ExxonMobil should be ashamed to post such forced servility upon the youths of this nation

Sep 08, 2018 Letters

Dear Editor,
I am wondering if I am the only person who was shocked to hear a young Guyanese squash player, Ms. Rebecca Low, (Captain 2018 Junior Girls Team), express the following sentiment on an ExxonMobil Public Relations video, “I think without companies like Exxon, none of the opportunities that we do have could be possible.”
ExxonMobil should be ashamed to post such forced servility upon the young people of this nation. Ms Low is a child and she may not know that Guyanese have been playing squash locally, regionally and internationally, since Noah was a boy, as we say in Guyanese parlance.
Most Guyanese would say, without God, none of the opportunities that we have are possible. Now, things seem to be getting confused. Now, we are selling the soul of our country and the sapping the dignity of our young people for pitiful cash handouts.
Something is seriously wrong with the way ExxonMobil is operating in Guyana. For one thing, their PR programme is grossly offensive in its fakeness. One thing we know in Guyana, after enduring hundreds of years of slavery, indentureship and colonialism, is that all skin teeth nah laugh. Anyone endowed with even an ounce of wisdom cannot endure a minute of their offensiveness. I ask again, why is ExxonMobil operating as if it has to buy everybody? And is everyone for sale? Do we as a country have so little self-respect? Somebody has to stop ExxonMobil’s insanity. They have become like corrupt politicians – they are pushing themselves everywhere.
We don’t need so much of ExxonMobil in our faces. ExxonMobil is just another investor welcomed by Guyanese. If ExxonMobil can give US$10M to Conservation International to help support the Government’s Green State Development Strategy, how much more can they pay in Royalties to the Government of Guyana? If that US$10M, for example, was paid to the Government of Guyana, then the Government and People of Guyana have rights over how it is spent. ExxonMobil, however, is giving handouts because it wants to control who is recruited, they want to control policy and they are basically interfering in the governance of the nation and denying us our right to self-determination.
Just as we do not need Government interfering in private enterprise, we likewise do not need private enterprises interfering in Governance and Elections.
The People of this Nation need to stop selling their souls and our national pride to ExxonMobil and demand instead that a better deal is negotiated with the Government of Guyana. Every Guyanese individual and organisation has the power to defend our hard-earned sovereignty and stand up to this company and refuse their pitiful handouts and their underhand deals.
Let them deal with the Government of Guyana and let the Government of Guyana do its job of negotiating properly and then govern the nation with its earnings from the Oil and Gas industry.
No international company must come into this country and insult and defile our young people and expect silence.
We are a poor nation, but we value our self-respect and our youth. It is time to stop the stupidness.
Sincerely,
Sandra Khan

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