Twilight of the generals

Jan 25, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

---

Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

 Kaieteur News- Something is wreaking havoc with the respiratory systems of a tiny minority in Guyana’s population.  I am recommending that the local Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) don its hazmat suits, get on the job, and conduct the proper tests.  All public offices occupied by current and previous members of the Officer Corps of the Guyana Defence Force should be prioritized for visits, so that ordinary Guyanese can obtain an understanding of what is infecting our former army men.  The higher they were in the national army, and the higher the office held in civilian life, the thicker the problems they seem to encounter.  With breathing.  With walking a straight line.  With coming up with a clean and convincing story about things in which they are involved, have some level of responsibility.

Less than half a decade ago, there was His Excellency David Arthur Granger.  The cold winds blew in from the north and knocked his house down.  But he stood still like Horatio Nelson on the bridge of HMS Victory and refused to recognize his mortal predicament.  Unlike Vice Admiral Nelson, Brigadier General (ret’d) Granger should think twice about saying, “Thank God, I did my duty.”  There is conspicuous gallantry in the line of duty, and then there comes that time to take a walk.  Oftentimes, one can stay, like that unnamed boy, on the burning deck too long.  In the time of David Granger, he had his circle of colonels and what have you, and they all indicated some strain of the air impacting their thinking.

There have been other generals, who in their post Guyana army days have limped through life, as though they are suffering from old war wounds gained in heroic battle.  The higher they go in civilian life, the more knotted their minds and troubled their passage; there is always more than a strong whiff of the tantalizing about their presences.  It could be from what’s in the rich ground of Guyana.  It could be what comes out from under the sea and ends up in New York, before it takes a boat and docks at Port Georgetown, Guyana.  Did they, or didn’t they?  Are they the genuine article, or are they phantoms with specially assigned roles in the local political operas?  Operas that are part comedy, many more parts tragedy.  Thus, they end up flitting from crisis to caricature, which doesn’t come with a uniform, but does have an additional medal or two waiting for loyal service.  It would be better if no one asked service to and for whom.

Now, there is the latest incarnation from the long, murky twilight of Guyana’s generals.  There is Brigadier General (ret’d) Mark Anthony Phillips, Prime Minister and 1^st Vice President of Guyana.  Most respectfully I assure everyone, I ask: what kind of army was he running as chief of staff?  Using his prime ministerial portfolio and that of responsibility for the controversial, kiss-of-the-devil, Wales Gas-to-Energy project as the standard, something is terribly amiss.  Not once, not twice, but thrice, Prime Minister Phillips has failed to step forward and deliver as he did promise.  Mark Anthony Phillips is not just the prime minister; this officer and gentleman is a former general of the national army.  When I think of those three lapses, failures, deficits, I am tempted to catch the next plane out of here for fear of Nicolas Maduro and his conquistadores held in check by my fellow Americans.  Thank God that I still have a few friends.  Well, at least, I hope so, considering the target practice I have made of them from time to time.  But if Prime Minister Mark Anthony Phillips was operating in the same sloppy and slippery manner as Chief of Staff, then this country could have been more than under the seawall.  It would be speaking Spanish with a Venezuelan accent.

What happened to friends, Guyanese, countrymen, Prime Minister Mark Anthony Phillips?  How quickly hast thou forgotten us, abandoned us, and left us to our own devices.  And over something as simple and small as that US$2 billion gas-to-energy plant and the papers for it.  What would be the predicament of Guyanese if it was for something much bigger?  Something like that multibillion (Yankee) Natural Resource Fund, my liege?  Ah, more generals in the mix.  Here I was taking comfort in the fact that the army can make men out of mud, and Brigadier General Mark Anthony Phillips had to go and make my hand fall.  Like London Bridge, it has been falling ever since.  For two sheets of paper to be laid before parliament, Prime Minister Phillips found himself doing his best imitation of listing two sheets to the wind.

What have they done to Guyana’s generals, my esteemed generals?  To where have all the real generals gone?  There was a time when Guyana’s national army was all spit and polish and substance.  From all indications, the last two are away without leave (AWOL), with the spit all that remains.  There is still hope for there is Dr. Zhivago in barracks.  Then, I just remembered in the nick of time, he was in The Night of the Generals also.  As they say, May God bless Guyana.  I give up.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper.)

(Twilight of the generals)

---

• David Arthur Granger, Environmental Protection Agency, Guyana Defence Force, hard truths, HMS Victory

---