper attempts to expose the logic of the events that led to the nationalization of DEMBA, in the context of the structural relationship between the economic needs of a multinational company and the economic policy of a Caribbean country.

Keywords:

Guyana, Nationalization, Alcan Inc, Economic Policy, Caribbean

Author Biography

Norman Girvan

Es profesor de economía en la Universidad de West Indies en Jamaica y miembro académico del Instituto de Estudios Internacionales de la Universidad de Chile, donde fue investigador visitante desde octubre de 1969 a enero de 1970. Es autor de "Foreign capital and economic underdevelopment in Jamaica" (1972); "The Caribbean bauxite industry "(1967) y "Copper in Chile : a study in conflict between corporate and national economy" (en preparación, 1972). Todos estos libros han sido publicados por el Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of West Indies, Jamaica. En los años 1970 y 1971 fue asesor de bauxita del gobierno de Guyana y miembro del equipo de gobierno que negoció con Alcan Aluminium Ltd., para conseguir una mayor participación en su subsidiaria de bauxita en Guyana.