Inconvenient truths bring the collateral damage of existential menace

Sep 25, 2020 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

The words coming down to me from the concerned are blunt: be careful. Subtle, too: be aware. And watch your back. I ask myself why, since I heard so much from good Guyanese about democracy, political leaders reborn, and clean governance. I am not fooled, for there has always been that transparency of pervasive hypocrisy that they embody.
Clearly some men in government prefer to let certain things be the way they are. I pinpoint the spoor of secrecy on this country’s oil that benefits them. On this, there is no distinction between government and opposition leaders. They all fervently desire a blanket prohibition on information. But they should know that there is never full inhibition of ideas. This is where I stand if being a tiny speck of agency that leads to a foregone destiny, then such is out of my hands. I must persevere, live with myself.
As I place this before the public, I do not think that certain newspapers, editors, attorneys, accountants, doctors, writers, should be able to live with themselves, considering the monstrosity with which we live, and which they had a hand in its creation. They all postured to me that this time would be different. Then why am I being warned? Democratic government, it is touted.
Well, it cannot be when the new PPP government wants certain narratives expunged. Since I am being warned, then it has not changed in its intrinsic charms, having authored the dispatch of many before. Extinguishing one more does not bring discomfort, since such would be a mere footnote of Guyanese realities. It is of objectives realized, through voices stilled. It is of the inconvenient truths that trigger collateral damage, whatever form such may take.
As I say this, I must wonder what my fellow Americans have to say, how the human rights advocates (Carter Center and all) stand. Both local contributors and foreign presences should be inestimably proud of their democratic product, their governance poster child, and the government machinery erected. They have done their dirty work. I have my own work to fulfill; whatever is the will of divine providence that it will be. To that I submit. I shall fear no evil. That is my belief, what has brought me this far. Now I continue the course chosen. Let the chips fall.
Some chips fell in the hysterias during the elections season over PNC corruption. Now there are ecstasies over democracy triumphant, with returning PPP leaders trumpeting transparency and accountability in governance. Underneath those attractive glosses, there is thorough opportunity and powerful incentive to resume the concealment of the most massive instance of corruption in this hemisphere.
It involves millions of acres of oil patches and billions of barrels of crude. In terms of magnitude and rich return, there is no comparison. But of this thievery of Guyana’s patrimony, local political leaders and foreign business partners want no voice raised, no question asked, no word written, no truth revealed. They desire absolutely nothing to be known about the pieces of oil territory stolen and parceled out among willing partners. It is my belief that PNC luminaries are part of the action. They cannot now know, for there is too much at stake for them not to care, or to be pleased with being on the outside.
Because of this, it is damn any messenger, who dares to table thoughts that menace their plots and the related prosperities that flow to them. Such probing, challenging, and articulating is foolhardy in the extreme, definitely endangering. For truth means identification of Guyanese political deceivers (leaders) and their partners in plunder, whether American or Canadian or Israeli. The oil manipulations that started in the pre-2015 era now assumes renewal with a government machinery in place to cover-up with the full knowledge and backing of the United States. Those manipulations must remain silent, and if people must be thwarted, even silenced, then so be it. Look and listen to leaders: they talk a mile a minute about everything else, but on oily things, there is nothing said, and nothing and none who object viewed favourably.
Additionally, because they are seen through past the propaganda and via their ploys, the many hypocrisies are obvious. About governance. About leadership practices and values. About the deceptions and divisions fostered for more failing. They are called out and embarrassed by the pains in eye and ear, and elsewhere. That, too, is necessary, if only to speak to the many savaging truths undermining but are not told. They matter to me. And there is where I stand immovably.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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