H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – Resource curse – might of America, blight on Guyana

Jun 28, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Oftentimes we think we know, only to discover that we know amounts to the miniscule.  I think that a few thinking Guyanese have some ideas, are content with that state, fear knowing more.  Others who don’t know prefer ignorance, the darkness that comforts.  What is shared today, in heavily compressed form, is about resource curse. It is distant from textbook definitions, intimately closer to the experience of poor, limited nations of mainly colored people.  This particular type of resource curse sheds light on many thorny local issues; crippling political developments. It is about high politics for high stakes in highwire acts.

Our resource curse explains the impotence of President Ali, and the farces, follies, and frailties of Vice President Jagdeo.  Both leaders are trapped in powerful centrifugal forces that reduce them to puppets and pawns.  Our resource curse explains the removal of former President Granger and his group; and his desperate, rearguard actions to stick around in 2020.  Our resource curse explains the energies, bustles, objectives of Her Excellency, US Ambassador Sarah Ann Lynch (and likeminded European cronies).  And, last, our resource curse reveals how Exxon owns Guyana lock, stock, and barrel (no puns intended).

Oil was found in 2015 by Exxon, and a contract was signed in 2016.  It was the opening of Guyana’s Pandora’s Box, our first troubles.  To his credit, Excellency Granger wanted to change the contract soon afterwards, as its disadvantages become more obvious, conspicuously more ominous for Guyana.  Ideas about changing the contract signaled the beginning of the end for him and his party.  When a CIA base in the Northwest was resisted, it was over for the PNC -dead meat.  I thought, wrote, of a military base: wrong.  Guyanese could now imagine what kinds of activities would have originated in the Northwest and directed against whom and where.

Quietly, over a dozen American generals came here for “training” of ranking Coalition people.  No sonic boom, no social media flurry, came from that development.  When David Granger became unsettled at the injustices in the contract, Ambassador Lynch received her orders, and set about her rounds.  Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo became the darling courted.  There was none readier than he himself: say the word about what is expected, what must be done, and it is done. For clarity, this is not about heroes or villains; it is Guyanese leaders (and their Palace Guards) remade into cartoon characters, such as Fred Flintstone (lost, always several steps behind), Yosemite Sam (all blabber and bluff), and Daffy Duck (all gyrating, but losing).  The only hero is Bugs Bunny, and he is American.  It is the reality of oil, Exxon’s vast reach, American power, and what the confluence of the two delivers, means, for a backward, divided society like Guyana.

Now to Exxon; the company has operating budgets bigger than most countries.  Think of that, for a start.  Exxon has the caliber of experts, departments, research capabilities, and general staffing that are all on a grander, better, and wiser scale than most countries, with only the G-20 group exempted.  The rest of the world remains.  Exxon had the swagger and strength to reject White House help during its Russian challenges.  Exxon had the clout to get the US Coast Guard Commander (sent as the White House emissary) recalled from Alaska in the early days of the Exxon Valdez oil spill catastrophe.  But, recall that Exxon had a CEO, Rex Tillerson, who became US Secretary of State.  An interesting side vibe: Mr. Tillerson was scheduled to visit Guyana, and abruptly cancelled just the day before his arrival, and within hours the announcement came of his appointment as US Secretary of State in the Trump Administration.  However pondered, there is this irrefutable fact: the economic and other interests of Exxon and the United States of America are one and, at times, inseparable.  Those coalesced in the form of the perfect storm that descended upon Guyana. Quickly, I think that Exxon even has an emissary to the Vatican.

Now, when David Granger got in the way of the Exxon contract, America got him out of the way.  Guyanese: be done with the bilge, garbage, and offal about democracy and free and fair.  Burnham used to claim those also, braced by his American sponsorship.  Then, there is Bharrat Jagdeo, who may be many things, few of them bright or positive, but he is no dummy, no hick, no neophyte.  Jagdeo is very aware of the fate of David Granger (and the PNC), which is why he mangles himself into roadkill and mincemeat.  Jagdeo plays American ball, plays the fool (that he is not) for Exxon and America.  He will do anything, stoop to the lowest, make himself smallest, weakest, and shiftiest, not to have Granger’s fate fall on his head.  When Granger resisted being an American flunkey and cutthroat, the Yanks found a willing taker in Jagdeo.  It is why he does all the heavy lifting for Exxon, piles the dirty work of the company on his own people.  His comrades, some of whom know the score a little, are there to lend every support, regardless of its lack of the national, no matter how economically devastating to Guyanese. They all work overtime to stave off that fate by any means, at all costs.  Look at Jagdeo, and there is proof, there is pathos of ambition.  It is how power corrodes first, then confines to the smallest denominator.  As said, high stakes and hire wire acts.

Returning to Exxon, I press Guyanese to think.  Decide for self how our border matter landed at the ICJ, and how much is going on behind the scenes for specific outcomes.  Part is to solidify Exxon’s hold here; another is to get even with Venezuela. I have one tiny snippet, a spare nugget, for contemporaries.

Former Ambassador Brent Hart and outgoing Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch are about to share space in a most intriguing place.  It is appointments to US Southern Command and at Special Operations Control.  I wonder if they were ever diplomats in the professional sense to begin with, considering these career postings.  Things and people fall in and out of place (Granger, Ali, Jagdeo, Norton, Hart and Lynch).  In sum, the richness of a special kind of resource curse, as lived by Guyanese, with most of them totally, serenely oblivious.  It is why I often contemplate, how much of what goes on here would succeed, survive, if Guyanese are together.

(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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• America, blight, definitions, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths

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