The planned fishing licences giveaway is a further assault on our sovereignty

Nov 09, 2013 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
Only Guyana’s dim-witted regime, less than one month after an oil exploration vessel was seized in hostile fashion in its waters by a neighbouring power (Venezuela) with huge territorial ambitions on its territory, would consider giving fishing licences to 40 Chinese trawlers to fish in its territorial waters.
Only clueless administrators would make this offer to a country, China, that is very close to Venezuela, is deepening its ties with Venezuela out of oil security and is on a serious mission to expand its maritime presence and power geographically.
Only beggars and bandits would prostitute their nation in this fashion, seeking to reduce the number of Guyanese-owned trawlers to 100 licences while giving 40 new licences to a foreign power to trawl in waters these same failed leaders cannot even patrol and monitor.
Who but a bunch of ‘sailors’ would not only miss these clear signs and dangers but would so enthusiastically deflate their own fishing industry to bend over and spreadeagle for crumbs so they can expand their Pradoville palaces in the mudflats. Only miscreants and new colonialists will think in this fashion, destroying their own to fatten outsiders.
The Chinese have mega-trawlers with on-board factories that will catch, process and package humungous amounts of fish without ever coming to shore. A handful of Chinese mega-trawlers will catch the same amount of fish the entire Guyanese fishing industry catches.
Plus, these Chinese super-trawlers can go further than any local trawlers dare to go. With the Guyanese government’s zero capability to monitor these mega-trawlers, we will also have local trawlers illegally selling to these factory ships and coming ashore with little to nothing, thus driving up fish and seafood prices for locals already burdened by rising prices in this inflationary economy. And it will be Chinese-only labour aboard these super-trawlers.
Is the PPP so catastrophically stupid to think the Chinese will only catch certain species and will throw back other species?
Now, the Pradoville profiteers have given the same Chinese a licence to study which fish species can be extracted without depleting our fish stocks. This is the level of tomfoolery we are dealing with here!
Let’s not forget that the Chinese are one of the biggest culprits in illegal fishing, particularly in deep waters of nations like Guyana, unable to monitor and patrol their own waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Armed with this knowledge, one has to assume that the Chinese along with other illegal fishing powers are already making a killing in our waters.
With this knowledge, the question is this: could the challenged minds of the PPP be providing, by way of these 40 licences, legal cover to an already booming Chinese illegal fishing industry in Guyana territorial waters? After all, if the Chinese are fishing illegally in our waters, wouldn’t 40 licences to operate in waters we cannot patrol make it virtually impossible to determine which Chinese vessel is legally fishing and which isn’t? For all you know, 150 Chinese trawlers could operate with impunity in our exclusive economic zone, of which 40 of them will have licences, and those ‘sailing’ in Freedom House will not have a clue.
Have they considered that the Chinese could strategically place their 40 licenced trawlers closer to shore where our patrol limit reaches and where our local trawlers have their utmost range? This will devastate our local fishing industry, as their small local trawlers plying the same waters would be dominated by the larger, faster and more advanced and effective Chinese trawlers, while other Chinese trawlers illegally fish in the deeper reaches of our territorial sea where we cannot patrol.
Not only does this scenario destroy our local fishing industry which cannot compete with advanced Chinese mega trawlers, it runs the risk of severely depleting our fishing stocks at the same time. So, we end up with a collapsed fishing industry and a severely depleted fishing stock.
Only in the watery Stalinist minds of the PPP leaders, led by Jagdeo and Ramotar, would this be a wonderful securement of our sovereignty. A nation with significant claims on its territorial waters from two neighbours (Venezuela and Suriname) cannot afford this senseless act from the rogues within the PPP, devoid of any inkling of patriotism and logic.
Instead of encouraging local trawlers to expand, and to more forcefully commercialise our territorial waters by giving them 40 more licences, the PPP misfits want the Chinese to become the commercial presence in Guyana’s outer territorial waters and EEZ. Will these people ever do the right thing for this nation? How much is the PPP getting for these 40 licences?
No nation faced with brazen claims on its territory should surrender control or allow economic exploitation in such reckless and destructive fashion.
I commend the Chinese for doing what is right for their people. God bless them and their government for advancing the interests of their people. They are right to exploit those who will stoop for crumbs.
It is up to the people of Guyana to deal with those among us who are operating blindly, not the Chinese government acting in its people’s interests.
M. Maxwell

 

 

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