Before Alberto Fujimori, an Asian by descent, was elected as the Peruan President in 1990. The honor of first Asian by descent to become the head of state in South America goes to Arthur Raymond Chung, a Chinese Hakka, who dies at the age of 92.
Chung was the first president of the Republic of Guyana, formerly British Guinea. He was made the ceremonial head in 1970 after the socialist government of this South American republic ceased it ties with Britain.
Chung was a barrister (Middle Temple) by training and had a distinguished record as a high court judge before he was recruited by Prime Minister Forbes Burnham to serve as the president from 1970 to 1980.
After retiring in 1980, Chung split his time between England and Guyana and largely kept out of the public eye.
This is an remarkable achievement by a Chinese in Guyana. According to Wikipedia, there is only 0.19% of over 700000 population is of Chinese descent. This blog always promote the cause of meritocracy and we are hearterned to see an ethnic minority is judged by his peers on his merit and creed and not by his color and religion.
We pay tribute to this illustrious Hakka, Arthur Raymond Chung.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Dear KY,
I enjoyed your sharing of the story of Sir Arthur Raymong Chung. There is one more person not to be forgotten Sir Julius Chan, who became Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea in 1980. It may be a matter of debate whether PNG is in Asia, but that is another example of Chinese diaspora. Its probably just by coincidence that the names of the 2 countries - Papua New Guinea and Guyana - are quite similar!
KH
Post a Comment