Guyana at the beck and call of America

Jul 28, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

If there were any doubts as to how much of a pawn this country is to the dictates of American masters, then all of this was thoroughly confirmed recently. It came compliments of the sudden announcement that the President and Vice President, and other political chiefs, were off to Washington. They dropped all that they were doing and rushed off in unseemly haste in abject response to the call and command from Washington. It was jarring as a Guyanese to behold what is nothing less than a spectacle of our leaders scurrying off to America, as if they were Eddie Murphy. Once again, I am reminded, not surprised at all, of the ways in which my worst fears are confirmed.

What the British gave to us by way of Independence, the Americans yanked back with imperious disdain for such niceties and conventions of sovereign nation and national pride. I would make the case that we were never a truly, fully, independent polity. We go through the motions, our leaders make a pretense of being in charge over the poor, dumb local slobs, but all the while are subject to higher powers. This Guyana of ours is nothing but a satellite nation. And I repeat something that I placed in the public domain before: this country is nothing more than, nothing but, the 51^st State of the American Union. All those lovely locals who wanted to erect a statue to the United State Ambassador for doing her job very splendidly, should now think of naming an airport after her. I suggest replacing Cheddi Jagan with Sarah Ann Lynch International to see how well that would be received by the same people that were putting this grand lady of the diplomatic corps up on a pedestal.

It is so glaring regarding what is going on here, and who is in control here, that Guyanese, having long surrendered any instincts to patriotism, now are pleased to be subjects of a foreign dominion again. Look at our institutions, listen to our parliamentarians. At the grassroots, many have gotten their spoken and unspoken wish for the ‘white man to come back and take back his burden.’ That is, run things here. I have news for my fine fellows in this Motherland of mine, the bargains made in the last elections have now come back to haunt us, and in a very public, embarrassing way. For a nationalist, this is most humiliating to observe my President hurrying across the Atlantic like if he is some water boy or the most ordinary of hired hands. If the American wanted to meet so badly, they should come here.

What is thunderously conspicuous is that not one Guyanese has seen it proper to comment publicly on this huge hole in our national leadership apparatus and, by extension, that which travels down to each one of us in the sickening pathos that is the settled tragedy of this forlorn land. I used to read with awe about the Chinese transformed into slaves before opium, the Iraqis goaded into civil war, and the Vietnamese manipulated six bloody ways to Sunday. I should remember Cheddi Jagan, then Forbes Burnham, and Desmond Hoyte, with the last emperor felled in 2015, then another in 2020. Clearly, we have been reduced to being dismal puppets on a string, and mongrels barking for their bones. The midnight knock came, and the midnight call sounded, for the President with the command to be sure to bring his sidekick for the ride. It has been some ride and some show in DC. The local political circus masters commanded to perform in their best imitations of the Twist. I wait to see what they put out on what the top Americans insisted must happen: transparency, inclusion, and people being charged (laundering), just like I have been saying. The President can mislead us on those scores, but the senior American just said to him: cut the nonsense out. If that is not the riot act I hear being read to Guyana top leaders, then nothing else could be.

Editor, the irony of this all, is that it is happening on the eve of Emancipation from the odious institution of slavery, and nobody is making a secret of it. It was Africans in the New World that needed it back then. Today, some Guyanese reel and recoil from this modern slavery, which many more have fallen in love with, and from which there is no emancipation. Not until the oil is down to its very last drop.

Sincerely,

GHK Lall

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