He became increasingly embittered, challenging the election results on both occasions, and demanding constitutional changes that would guarantee the Afro-Guyanese (black) population a fair share of economic and political power. Many attempts to draw up a blueprint for such changes have been made in recent years, but “shared governance” remains an unattainable ideal. Ironically, PNC accusations that the majority party has used the state apparatus to monopolise power for the Indo-Guyanese community stem from the strong executive presidency created by Burnham for his and the PNC’s benefit.After the victory of the PPP’s Bharrat Jagdeo in 2001, Hoyte reluctantly agreed to take part in a face-to-face dialogue with the new president, in an attempt to thrash out some sort of power-sharing accommodation. But, after initial progress, Hoyte broke off the talks in April this year, complaining that President Jagdeo had failed to implement the agreements that had already been reached.He showed signs of growing intransigence in the last months of his life, refusing to sign a joint communiqu?ith the PPP on how to fight a rising wave of violent crime. In October, he delivered a particularly fiery speech in the PNC stronghold of Buxton, in East Coast Demerara, in which he called on the local people to resist the “oppressive” police and army, whom he described as the shock troops of the dominant Indo-Guyanese.Hoyte’s health had deteriorated in recent years – he had quadruple heart bypass surgery in New York in 1993, a few months after his first electoral defeat – and he had given to understand that he did not intend to remain leader of the PNC beyond his 74th birthday, in March 2003.

But he allowed himself to be nominated for another term as PNC leader in August this year, and was returned almost unopposed A question mark now hangs over the leadership of the PNC. Chairman Robert Corbin, a much more hard-line figure than Hoyte, takes over as interim leader, but he has to call fresh internal elections within 60 days. Corbin will be one of the main contenders.Desmond Hoyte was born in Georgetown in 1929. He studied law at London University, and was called to the Bar He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1969. At about the same time he was invited by his old friend and mentor Forbes Burnham to act as an adviser to the PNC and the trade unions linked to it, and he remained involved in active politics until his death.A cultivated and austere figure, whose name was never associated with any hint of scandal, Hoyte had many interests outside politics, including music (he was an accomplished pianist) and cricket. He also took an abiding interest in environmental issues, and was instrumental in creating the great Iwokrama rainforest project in the interior of Guyana He is survived by his wife, Joyce. Their two daughters, Amanda and Maxine, were killed in a car crash in 1985.Colin Harding.

John Graham Mellor (Joe Strummer), singer and songwriter: born Ankara 21 August 1952; married 1975 Pamela Moolman (marriage dissolved), (two daughters with Gaby Parker), 1995 Lucinda Tait (one stepdaughter); died Broomfield, Somerset 22 December 2002. The job of being Joe Strummer, spokesman for the punk generation and front man for the Clash, never sat easily with the former John Mellor. Always prepared to give of himself to his fans, he still felt a weight of responsibility on his shoulders that often made him crave anonymity, as much as the natural performer within him needed the spotlight. After a show the dressing-room or backstage bar still would be crammed with fans and friends as Joe held forth on the issues of the day, in his preferred role of pub philosopher and articulate rabble-rouser for the dispossessed. (Even here was the endless paradox of Joe Strummer: he could argue the case for Yorkshire pitworkers or homeless Latinos in Los Angeles, but, if obliged to reveal himself through any interior observation, he would generally freeze.

Even other members of the Clash would complain about his hopelessness at soul-baring.)Yet when he played a show at the 100 Club in London two years ago, he was so exhausted afterwards that he had to lie down on the floor of the dressing-room: his Mescaleros’ set included a good percentage of Clash songs, and you worried that the frenetic speed at which they were performed would test the health of a man approaching his 50th birthday. In an irony that Joe Strummer no doubt would have appreciated, his death the day before yesterday came not from the stock rock’n'roll killers of drugs, drink, or road accidents, but after taking his dog for a walk at his home in Somerset: sitting down on a chair in his kitchen, he suffered a fatal heart attack.Neither of his parents had lived to a ripe old age. Joe Strummer, who earned his sobriquet from his crunchy rhythm-guitar style, was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1952 to a career diplomat. Christened John Graham Mellor, he was sent at the age of 10 to a minor public school, the City of London Freemen’s School at Ashtead Park in Surrey. He had already lived in Cairo, Mexico City (“I remember the 1956 earthquake vividly; running to hide behind a brick wall, which was the worst thing to do,” he once told me) and Bonn.