Guyanese leaders better learn from Ukraine

Feb 23, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News– There is a picture that, though a great distance away, is playing out right under the noses of Guyanese.  I hope that all citizens of this Republic, especially politicians from the government and opposition, are paying close attention to what is going on in Ukraine, what has taken on a course of its own.  Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, was in good, comforting American company.  Before he could count from one to three, he found himself all alone, endangered.  After all the partnering with American and sacrificing of blood and treasure, after believing that America had his back, Mr. Zelenskyy is now on his own, with segments of the EU for company.

Overnight, Zelenskyy went from a friend and ally of America to a flawed man and a deadweight to his country and people.  In recent years, there was no one who could have been tighter with America than Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  Outside of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zelenskyy was out there, rallying his troops and people, for a cause that was as much American as it was Ukrainian.  Still is.  Then he found out that changed circumstances rendered he and his people into a pawn on a bigger chessboard.  His interests were now negligible, even expendable.  Grand bargains have been sealed over smaller issues.

What do I think of all this?  How to sum up the swift and startling turn of events now bedeviling staunch American allies from the United Kingdom to the NATO framework on which so much of Europe depends for its defense?  In a nutshell: people and situations change.  In a more expansive and powerful assertion, the words of Lord Palmerston represent the issues, project the visions, in a way that cannot be bettered:

 “Therefore, I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” 

The unequivocal position of the then leading global imperialist power, the British Empire, is now sometimes quietly, other times proudly, claimed as its rightful inheritance by the succeeding American Empire.  In some respects, the US is a more benevolent imitation of the UK, but an imperialist and colonizing power, no less.  Ukraine is on the chopping block because of the games played between the Big Powers.  There is a long history of such high-level maneuvers, such leadership machinations.  Still poor, and still puny, Guyana would exhibit more sense than it has in a long time to take note of Mr. Zelenskyy’s fate and that of Ukraine.

I urge all Guyanese, particularly our leading political sensations, to look at Guyana’s own situation, and be on guard.  I urge further that they look at the wider context of local circumstances, and to do so clinically, relative to the implications of such circumstances.

From my perspective, all the political groups and all the political leaders have cast their lot, wholly and solely, with America.  They have gone too far, kept back nothing in reserve.  It has been all for the good ole USA.  I will not quibble nor object at this time.  But what I put before everyone is the following.  First, Venezuela has almost 30 times the oil that Guyana is reported to have presently.  Second, Venezuela has hundreds of billions of ramshackle oil infrastructure that is begging to be refurbished (up for grabs) tomorrow and not in the next decade.  Third, Venezuela has several hundreds of billions, if not more, of social, banking, and other infrastructure that cry out for restoring and enhancing.  Against this background of opportunity to be had and money to be made hand over fist, I take a fourth position.  Which red-blooded American leader would not retrace steps and decide that the time is now ripe to proceed in a different direction with Venezuela?  Or, to say this differently, which American secretary of state, and his boss, would be insensitive enough and unimpressed enough, not to relook at Venezuela and interpret the circumstances there as the moment to strike?  Economically speaking is what I have in mind.

It is either that, or the Chinese keep on expanding their own economic footprint in Venezuela and right in America’s lake.  Because the Russians have interests beyond ideological ones in Venezuela, and have had that long-awaited meeting of the minds with America (Ukraine), another one could be worked out over Venezuela.  It is not so farfetched as to be unworkable or unacceptable. Everybody get to coexist with their own piece of the Venezuelan action.  Everybody wins, nobody loses.  It is that, or what is the alternative?

Guyana would still be within the American firmament, but as the bridesmaid.  Exxon and Chevron are here, and Chevron is already there, with Exxon beating down doors in DC to get some thawing in the US-Venezuela freeze.  Guyanese leaders may even be forced to work out a settlement with Venezuela; a temporary but long-term peace would result.  It is all business, nothing that’s anti-Guyana or so much as pro-Venezuela.  But unambiguously what is in the best interests of my fellow Americans.  Let’s make a deal.  I’ll take the odds.

(Guyanese leaders better learn from Ukraine)

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

 

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• American company, Guyanese leaders, hard truths, Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy

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