ABC engineered, now they engage again

Feb 14, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,
The PPP/C Government is being put on notice, with subtle diplomatic cautions delivered at timely and tactical intervals. The Americans and British (the spearheads of the ABC&E quartet) keep warning the President and Vice President within the protocols and bounds of veiled diplomatic language to take heed, be alerted, and act, the appropriate kinds. They can all have a powerful say, because PPP/C leaders owe them, are nothing without them.
America’s Ambassador, Her Excellency Sarah-Ann Lynch, took the opportunity and platform recently to sound the alarm, issue more than stern hints. It was that certain things must be done (which are not), areas to be improved (which are not), and systems to be enhanced (which are not). And all deliberately. From outreach to procurement to other sensitive places, for which both the President and Vice President pay lip service and nothing more. In recent days, the British came out of the woodwork, to state that Guyana’s procurement systems need strengthening. They can be forgiven for understatement, which is part British, and part the tactfulness of diplomatic syntax.
Unlike the diplomats, I am not restrained by such artificial politesse, such studied coolness. For I translate what my fellow Americans and the British are saying in this rawer, more pungent language, which emphasises what is going on in the minds of the foreigners, and as driven by politics and leadership practices in this sick society. It is: stop fooling around, because what is being done is transparent and it stinks, where procurement and contract awards are concerned. Stop fooling around with these distortions and deceptions of the English Language, and think self so cute, clever, and cool. Stop thinking there is so much smartness with what is finalised, because this is dumb and dangerous. It is not. Stop playing these stupid games, stop wasting the gifts that we (yes, we, the ABC&E people) placed in the hands of the PPP/C, as climaxed on August 2, 2020.
Editor, the diplomats and their State Department and Foreign Office can see through the futile attempts of the President with his word games, and the other games which he is not well-qualified to handle. They see through his doubletalk, and they see through the double-dealing that the Hon. Vice President is so famous (or notorious) for, in just every vision and endeavor of his. I have repeatedly warned PPPC honchos, wise guys all, that the Americans put in power, and they can more easily remove from power. They don’t have much regard for either of the two top dogs; and, in fact, they look down upon them in the literal sense of that word, that noun.
The Americans have no stomach for the Chinese and Russians to have too much of a presence in their neighbourhood, and they watch warily at the inroads that both make in Venezuela, how crippling sanctions are undercut, and how menacing both are to American strategic interests, and its geopolitical visions.
When the President and Vice President do too much business with the Chinese, they forget who is responsible for their haughty, swaggering presence in the corridors of power. Just so I am clear about where I interpret the Americans and British are standing, I table this. They could care less about who gets contract awards that make no sense and violate the spirit of a level playing field, if not the letter of the law. Similarly, they are not overly concerned about which leader and comrade ‘teef de people monee’, as that is the norm of local politics.
What occupies their attention, and causes untold anxieties, are those developments, compliments of PPP/C leaders, that give the Chinese a larger footprint in this country, and by extension the hemisphere. Additionally, the Americans must be furious that a $53 billion plus bridge project went the way of the Chinese, along with other massive awards, when there are American companies hovering to get their piece of the Guyanese Dream. Amnesia it may be, but it is ingratitude and stupidity, too.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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