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War in Ukraine

Feb 25, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – It is no longer rumours of war, but war in the fullness of its horrors that has now descended upon Ukraine and its inhabitants. Though telegraphed all along, it still is shocking in its reality, incontestable finality. To sum it up in the words of American Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman: “War is hell. It is all hell.”
Whatever the geopolitical and geostrategic interests, visions, and calculations, the reality of the people in Ukraine is that they live with the hellish. We can talk all we want, from the safety of distance and the contentment of armchair philosophies about who is right, and what is wrong, and how man can be unjust to his fellow man. But when elephants rumble and tangle, the grass underfoot inevitably suffers from crushing suffocations and devastations, which are sometimes not recoverable for years to come. People are going to die, families will be shattered, many will be forced to cower in or abandon their homes, many more seek cover anywhere they can find it, while leaving behind all that they worked for all their lives. That is, if they still have anything left to salvage. The human lessons and human dramas can be ever so punishing, comprehensive in its savaging.
This is what lurks too close to Guyana for the comfort of those citizens, who pay attention to such developments, who can actually understand the ramifications of what is involved, and how issues and tensions can flare out of control in a hurry. Mineral wealth is a magnet that attracts not only predators on two legs, but powers with global stature whose covetous eyes are cast on what is not their own, but must have. What they must have, if only to maintain ascendancy in their sphere of influence, or increased influence in those places where they have none.
In the world and existence of mineral wealth, there is none more irresistible than the seductive call of oil, this black gold that can spew from beneath the seas or from the bowels of the ground. Wars have been fought for it, societies have been halved and splintered and decimated because of it, and citizens both inspired by its promises (on rare occasions), and greatly distressed by its troubles, which is more often the reality of its discoveries, the base instincts that this global, in-demand commodity can generate in the hearts and minds of men.
Venezuela has more oil than any, and it is right next door, which is alarming all by itself. Guyana has found its own share of oil, with more in the making, and likely to come. This along, with other natural resources riches, entices men and nations to think and rethink how they deal with us. But the bottom line is that wherever and whenever oil features in the life of a nation, the worst usually follows on the swiftest of feet. Some of it can be within the boundaries, as in internal agitations and upheavals. In other situations, the menaces are external, with small and big powers numbering among the engaged captivated.
We have heard and watched some of the more public back and forth involving sanctions and sanctions busting, as they concern our besieged neighbour, Venezuela. Among the names mentioned in what is a still low-level combustible mix are those of powers that are superpowers. The Ukraine invasion, crisis, we call it for what it is, war represents more than Russian motherhood and sacred sanctity. It could set the precedent for more tensions and conflicts in other part of the world. This region looks like prime territory for a version of the ancient great game among nations, this time in the form of Great Game South.
Guyana is part of the uneven oil rich crescent that is populated by Suriname and Venezuela, and together they represent a whole lot of oil, which can be used for the purpose of either counterweight, or hegemony, or supply insurance. Much is tied up in this arc, inclusive of the economic and military, and the power and prestige that comes from both. Considering developments in Ukraine, the regional picture just changed, which should be worrying for Guyanese.

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