OP:ED – Changing circumstances: watch Venezuela especially

Feb 27, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – In global affairs matters can take surprising turns.  In Guyana, we are happy to be stuck in the same warps of almost 75 years.  Unless we adjust to our changed circumstances, which takes on new attributes daily, we will remain fastened in our dreadful darkness, with the great national patrimony not meaning anything, not making much of a difference for the masses of Guyanese.  I think we have to grow out of our youthful recklessness and failures as a nation, and gird ourselves to grope for new wisdoms, so we can participate in the world around us on our terms.  Look at the emerging world picture, and significances/threats to us.

Venezuela is on the rebound, though it still has to overcome a few dribbles in its long march back into the world’s embrace. Already Venezuela has found legs to resume verbal saber-rattling in Guyana’s face.  Its life-saving oil production is set to peak sooner than expected, and most of that oil is heading to the US.  Suddenly, US$80 a barrel on the Brent looks a shade on the steep side. China is brokering matters in Ukraine, and success could burnish its credentials as a presence of serious standing on the world stage.  It can reach into places where even the great USA can’t go, which is now considered a biased, unacceptable presence, an untrusted broker.  Fresh and flush with possible crucial diplomatic success (and COVID-19 behind), who can stop the Chinese then?  Who is not going to want to fill their ever-increasing thirst for oil?  Lots of pent-up demand in the belly of that dragon.  Venezuelan supply and Chinese demand are now being studiously watched.

Russian oil could sell in great quantities, once the Ukraine war (‘special operations’) is over.  Vladimir Putin needs money urgently; he could hold for price, or flood the market with volume.  His outcast status could be reversed in quick time, revenue shortfalls reduced even quicker. Russia either wants steady customers by reassurances of its reliability, whatever the circumstances; or it (Putin) can maintain a menacing reputation as the big bad wolf of the Urals, Baltic, Caspian, the blight of Europe.  Putin may relish being some modern rendition of Vlad the Impaler, but he should remember Hitler who took on the world, lost face, his head, and last his life by his own hand.  I think that if he handles the cards he has with skill and vision, alongside the possible looming new lease on life he may have heading his way from around the corner (Chinese).  He could transform into the darling of the European world.  Of course, it would be as a much watched one.  Cheap oil talks a language that all understand.  But first, he is going to have to get past the long knives in his circle already unsheathed against him for his costly misadventures.  Still, I see him as a survivor, a leader, and a world figure that can’t be denied.  Not with all the land and oil and gas, and all the rest of untapped riches, that he has in his hands.  In his own way, he has the whole world in his hands.  Might be sacrilegious, but someone had to say it, so it might as well be me.

Suddenly there isn’t a production problem, viz., the spare capacity limitations of the Saudis such a worry.  There could actually be a supply glut.  I know it is contrarian.  But the contrarian Putin has shocked the world before, could do so again, with more of the unexpected.  This time he could use oil not as a weapon, but as a winner of friends, a changer of hearts hardened against him. If Nicholas Maduro can return from the ashes, then I am putting money on Putin slowly to return to grace from his self-inflicted fall. I urge the skeptical to banish emotions, ideology and the rest.  Remember Lord Palmerston with that well-said one about the paramountcy of permanent interests.  It is only in Guyana, that Guyanese politicians and the Guyanese people have a foot in the Guinness Book of Records for holding on to grudges, the past, and what is destructive to whatever pluses that the future holds.  And their own self-interests.

Moreover, I discern that Trinidad is inching closer to linking arms with Venezuela.  The US had already given its ‘no objection,’ so to speak.  Thinking of this, I do not believe that such a partnership was high on Trinidad’s list.  The preference was for broad, mutually rewarding partnerships with Guyana.  Apparently, overtures, hints, outreaches from the Hummingbird Republic fell flat, when PPP Government leaders repeatedly threw buckets of frozen water on interests expressed.  I caution the PPP Government and its leaders to avoid any overabundance of arrogance that could undermine our promise.

Leading with passion and conviction is prospering when governing is not crippled by vindictiveness.  We have experienced the loss of that domestically.  Our changed circumstances, and changing ones of the world must lead to sensible adjustment of attitudes for constructive internal engagements.

(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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• Chinese, GHK Lall, Guyana, Ukraine, Venezuela

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