Except we set aside our pettiness and learn from the lessons of history, oil and the other resources can be a burden and not a benefit.

Feb 07, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – There has been what I consider a storm in the teacup over the Budget 2022. The Government side has boasted that it is the largest Budget ever. This is no big thing. What we seldom hear is quality as distinct from quantity.
Since Independence, every Minister of Finance made this claim. The Opposition as is customary has sought to criticise the Budget for its failure to identify clearly mechanisms to bring prosperity, comfort and pleasure to the ordinary folks in the urban, rural and hinterland communities.
On the new programme, The Public Platform on Channel 9, which is presented every Wednesday at 7:00 p.m., I urged that we give another few months before criticising the Budget as presented.
One of the Co-hosts disagreed, urging that there is enough evidence to deem the Budget as being unworthy.
There are certain facts however, that stand out which can only be addressed, and in every case corrected if we have the good sense and nationalistic zeal to unite to face the mighty conglomerates who have great expertise in exploiting the divisions in small countries and instituting the well-practised imperialist policy of divide and rule.
If we stand together as I have proposed then the bounty from our bauxite, our gold, marine, timber and agricultural largesse and oil will become a benefit and not a burden.
An examination of countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean has shown that wherever there is a deepening of a culture of carelessness, corruption and greed, the ordinary man and woman will receive the crumbs falling from the masters, table and here I urge all sane and sensible citizens to come out and support the lone-ranger Glen Lall whose courage and statements are enlightening our populace, alerting them to the way our natural resources are being harvested in a manner where the ordinary people are becoming the victims of pernicious exploitation.
As a young man, I was among those who walked behind Dr. Jagan and Forbes Burnham to disengage ourselves from the iron-grip of colonialism and dependence on Massa.
Our clarion call then was ‘Massa Day done.” Is this now a truism?
In the midst of our Crusade was the tricky and treacherous Cold War.
Today, there is no Jagan, there is no Burnham, but I believe if this generation is given the information, we can place Guyana in the context of this new world, I believe it would give them the strength to agitate so that the Golden Arrowhead, which was hoisted at the National Park, at a minute after midnight on the 26th of May, 1966 will be meaningful.
I appeal by this letter to every son and daughter of the soil, every Amerindian, every Afro-Guyanese, every Indo-Guyanese, every Portuguese Guyanese, every Chinese Guyanese, every Euro Guyanese, every Mixed Guyanese, every Guyanese, whether you support the PPP, PNC, AFC, ANUG and irrespective of our religious beliefs who, except we set aside our pettiness and learn from the lessons of history, oil and the other resources given to us by the Creator, can be a burden and not a benefit, and tomorrow will be glorious and not damned.
As we look at the depleted forest, polluted rivers, gaping holes and depleted stock of flora, fauna and fish, and when we look at our unrecognisable demographics, we will not hang our heads in shame. That we will not be guilty from the sin of silence.
The question today is why do so-called intelligent Leaders continue on this journey of stupidity, when all they need to do is learn from the lessons of mankind history and experience of Guyana from Cuffy, Accra to Burnham and Jagan. I recommend to all Members of Parliament and those who ordained themselves as Leaders to read the Book written by a Dutch Lady, Marjolene Kars, a review of the 1763 failed uprising titled “ Blood on the River,” and to understand why what should have been a successful revolution, a decade plus before the American revolution failed.
For clarity, when Leaders have the same objective to rid themselves of an oppressor, but disagree on the tactics to maintain an initial victory, all is lost. 1763, 1955, are but two examples for Guyana.
We must learn the value of unity in Guyana and to recognise the machinations of the mighty conglomerates in the region.
Beyond our immediate borders, we have the Caribbean Community. What was once a powerhouse in the region initiated by the three B’s (Barrow, Bird and Burnham) at Dickenson Bay in 1965 is now a fragile collection of so-called independent States in the Caribbean region, making little impact on the rest of the world.
They have made a reality of pejorative description by a late West Indian Politician that we are like the proverbial yard fowl.

On this note Editor, I wrote a letter on January 10, 2022, which was sent to the two top PPP Members, that is President Irfaan Ali and VP Bharrat Jagdeo, the then Leader of the Opposition, Joseph Harmon, Leader of the AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan and Leader of the PNC, Aubrey Norton, on the Border issue and our natural resources. Weeks after, the only response has been from Aubrey Norton expressing a willingness in the interest of our Guyana to sit and talk.
Failure to even acknowledge receipt of that correspondence for harmony instead of hubris is ominous and suggests that we are as a people in serious trouble and that those elected as Leaders are not serious about a Guyana of oneness, the only way that will allow us to bequeath our children and their children a country where they are the principal beneficiaries of our natural resources. Let us pray that good sense, goodwill and nationalism would insinuate itself. And that our Leaders, all of them will sit down to save some of us, and I say some, from being re-enslaved.

Regards,
Hamilton Green

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