Sarah Ann Lynch: Angels and demons

May 30, 2023 News

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Kaieteur News – The day had to come, and the tour is now over.  US Ambassador, Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch is closing her tour in Guyana.  As she is saluted by those so inclined, I have the tough job of calling things as they are, with the risk of cages rattled, and people a little less sweetly inclined for it.  So be it. This hard duty is compounded by my dual umbilical relationships -one with the USA, the other with Guyana.

Excellency Lynch deserves every accolade that comes her way in Washington, DC and Langley, Virginia for a superb job representing American interests. As someone with my own interests in American oil gladiator, Exxon, I should be appreciative, but on that one, I will take a raincheck.  In every way, in many respects, Ambassador Lynch was the epitome of what public service is all about, inclusive of the overt and the covert (Langley, Virginia again). On each occasion, there was one objective; in every instance, there was one result: what benefited America. The physics of the situation-political, economic, and social-then took over: for every American gain, there was, had to be, a corresponding Guyanese loss.  This is my challenge with Excellency Lynch, for every fig she wrestled for America, Guyanese were left to grope for whatever banana peel they could find, and slide along upon it, with a heart full of heaviness, and a head overwhelmed by the imbalances of it all. This oil, this oil….

Palpable imbalance it has been, and in the most nuanced manner, I would assert. I have studied the Ambassador’s public pronouncements, and am yet to recall when such a word, a name, a label as ‘Exxon’ has crossed her lips. Never! Her Excellency has been that diplomatically astute, that tactically profound. In pristine gatherings between herself and team on one side of the table, and Guyanese on the other, Exxon and Schlumberger and American Airlines have not made their way into the conversation, but…but they all are, with Exxon perched ponderously amid the groves of tall American timber, like the unspeaking and unsmiling 800-pound gorilla that it is. In these respects, American Ambassador, Sarah Ann Lynch was worth her weight in lutetium plus rare platinum.  Think of records, as in the music industry.

Guyanese record after Guyanese record was carved out during her rollicking, tempestuous tenure. A government fell. Another government came into being, and it fell before it made the first step, so complete was the stranglehold that Excellency Lynch locked the PPP Government, from President Ali to former President Jagdeo to Guyana’s sprawling human wasteland, the radioactive ground of its human flotsam and jetsam. That would be its Parliament in its entirety, in all of its nooks and crannies. Just as how Ambassador Lynch succeeded in remaking the PPP Opposition into an American mold and American mole (against the Guyanese people and their aspirations), so she enjoyed identical triumph across the dark, dismal political divide. The one potential saving grace left for Guyana, the Ambassador also neutralised that, when she influenced the reengineering of the old APNU+AFC into the listless and lifeless PNC Opposition that it is today.

Nobody stirs in this country against oil. Nobody flinches in this country, has any contrarian ideas, possesses any intestinal and testicular fortitude to just say NO!  No to Exxon’s excesses and extravagances. No to Exxon’s predations and dangers. Not PPP Government.  Not PNC Opposition (nor any other kind that there may be). Neither MP nor attorney nor most parts of what shamelessly calls itself civil society. In all this, I can only find the commendable in the sum of her actions when examined from perspectives such as these. It has been of angels and demons. Guyanese have been left to savour the bizarre (a President more of a spaceman than an oilman); the grotesque (a Vice President in the form of a shabby salesman pretending to be a smart investor confidence man); and the pathetic (an Opposition Leader transformed into a strawman without recognising that he is a nowhere man).

Somebody has to point and shout at Empress Sarah and her clothing, or lack thereof. Or of the kind in which she clothed dreaming Guyanese.  This is the long downside of her years in this country. Thanks, but no thanks, Excellency. I lost regard for handiwork, when in a flash the leap, the pole vault, the somersault was taken from sovereignty to sanctity.  Yes, I now am more fully understanding of why some groups in some countries have their ‘Ugly American’ and ‘Yankees, go home’ awards.  I think I have made my point, and starkly so.

Still, as American Ambassador, Her Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch departs from the shores of Guyana I must rise above the checkered legacy of her seemingly eternal presence. From one American to another: duty done, country served, head can be held high. Now, I must recharge batteries, study the territory some more, and choose the right paths forward. From those guiding imperatives, there is certainty that there must still be something left in me to tell my Guyanese brothers and sisters.

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• As she is saluted by those so inclined, I have the tough job of calling things as they are

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