If any Guyanese trusted Maduro, they are in a bad way 

Feb 10, 2024 News, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall…

Kaieteur News – In the aftermath of the Argyle Agreement, droves of Guyanese got carried away.  The PPP Government’s spinning sensations (media machinery) went to work and hailed Guyana’s victory.  I took the road not traveled and settled for the guarded: watch Nicolas Maduro like a rattlesnake.

The rattle will come, the snake uncoiling, and there Guyana stands presently, almost back in the same place.  It troubles that local brethren usually so keen-sighted on political leadership wiles and whims, could have been so relaxed about the socialist usurper from next door.

When Nicolas Maduro develops a clean bone in his body about Guyana’s land, drop a line.  All I ask for is a supporting x-ray.  A CT scan would be better, for then there could be some inspection and evaluation of what goes on in his head, where his mind really is.  The man wants Guyana’s land to be his legacy, and no piece of paper is going to thwart his addictions, get rid of his obsessions.  If there is one thing that he has succeeded in doing relative to Guyana, it is that he has set the standard for all other current and later Venezuelan politicians to follow.  He will not succeed, but his visions and agitations will not be defeated.  They will live on in the hearts of all ambitious Venezuelan politicians.  To do otherwise would be Judas’s kiss: the road to irrelevance and self-destruction.

In all seriousness, my thinking was that the conditions of the Americans for the partial lifting of sanctions would be given a genuine reception by the Venezuelan strongman, some space to allow his country to clamber out of its precarious economic and social straits.  The people would benefit from the reprieve.  In assigning rational thinking and reaction to Senor Maduro, I did not give the proper weight to two vital ingredients for maintaining his crippling hold on his people.

Free and fair, Guyanese call it.  The problem for Mr. Maduro is that the risk of an uprising in the booths could upend his tenure.  His enemies would have him at their mercy, and it is an open freeway as to where that could lead.  Having worn that shoe for so long, any reversal of status quo just could not be allowed to occur.  In a teaspoon, better to go against Americans and incur their wrath (and heavy responsive hand), than to take the very obvious chance that he could be tumbled from his leadership throne.  The second ingredient is that for wily politicians, the people serve as sacrificial pawns only.  The Americans act, and only the people suffer.

Though this may sound callous, even inhuman, the Venezuelans are the best people to work out their own destiny, in their time, and in their way.  My priority is what does this mean for Guyana.  Maduro digging in his heels, drawing a hard line, towards the door held slightly opened by the Americans, cannot mean well for Guyana.  More pointedly, I think that Maduro slammed that door shut in the face of the Americans.  Is it just his determination to retain power at any cost?  Or are there other nefarious elements, such as powerful foreign forces around, giving this man some backbone?  Either way, I foresee the slow road and long road to a resumption of the highwire act engaged in by the desperate Venezuelan leader, and what that means for border related issues.  As has been perfected in this country by a couple of PPP Government leaders, Maduro has made gambling through appeals to the worst elements in his barrios, the lynchpin of his survival strategy.  There is nothing like a juicy border controversy to incite people.

There is no way that he would not know by now of the parade of American military brass in Guyana.  Nor about developments pointing to an ‘air shield’ for Guyana (more on this another time).  I believe that he has factored those in, and their significance, into his considerations, and they do not have the heft of slowing down whatever is going on in his head.  Improving his tactics, certainly, as he is less likely to be so frontal, definitely cagier now.  The last word is that his strategy on and for Essequibo has not changed an iota. All those handshakes meant nothing.  Agreements and discomforts over the actions of some of our CARICOM brothers (which side are they really on?) are now all moot.

This long-playing border controversy disc is now back to the beginning of the first track, and the song provokes that funny familiar unforgotten feeling.  My position is simple: Nicholas Maduro is not to be trusted, should never be depended upon to be an honest neighbor, partner.  Venezuela is not a friend of the Guyanese people.  We are back to square one or poised to return there sooner than later.  My concern is that having thumbed his nose at the Yanks, what opening gambit he will employ in round two of this relationship.

The ICJ is of no weight.  Bilateral talks are favored.  I see a push, a feeler, for some wavering, some compromise from this side of the border.  It is time to accelerate that air shield.  And more of those warships (real ones, not fishing boats).  And advisers, not necessarily orthodox ones.  There it is.  I said it again.

 

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• CARICOM, compromise, Guyanese, Nicolás Maduro, PPP Government leaders, the ICJ, Venezuelan

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