Transparency and inclusion two constant American themes

Jul 30, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I feel like an American Government spokesman.  Using recent months, powerful agents of the U.S. government have been constantly pounding on two primary themes with significance for Guyana, where things are on both.  Those themes are transparency and inclusivity (sometimes ‘inclusion’ or ‘inclusive governance’).

As presented repeatedly, transparency and inclusion are desperately needed here, and could be the difference-maker for this society.  What is noticeable is that the agents employed by the United States are not regular bureaucrats, but the most high-ranking ones.

Many Guyanese know that U.S. Ambassador, Ms. Sarah Ann Lynch, has gleamed with calls for transparency and inclusion in Guyana.  She has been tireless with Washington’s messages of the things draining the lush promise of Guyana.  Ambassador Lynch is the messenger bringing news that PPP Government leaders don’t appreciate.  She has persisted: get used to it; be able to take good with bad.  The good was support during the 2020 elections season, with the PPP where it is.  No secrets or surprises there.  Now, the issues of transparency and inclusion, and the absence of both here, must be articulated with persistence and potency.  This is what Ambassador Lynch has made her duty, her priority.  But this stalwart American public servant is not alone, which should emphasize to all that the issues highlighted must be so, because we so lack them. This is given the other Americans these urgings are coming from, no matter how finessed the language, and official public communications.

A higher-ranking American joined the call for transparency and inclusivity in Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken.  He put those squarely on the table. If skunks (locally‘crab dawg’) must have the prized seats in the room, then that’s that, no matter how smelly.  Because the PPP Government’s leadership has been so doggedly stubborn where transparency and inclusion are concerned, then the Americans realized that they must be unrelenting.  They are.

Because when I thought that the most senior American to weigh-in on the two themes would be Secretary Blinken, matters went still higher.  American Vice President, Kamala Harris, also joined the chorus of ranking U.S. voices pressing for transparency and inclusion. Politically, there was a small bow to ‘more’ transparency, which infers maybe a little bit present, but the insistence is for more, given the full range of intensifying circumstances, much, much more on both counts is required.  Separately, I mention that the heritage of Vice President Harris ought to instill in her the knowledge of what could and do go wrong for people of a certain stripe.  In her case, she possesses two stripes (colors, tribes, demographics) to speak authoritatively about transparency and mostly for inclusion.  Despite her troubles, VP Harris is arguably better than most to speak of inclusion; and when she speaks it is coming from the White House.  Now the only leader left to pronounce on transparency and inclusion in Guyana (their conspicuous absences) is President Biden.

Swiftly, I remind of the contributions of USAID and the British High Commission on the two issues pinpointed today.  Contribute they did, from under different umbrellas.  Now, however, I pause to knit together a few things starting with Guyana’s President Ali.  He says that transparency and inclusion are the standard under his government.  Regard for my brother and leader prevents from employing the derogatory.  All I offer is that if this is so, then the Americans shouldn’t have any problems.  The fact that they keep beating transparency and inclusion drums tells a simple story.  It just aint so, bro.

Moreover, it is savagely ironic that the three areas that President Ali committed to prioritize in his inaugural address almost two years ago, he has failed miserably at all three.  They were transparency, unity, and accountability.  I assert that when there is true transparency, there is the open book as to whether inclusivity and unity are fantasy or reality. I contend further that when there is a high degree of transparency, it follows that there is more accountability, which means a greater probability of less corruption.  Because there are so many reports (PAC, media, complaints) and seasoned conclusions of citizens about corruptions, secrecies, and leadership deceptions, it stands to reason that transparency and inclusivity (with accompanying accountability) are simply empty presidential postures, embarrassments for the mere utterings.

When America’s Ambassador, Secretary of State, and Vice President, in quick succession, publicly push for transparency and inclusivity, then we have serious problems with both.  No papering over, no wishing away, no speechifying about will minimize or eliminate.  These Americans are onto something, and we Guyanese also know so, because we live with chronic absences of both transparency and inclusivity.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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