What will Ambassador Lynch leave as her American legacy?

May 19, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
When Paul Bremer departed stealthily from dangerous and devastated Iraq in 2004, the Bush White House trumpeted that he left behind a “free and sovereign” nation. I think he left the anarchies of full-blown disasters. As I ponder that torn nation, still struggling to fuse the pieces, I think of that irrepressible presence right here, one just like Ambassador Bremer; I speak of a parallel proconsul, who dictated how things must be here, just like Bremer did in Baghdad. I think of Her Excellency, Her Highness Sarah Ann Lynch, now approaching her hour of permanent flight, and contemplate the kind of legacy that this most unstoppable American leaves behind in her wake.
For Iraq, it was ostensibly freedom and sovereignty. Ask any Iraqi and absorb any objective work on that country, and those were definitely dubious, both largely of the imagination. For Guyana, if one listens to the likes of the Ambassador, the former Secretary of State, and another once in charge of hemispheric affairs, it is this abstraction, this toy with which we don’t know what to do, called democracy. Are we lucky, indeed!
We have to be, since we have a leader, who is comfortable in his abandonments of duty; a Guyanese Flying Dutchman, a ghostly floater in continuous self-contradiction. That is, save for the ribbons and frills and gauzy embroidery. Our democracy, compliments of American insertions and incisions, has blessed us with another leader, who has never seen a lie that he doesn’t embrace, cannot cherish. Or to say differently, any of many leadership truths that he does not hate passionately, because they rear up, like untamed horses, to object to the endless abundance of his trickeries, crookeries, and savageries. In the democracy that is Guyana’s, thanks to American hands and minds, we have men in leadership positions, whose noblest features are that they sometimes try to spare the populace by attempting to conceal the extents of their self-enriching corruptions. That they fail miserably is indication and confirmation of how much they have drained this society, how well they have diminished it.
As concluded from such, American-sponsored democracy has left us more deeply divided, as usual. Be it in the time of Burnham or that of Jagan, it is the same sickening story of America’s palm prints and guilt smeared across the conscience of this nation first, and then polluting its prospects. The likable Ambassador Lynch will leave; this Guyanese-beloved American will arrive at her Episcopalian sanctuary and her Council of Foreign Relations, to share condescending war stories from the racial battlegrounds of Guyana. Yes, this is the democracy she leaves behind: where the opportunity to imbue local leaders on the necessity of harmony and tolerance took a backseat to American calculations: subservient government, commercial interests, covert operations, and the projection of American power. These are but pips of the pyramid. I salute Ambassador Lynch: nicely done. Mission accomplished, and very well. As an American I should be proud. As a Guyanese, I differ.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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