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Government’s bag of Christmas goodies

Dec 11, 2019 Editorial

Is it an early Christmas gift, a New Year’s resolution from near mid-December, or simply more politics in the making and on the move? Whatever it is, the government has saved its best for this last month of the year, with more promised, since it appears to be building a full head of steam and going for broke.
The Hon. Minister of Natural Resources appeared first, to deliver lessons in geography, raw border realities, geopolitics, and capitalist economics all rolled into one smooth package that was so well-timed that it went over the heads of most citizens.
It was playing to the crowd, which is part local, and more of the foreign community of keenly listening, vigilantly watching, and diplomatically weighing.
For what the Hon Minister articulated was tantamount to: we needed you (to stand by us), we have tied bundle with you (at our expense), and now we depend on you (in being as one and inseparable from you). In the event that the ‘you’ is too mysterious for some souls; the translation should not be mistaken: the you represents the Americans.
For when there was a need for a ‘big brother’ there was the savvy political sense to team up with the one that rules the roost. The Americans have to have heard that public announcement – a national confession, really – and nodded their heads in approval, as they too could use any allies that they can get today, since that once teeming crowd has thinned considerably.
Clearly, a heavyweight trump card has been played, and one which is sure to find favour when the cables are read, and the conversations are had. It would not be in the high elevations of Washington, D.C. only, since there are other eyes and ears peering and listening for any indications of the lay of the land. The government has now openly admitted, and it puts others on the defensive, since the alternatives are not so robust or so soothing for the comforts they offer.
The government bided its time and waited its turn and, in essence, defanged more than a few contemporaries, some unfriendly. For which one in the midst is going to take a stand now and raise hand and voice now against the American Eagle?
Because, at the end of the day, this is about ExxonMobil and then some more with, truth be told, that same American corporate standard-bearer and petroleum adventurer being only the visible, audible, and palpable representation of the forces in action in Guyana, the real global forces stirring and flexing and overshadowing.
For those who continue to be skeptical or may be a tad short in the memory department, the pages of regional history are turned back, and there is pausing in Chile and Guatemala from way back, and from today, the entity on our own radar named Venezuela.
Things are a little more nuanced nowadays, in view of Frank Church and the Boland Amendment and their descendants and accompaniments, which have made things infinitely trickier. But, as history does testify, there was an Allende and Anaconda Corp. (Pepsi Cola, too) and Arbenz and United Fruit, and the record shows that the Americans won: through perpetuation of ideology and corporate continuity.
Yes, the times may have changed, but it is that same song and dance (more subtly choreographed now) that is unfolding right here in Guyana, with the message coming across loud and clear from the government, through its minister: if the Americans are for us, who dare to be against us?
But there was another December political handout from the government, though not of cash, it does involve cash. On this occasion, the Hon. Minister of Finance shared with the nation that the cash from the oil is going to be held under lock and key in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The Americans win again, and this government comes out ahead (again) with this latest holiday surprise: give the people what they ask for and give them in a capitalist strongbox deep in its stronghold. Who can argue with any of this?
The question that comes is: what else does this government have up its sleeve, since it appears to be now starting?

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