American warplanes to protect Guyanese – get some sense, please

May 18, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – It was rolling thunder overhead on Thursday, May 9.  Startled schoolchildren screamed fearfully.  Buildings shook, glasses rattled.  Public buildings nearby went into a wintry hush.  Dead silence reigned.  Guyanese were awed.  American warplanes overhead in an earsplitting, teeth rattling, mind blasting volley of sound.  It wasn’t a movie.  Only real life.  God! It’s good to be American.  As a demonstration of closeness to Guyanese, that American flyover cannot be beaten.  Not by the Commies.  Not by the Chinese.  Not by anybody from anywhere.  Is Mr. Maduro listening?  Madame Ambassador, could arrangements be made for that flexing of intent, of Guy-American solidarity, of US might to fly over Caracas? But were those warplanes really for Guyanese interests?

Approximately eight years ago, I said that there were faults in that Exxon oil contract.  I didn’t like it but already understood it.  The dogs came out in strength: PNC maan!  How times change on a dime.  Today, I have been called anti-Exxon and even anti-American.  Imagine that, and for what?  A little more moolah if you will.  A tad more support from official Washington for Guyana’s commercial cause.  The local dogs of war would have none of it, and on the rampage they went.  State media.  Social media.  Underground media.  Even criminal media.  Ooh, la, la!  I stand my ground, and as that old-time calypsonian warbled aggressively: ‘nobaady gun run me.’  I was right then, and right again now.  Get ready, it is contract conversation time.

In Guyana’s now ancient oil history, I wrote in Stabroek News that the measly 2% royalty is insurance.  The other percentages foregone because of the protection money that had to be paid to Exxon.  It was a mafia shakedown by an American corporate power in its best godfather imitation.  An offer that cannot be refused, a price paid in blood.  What Guyana was leaving on the table was and is blood money.  Pay up, so that others can put out.  Guyana paid up and is still paying through the nose.  Exxon is collecting and poised to drink and drain the blood of Guyana for an extended time in the future.  Those Yankee warplanes that roared overhead are proof.  Payment from Guyana’s oil money to America’s Exxon racketeers.  The biggest rackets are not run by men in Fedoras and guttural accents a la Mario Puzo.  The rackets are usually run out of places like Wall Street, Washington, DC, and Spring, Texas.  If Maduro wants a fight, he can have it.  Just so that Guyanese singing God bless America from the same songbook understand, those screaming eagles that rent the skies of Guyana just around High Noon on Thursday were not for the benefit of Guyanese.  No friends, Guyanese, and countrymen (local women properly recognized)!  It may not have been the 101^st Airborne, but those Hornets were to get a message to Maduro (he got it).  Don’t mess with Exxon, buddy.  Messing with Exxon is messing with America.  The beauty about this one is that Guyana’s oil money is paying for it.

Now, the stink and dutty Guyana politics must be dragged into that fly by, that kickass moment now etched indelibly in Guyanese memory and legend.  When the PNC signed the Exxon contract, the PPP hollered sellout, with lead vocalists Bharrat Jagdeo and Mohamed Irfaan Ali galloping in front.  Who is selling out today?  Who is rolling over and being declared deader than a doormat?  I tender the same Bharrat Jagdeo and Mohamed Irfaan Ali, both doctors now.  Pathologists, they have become.  Watch out Neehaul.  Somebody operated on them, and what Guyanese are left with is the Day of the Living Dead.  Walking Dead.  Falling on face and falling apart dead.  I take no issue with any of this, as it is simply politics.  Where I get contrary is when these two geniuses and the cadre of cadavers following them now plaster over matters with sanctity of contract and that asinine construction called better contract management.  Get a better contract, fellow Guyanese, and it will manage itself.  No need for that all-purpose book titled, Oil Management for Dummies.

The first chapter is as sweet as a sledgehammer to the head: to renegotiate is to get the reassurance of not one damn warplane disturbing the clouds overhead.  Change the contract and the warplanes change course.  When I say things like these in public, bright PPP fellows who have used up all their brain cells to shout anti-Exxon and anti-America.  It is called free speech, folks.  Americans has matured and has learned to manage with vocal and powerful critics coming from all angles.  Just ask Excellency Theriot and Vice Admiral Routledge.  Vice Admiral and Vice President, God help Guyana.  To America the brave and beautiful, a big thanks for those warplanes.  Just get ready for the next sortie and fusillade from this side for subtracting such a steep premium from our oil.  It is about that insurance of warplanes and warships and war hounds in uniforms gracing Guyana with their presences.  It was the blood money paid that is now showing some returns.  Those planes should need a landing place.  Sounds like the creep towards a military base to me.  Like former US President George Bush, I can already hear Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali parroting ‘Bring it on….’  I say also.

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• Chinese, Dead, GHK Lall, Guyanese, understood

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