There is only one truth: Essequibo belongs to Guyana

May 28, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

I commenced writing this late in the evening of 25 May 2025. I was quietly reflecting on the day – a day spent indoors as it rained intermittently while I watched all the sports events I really wanted to view, when a text came through informing me that the President had announced the date for Guyana’s next general and regional elections.

I immediately felt the urge to write. I noted quietly too in my reflections, that I’d heard nothing all day about Venezuela’s elections scheduled to take place in an imaginary Venezuelan state called “Guayana Esequiba” – not even a silly whisper on social media where anyone can post anything about any subject at any time.

No news of anyone deserving to be charged with treason or immediately deported back to Venezuela. What I really reflected on, however, was the passionate speech delivered by the President of all 83,000 square miles of Guyana, before a massive crowd at Anna Regina the night before.

The border controversy is not something to be treated lightly. Although it is a matter opened before the International Court of Justice, the controversy nonetheless continues to attract the malevolent attention of President Maduro, as well as that of presumably independent criminal actors operating from the Venezuelan side of the Cuyuni River. They would like to see Guyana split into two–with Venezuela getting the bigger and richer part. The border controversy, however, unites us as Guyanese – and that of itself is a good thing, perhaps just what we need to drive home the point that we are better off all united as Guyanese rather than divided by race.

I do not seriously think that nationals living in the Guyana of today are consciously focused on race as a dividing factor. That may be applicable to some older folk too steeped in old thinking based on outdated propaganda, but I think not generally applicable to persons under age 50. Most local Guyanese are under age 26 anyway. Such a mindset also applies to some persons who have been resident abroad for several decades and have not personally had any reason to revise the way of thinking they left Guyana with, in some cases, never to return to these shores.

Not yet generally happy with their individual shares in our country’s oil wealth, Guyanese see the wealthy apparently getting wealthier. Most Guyanese are also aware of the so-called “oil curse” –but cannot personally afford the luxury of waiting for the benefits of gas-to-energy coming online and inevitably having impact – and are also anxious to experience that better life right now. Those are matters of economics and management of expectations.

Matters of economics have driven millions of Venezuelans to leave their country in search of a better life elsewhere, including Guyana. Guyanese are fortunate to be in the position today of hosting such persons rather than being themselves economic refugees in a foreign land. The Government must manage the expectations of the people or take the risk of spending more sooner than planned.

Embracing ‘One Guyana’ as a unifying catchword that easily gives life to our national motto ‘One People One Nation One Destiny’ would mark a giant first step towards fostering a true sense of unity amongst all Guyanese. The young are uncontaminated by the divisive thinking that had a relatively short heyday in a different era, many decades ago.

In the years to come, Guyana will necessarily welcome many foreigners as infrastructural development gathers progress and our economy expands. Guyanese will become entitled to receive a raft of state-funded benefits that would not be made available to non-Guyanese, but Guyanese should also deserve to be recipients of such benefits because of being true Guyanese, and not merely Guyanese by birth certificate, whilst lacking the burning passion exuded by Dr. Ali at Anna Regina. In concluding his speech, the President unequivocally declared that “There is only one truth; Essequibo belongs to Guyana”.

Yours truly,

Ronald Bostwick

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