Guyanese President Cheddi Jagan cremated

On a funeral pyre of coconut shells and logs, Guyanese President Cheddi Jagan was cremated before tens of thousands of mourners near the seashore in his native port Mourant.

Jagan's family had postponed the ceremony from Tuesday to Wednesday to allow thousands of people who caused traffic jams to pay their last respects to the independence leader.

Jagan died last week at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington, nearly three weeks after suffering a heart attack. He was 78.

He helped lead Guyana to independence from British colonial rule in 1966. He was elected president in the country's first democratic elections in 1992.

"I have lost a man who was my leader for all of my 57 years," said sugar plantation worker Komal Punha. "But I guess we have to move on. Today is a sad day."

Ignoring rain showers, Jagan's American-born wife, Janet, and other family members stood silently near the funeral pyre as Jagan's son, Cheddi, daughter Nadira, and Hindu priests set ablaze the body, wrapped in a white sheet.

Government officials monitoring the three-km path from the main road estimated that about 80,000 people attended the cremation in this sugar-producing district 160 km east of Georgetown, the capital.

Family members and members of Jagan's governing People's Progressive Party said more than 200,000 people had filed past Jagan's cedar casket as it lay in state in nearby Berbice from Monday evening through Wednesday morning.

Among those who paid tribute this week were Cuban Vice President Jose Ramon Fernandez and John Hamilton, deputy US Assistant Secretary of State for Central America and the Caribbean.

Like other foreign dignitaries, they attended a funeral service in Georgetown on Monday but were unable to extend their stay when the cremation was postponed.