America and Guyana

Mar 25, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – For reasons great and small, little Guyana has always featured mightily in the plans and visions of big powers, especially America. Countless citizens have paid a harsh and painful price for America’s actions in Guyana, which makes for a better caption than the one in this writing. It could be much more pointed, re-titled as: Guyana in the hands of America.
It is fascinating that a country way down South, such as Guyana, and with a population not as much as a million, could feature this prominently in big power interests and calculations for almost three quarters of a century now. America has been the most dominant force, and this is when it didn’t appear to be involved, was distant, and not quite troubled by what was going on here. But appearances can be deceiving, and there are few as good as the Americans at this big power politics, and the strategies that come from them. We have a visitor today from the U.S. State Department. A well-credentialed one, who has been around the block, made several laps around it. She is here in the person of Deputy Assistant Secretary, Ms. Barbara A. Feinstein. Given this newest face, this latest in the round of State Department arrivals, it is obvious that Guyana means much to America, and that its people are firmly committed to keeping a close eye on things local, and a steady hand on matters domestic.
As we at this publication say welcome to our distinguished visitor, her ranging meeting agenda is what tells the story of America’s interests and American priorities. It is so different from what went before oil, and to provide a good picture to our fellow Guyanese, we must look back and go back all the way to one Cheddi Jagan, avowed Marxist, dogged Communist. There was none more genuinely and deeply red than him, unlike those who struggle vainly (while similarly brightly shirted) to fill his huge shoes, but who stumble all over their sorry, silly selves.
To revisit Guyana’s shaky history in the hands of America, Cheddi Jagan was the enemy. A man and leader who could have breach the foreign policy principle of containment, and contributed to the domino effect in Latin America. From America’s perspective, that could not be allowed to happen. The mere thought of it was enough to introduce chills, with those Venezuelan oilfields in the vicinity. Somehow, oil always seems to be part of the volatile, combustible political mix. When oil flares, people get burned. This was Dr. Jagan’s fate and to the wilderness of the opposition he went. America did not have the time of day for him, while he languished, with even his visa being revoked, while he toiled fruitlessly in barren opposition land.
Now, we fast forward past the decades to today, and here is America in action again, very much in the middle of Guyana’s rich action. There is oil for starters, just so that nobody forgets. The once dreadful PPP/C was given a boost, with considerable American assistance in the problematic 2020 local elections affairs. But now there is a difference in America’s conduct of its business that keeps repeating itself. Unlike the PPP of yore, and Cheddi Jagan when he was in the opposition, the PNC still finds itself highly favored. It might appear to be sudden to the slothful and disengaged, but the PNC opposition features significantly in America’s considerations. It is why Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Barbara Feinstein’s agenda, includes a meeting with Guyana’s opposition (and civil society). We cut to the chase with this talk about meeting with the opposition, and call it for what it is; meeting with primarily the PNC. The recognition that Cheddi Jagan couldn’t get for donkey years, Aubrey Norton receives in a New York minute.
It has to do with oil. It is as plain and simple as that. It is the oil, stupid. America wants peace and stability in Guyana, for when there are those, there is security. There is security for Exxon’s oil operations and there is security for America’s business interests, which means continuity and prosperity. So, Mr. Norton benefits from a visit; so, too, agitating civil society groups.

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