Atavism: Aubrey Norton on sanctions

Dec 29, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – On the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show last week, Aubrey Norton asserted that in March 2020, he would have preferred to live with five years of sanctions against Guyana than five more years of the PPP.

It would take several columns to analyse the implications of American sanctions against the unelected Guyana Government after 2020. Here is a brief analysis. We begin with individual opportunism. When the five months of rigging were taking place, I had an encounter in the National Park with a restaurant owner whose business is heavily patronised by African middle class men, and was the favourite weekend retreat for many ministers in the APNU+AFC government.

His point was direct and straightforward. He will live with sanctions but he is not living with five more years of Jagdeo. He was furious when he uttered those words. I set a trap for him and he fell right into it.

I inquired if he has children in Guyana and with anger in his tone, he said he has one son in the US and that son isn’t coming back to a place like Guyana. I then became vociferous. I asked if it was alright for his son to enjoy the good life in the US while other people’s children would have their future destroyed by sanctions. On that utterance by me, he walked away.

Norton ought to know better and he knows better. A tiny populated country like Guyana with an infinitesimal space in the world economy would be devastated, literally destroyed by American sanctions.

Here now is the analysis that flows from that statement. (1) – It would not have been five years but a permanent embargo. After five years, the APNU+AFC would still have been in power in 2025 and still not prepared to hold free and fair elections.

(2) – secondly, Guyana is billions of miles away from the resources of large countries with large populations like Iran and Venezuela that have endured American sanctions. Guyana suffers from the “Canada syndrome.”

Canada’s economy is intricately bound up with the US. Canada will not survive American trade confrontation. Guyana cannot survive American trade punishment. Our economy has always been based on mono-culture to use the term of radical West Indian economists in the 1970s.

We sold our sugar to the West and we survived. Now we are selling our oil. The US would have targeted the oil industry thus crippling Guyana’s economy. (3)- Iran and Venezuela do not belong to an entrenched integration movement as Guyana is.

There is absolutely no way CARICOM would have defied the ABCEU countries and continue to do business as usual with Guyana. (4)- in all situations, without exception, where there are these types of big power sanctions, hardened attitudes on both sides are inevitable and matters deteriorate dangerously.

It is simple to envisage such a situation. During the initial phase of the punishment, the big power expects some compromise. If that is not forthcoming, a second phase of harsher treatment ensues. If the small state reacts angrily to the second phase and shows defiance, then an even harsher third stage comes along.

It was Jerry Gouveia who for the first time since March 2020 revealed last month on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show that there was a decision by the White House to add economic sanctions to visa cancelations and he, Gouveia was part of the Private Sector Commission. Mr. Gouveia told me and Gildarie that he was allowed to retain on his phone a part of the conversation with White House officials.

(5)-cracks would have been inevitable within the regime simply because some big wigs in the power establishment and their families would have been targeted for sanctions.

(6) – CARICOM, Canada and the US would have become extremely irritated because the deteriorating economy would have produced an exodus of people fleeing misery thus putting a strain on their immigration system.

After five years of sanctions, Guyana by 2025 would have seen a non-existent economy and a depressed population that made the Burnham’s era look like child’s play. Guyana would have atavistically returned to the Burnham nightmare.

Interestingly, on the show, Norton admitted that during the Burnham era when the West was applying pressure to the economy, Burnham sought rapprochement (his word) with the West.

(7)-it is likely that Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran would have used the confusion in Guyana to establish a line of economic support for the regime. Once that happened, the US would have implemented a regime change plan. It is doubtful that the APNU+AFC would have lasted three years with sanctions. Once the regime was forced out, then both the PNC and AFC would have had no future place in Guyana. They did the wise thing and conceded electoral defeat.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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