The Great Guyana Oil Game

May 17, 2023 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News- From the beginning, Guyanese have always been left with the dirty end of the stick to hold. Or, they get beaten all over by a thick, knotty stick, with foreigners using their own people to whip them into shape. I look at how things stand today: Guyanese got the fraud of democracy, while foreigners reap the fullness of incredible prosperity.
Like someone who sets their eyes on the son or daughter of an extremely rich family, this is what the diplomat succeeded in doing here, through wily courtship of corrupt Guyanese politicians. Chasing after them to give them the love of the American people, sending venal Guyanese political figures into swoons of ecstasy. As Guyanese learn to their sorrow, what they received was neither democracy nor prosperity for themselves, but

prosperity that went to foreign wooer, people, and country. How weak and woeful, Guyanese have been before? I ask how limited and helpless do Guyanese want to continue to be?
They didn’t have to be American, British, or French, for then they would have been Italian or Spanish. It was what unfolded in the rich tapestry of the Khyber Pass, and that old great game that is now more refined, but even more sweetly greater than before. The fuel of great global economies that control energy of the seas, then the ground, and last the air, all the way to the moon. Guyanese look on in dismay at how their aspirations and dreams are pounded into pittance. Our leaders, so aggressive and abusive to locals, cannot form the words, cannot find their tongue, cannot feel the fury at the despicable games being played with our oil wealth. What a bunch of cowards!
Meanwhile, the Guyanese people, in their own land sowed by the sweat of their ancestors, are toyed with, and made a source of scorn, by the new exploiters prowling around in their helicopters, not horses; in their leather seated, air conditioned, 4-wheel drive machines, not high-stepping steeds. These are the foreign exploiters now embraced as best friends (if not illegitimate brothers) by our own brothers in political leadership circles. These are the foreign friends of whom they are proud, couldn’t cherish more, and prostrate themselves more to their every wish. It could be taxes or royalties or insurance, and it is the same reprehensible story. If they do not want any of those, or refuse to pay for it, then Guyanese must not get it. Look at how our leaders grovel to get anything done for them, no matter how much it costs the Guyanese people, could expose them.

If part of the bargain made is to convert the people into enemies, so that foreigners can get their way, then who cares! Those that Exxon and Hess hold as enemies, the people in the Government of Guyana have made it their duty to also hold as their own enemies, too. Examine what was done to Dr. Vincent Adams, former head of Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Then, examine what has been done to the same EPA since he left, and how costly that has been, and could be to Guyanese, should matters unfold a certain way. It is how local political betrayers join forces with foreign exploiters: keep them happy, keep their gravy train running.
Perhaps, there are Guyanese who still want to erect some monument for a foreigner for her elections handiworks, even when they find out that such were never about us, but of what could be had from us for 2% and expenses that have to be hidden from us. This is the pot of opium that poisons the Guyanese people that the men leading the way today dare not go near, even if their lives depend on it. The PNC Government put the oil contract around Guyana’s neck; today, the PPP Government helps the Americans to tighten the noose to their supreme advantage.
This is where the Superpower Great Game with our oil leaves us. In the dust.

Like men of old in turbans and loincloths, and armed with spears and arrows to fight those who had ships with cannon to whip into line. Or lots of cheap whiskey (and opium by boatloads) to condemn natives to a state of helpless stupor, when the name of the game was gold, then diamonds, last oil.
Like Africans, Asians, Latin Americans (and some Native Americans), Guyanese are fascinated with these bells, beads, and whistles; are stuck with playing with them. While rich natural resources are depleted, while the nation’s human resources wither away from lack of pride, absence of guts, and empty of commonsense. Part of the Great game played by Great Nations is always to identify weak, greedy leaders, then do business with them. The local leaders know h to put the people at each other’s throat, while collecting their 30 pieces of silver for their betrayals. In time, all that is left for the poor to do is to destroy one another.
How different are most Guyanese political players today to their bowing, scraping, grinning, and simpering Black and Brown ancestors! How different the majority of Guyanese are from their warrior forbears!
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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• GHK Lall, Khyber Pass, PNC, PPP Government

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