The missing link in the EXXON debate

Feb 16, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Essentially, the critics of EXXON’s investment are saying that the deal is disadvantageous to Guyana. There are many ways of putting it with perhaps the most common ones being that EXXON is unfair, EXXON is getting more than Guyana, EXXON is exploiting Guyana. And the list goes on.
Since I was small and took an interest in politics, I had a very cynical view of power in Guyana. Why should I be obsessed with a foreign company being unfair to Guyana when my own Guyanese companies, my own Guyanese leaders are unfair to Guyanese themselves?
If today, a Canadian citizen is arrested, an American citizen is put in the Brickdam lock ups, a UK citizen is at the police station, a consular officer is going to make an inquiry there and then. You think you can get a Guyanese consular officer to leave his/her office/ home if a Guyanese citizen is wrongfully arrested in Port-of Spain or Miami?
You really think we have such a nationalistic attitude to human rights violations of Guyanese citizens in foreign country? You really think the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is coming to your rescue soon if you land at immigration in Port-of-Spain? They put you on a bench with your six-month-old baby, leave you to tremble in the midnight wind, destroy your baby milk bottle and put you on the next fight home!
What is missing in all the accusations about what EXXON is getting, is how EXXON perceives a country named Guyana. Should you not ask yourself that when they discovered that there may be oil in a country named Guyana, they didn’t think we were a shithole/shithouse nation that they can manipulate?
Do you know how many prominent persons in Guyana with wealth and status fawn over foreign diplomats in this country, diplomats that when they return home, no one takes notice of them on the subway? If you behave like a sycophant, you will be treated with condescending contempt.
Let me be personal just for a few lines. I did a research paper on President Jagdeo’s use of racial discrimination as a matter of policy. It became my defence in Jagdeo’s libel writ against me. When extracts of the research were published in the press, I got a call from the secretary of the CEO of one of Guyana’s most prominent insurance companies. She said her boss would like to have a copy of the paper. This man was impertinent to ask for my research through his secretary rather than engage me in a conversation. I cannot print my reply to his secretary.
Guyanese need to understand how global companies operate when they identify an internationally unknown country to invest in. They go to the academics and ask them for a study on the nature of the land. The study will take in such factors as the political climate, cultural values, rules of law, the judicial system, human rights environment, scholarly society, trade union landscape, media environment, heath structure, and modern life in general.
You would be idiotic if you think EXXON did not finance such a project. This is standard practice among global companies.
We may never see that paper. EXXON bosses have read it, and maybe it has been shredded at head office and lost forever to researchers. When the bosses of these huge global corporations read such stuff, it guides them in their negotiations with the local government.
One quick powerful example; if the study shows that homophobia is ubiquitous and homosexuality is illegal, then the company will still invest if there is a huge profit to be had but they will be extremely cautious with their LGBT preferences.
Guyanese even if they had access to that EXXON research, will probably not want to see it. It is probably one of the most unflattering portraits they will ever read about their country. Why do Guyanese think that such a document had no bearing when the negotiations began? Why do Guyanese think that EXXON did not drive a hard bargain because they know that they were dealing with a banana republic where institutions exist merely in form and the substance is weak and leaders behave like little oligarchs who can easily be misled?
Oil companies are trillion dollar entities that have extensive involvement with disoriented Third World populations and un-modern, corrupt leaders. It is no accident that the richest woman in Africa (perhaps the world) is the daughter of one of the longest-serving African leaders (he retired a few months ago after 38 years in power) and the country is a major oil exporter – Angola

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