Foreigners love locals fighting each other

Sep 07, 2022 Editorial

Kaieteur News – When we present things that speak to truth, regardless of which government is in power, Guyanese don’t like it, especially when their own people and group are made to look small. When, however, foreigners, put out the same things that we share in the public space, there is more listening, more nodding of heads. A foreigner is saying something that we have said so many times that we have lost count, but regardless of who says it, there is still great meaning.

Anthony Paul, a Trinidadian Energy Specialist, recently said that when we are at each other’s throats, ripping out each other’s eyes, outsiders have Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations (‘Govt., Opposition must work together to maximise oil gains’ -Oil companies love nothing more than to see you fighting each other -Expert urges” -KN September 1). Anthony Paul is a man worth listening to, for he knows what he is talking about, having been close to oil in many countries. It is that when we wage war against each other, we are weaker than the already weak state from which we started out, and we are more vulnerable to every manner of exposure from foreign oil company exploiters.

Though young in oil years, our own experience confirms that America’s ExxonMobil and Hess Corporation, the Chinese CNOOC, and the European Repsol, Tullow, and others are delighted when we are preoccupied with ancient memories and prejudices. In Guyana, with all this oil under our feet, our hands are raised in anger and aggression against one another, as powered by sharp passions and prejudices. This is what is killing us on our feet because we allow foreigners to see for themselves our naked, weakened state and they take the fullest advantage of our helplessness. Make no mistake, we are utterly helpless when the leaders in the PPP/C Government and the main Opposition APNU+AFC are at loggerheads. It is clear that they have so much lost their heads that they are unable or unwilling to recognise the dangers of their constant bickering and squabbling and wasting of time. While these leaders quarrel and clash uselessly, our enemies have a great time digging away (exploring), scaling up (producing), and fetching away our oil riches.

We invite all of our fellow citizens of every colour, from all political groups, to take a close look at what is happening to us today, and decide for themselves, if this is not precisely where Guyana is today with its oil. To lend our fellow Guyanese a hand, we remind them of a frontpage comment we made last year, where we identified four standard practices of foreign oil companies in poor, weak societies.

First, foreign oil companies compromise political leaders, so they betray their people. Second, the foreign companies neutralise the local elite (commercial, professional) by recruiting it, so the country is gutted of skills and resistance. Third, they work with the sellout politicians to keep the people divided and against each other. And fourth, the foreign oil companies cart away the nation’s oil wealth, while the common people fight each other. It should be noted who is getting incredibly rich, and who is left worse than before, while all this is playing out. This is what Anthony Paul warns Guyanese about, from politicians to people.

It is the old shabby story, the regular ugly failure, of poverty, of coloured peoples, of Third World societies. There are foreign predators and exploiters, who use their cunning schemes to reap incomparable riches while impoverishing nation’s rich in resources. The depths of domestic divisions are drilled through by foreigners in the slickness of their calculations of local racial, class, religious prejudices. Then, they make those work for them by getting local leaders to join with them and sabotage their own people. This is where the PPP/C, the APNU+AFC, local elites, and the Guyanese people are.

This is history of thousands of years. This is foreign oil history in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This is foreign oil history right now in Guyana. The foreign rapacious engaging the local treacherous. Can Guyana turn the tide, carve out a new pathway? Is PPP/C Government and Coalition Opposition reading, absorbing, listening? We must stop fighting each other now.

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Foreigners love locals fighting each other

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