Arthur Chung
On this day in caribbean history, June 23, 2008, the first President of Guyana, Arthur Chung , died. Chung was born at Windsor Forest, West Coast Demerara in Guyana and was the first ethnic Chinese head of state in a non-Asian country. During his time as President of Guyana, the office was that of a ceremonial head of state, with real power in the hands of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
Arthur Chung was awarded Guyana’s highest national award, the Order of Excellence. The was the youngest of Joseph and Lucy Chung’s eight children, he was educated at Windsor Forest, Blankenburg and Modern High School. In 1954, Chung married another Windsor Forest native, Doreen Pamela Ng-See-Quan, they had one daughter and one son.
Chung began as an apprentice surveyor and land surveyor. In the early 1940s, Chung entered the Middle Temple of London, England and qualified as a barrister in 1947. He returned to Guyana and was later appointed an acting magistrate in 1954 and a senior magistrate in 1960. Chung also served as Registrar of Deeds and of the Supreme Court. He then became a puisne judge and finally an Appeal Court Judge in 1963.
When Guyana became a republic under the leadership of Forbes Burnham in 1970, the National Assembly elected Chung as the country’s first President taking office on March 17, 1970. Ten years later, a constitutional revision transformed the presidency into an executive position, and Burnham succeeded Chung as President on October 6, 1980. Thirty years later, Chung died at his home in Georgetown, Guyana. In the months prior to his death he had been hospitalized numerous times, and he was last released from the hospital three days prior to his death.
