The Granger administration may be facing both sanctions and military intervention

May 13, 2020 Letters

Dear Editor,

It has now been over 71 days since general elections took place in Guyana and, despite the preliminary results pointing to the PPP/C opposition winning the elections, GECOM, the body responsible for overseeing the elections, have not yet declared the results. The declaration of fraudulent results of Region Four by the Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, as witnessed firsthand by Election Observers, including the Ambassadors of the US, UK, EU, CARICOM, The Carter Centre, the OAS and others, have led to a series of court battles and precipitated in an agreement between the de facto President Granger and Leader of the Opposition to agreeing a re-count of all ballots.

The Chinese and Russian Ambassadors have sat quietly and not utter a word of condemnation of the results for Region four, neither have their governments in Peking or Moscow. Is there a quiet connivance between the Russian and Chinese governments wanting to ensure the fraudulent PNC /APNU/AFC administration returned to power by whatever means?

According to the state-owned Guyana Chronicle newspaper the Chinese state and other Chinese companies are making heavy in-roads into Guyana in areas of telecommunications, military assistance and in other fields (The Chronicle 25th Sept 2018, and 22nd August 2019). CNOOC, China’s state-owned oil company owns a 25 per cent stake in Guyana’s oil at the Stabroek.

Are we witnessing the formation of an axis of dictatorship between Guyana and Venezuela now developing in the northern part of South America and where Venezuela sits on the world’s largest oil reserves?

The American ambassador, Sarah-Ann Lynch made a written diplomatic request for Granger to allow representatives of the Carter Center to reenter Guyana and observe the rest of the recount of ballots. To the consternation of the Ambassador, and other western countries, Granger flagrantly refused this request. Granger’s blatant denial to allow the Carter Center in Guyana to observe the recount is a slap in the face of the American ambassador and a bigger slap on the United States and other major democracies including the UK, Canada, and the EU.

The message of Granger cannot be clearer. Granger does not want foreign observers, particularly the Carter Center, to scrutinise the recount of the ballots. This can only mean that the way is now clear for him to move into the final stages of the rigging process, having started his rigging since his illegal appointment of James Patterson, disrespecting the no confidence vote, used the courts to stymie the election process, supporting Mingo’s fraudulent declaration, and now creating formidable obstacles through his functionaries in GECOM to rig the recount and install himself as a dictator.

The major question that arises is how would the western democracies particularly the United States, a champion of democracy, deal with a dictator in Guyana, aligned to China? Already the United States have signalled to the Granger administration that they will not tolerate a dictatorship in Guyana and, given Guyana’s geopolitical significance, have threatened sanctions.
The time has now come for the United States and Western democracies to spell out, in no uncertain terms, what these sanctions mean. Granger may very well feel confident that he will ride out any personal and economic sanctions on Guyana given the impending oil wealth and its deepening relations with China. But what will be Granger’s reaction if the United States and other Western countries threaten that they will not rule out military intervention to save Guyana from a dictatorship? Let Granger and Harmon know that the ‘eagled eye’ Americans are watching very closely. Granger must not lead Guyana down the path where sanctions from the West, whether economic or military, become inevitable, crippling an already impoverished state.
Yours truly,
Harry Beharry
London UK

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