Partnership or slave ship

Jun 29, 2025 Editorial, News

Kaieteur News – Whatever has to be done will be done. To preserve Guyana’s relationship with the U.S. At any cost, by any means, whatever the risk, the Guyana-US relationship is paramount to the point of being sacred. The Guyanese who made that oath several times over was none other than President Irfaan Ali. According to his words, it is that kind of special partnership between the two countries. We take note of this, and wonder whether this is a true partnership, or nothing but Guyana’s new slave ship.

“We want to let you know that we do not take friendship and the partnership that we’ve built over the last five years… like a lot of work has gone into building these partnerships, and as a country, we must ensure we do nothing to risk this partnership. We must do nothing that will put these partnerships that we have worked so hard to develop at risk.” The words of President Ali stated at the U.S. function celebrating 249 years of American Independence gain more energy when repeated: “We must do nothing that will out these partnerships that we have worked so [hard] to develop at risk.”

We acknowledge the compelling factors that demand a close relationship between Guyana and the U.S. In thinking through the president’s words on that grand occasion before the U.S. ambassador and her honoured guests, there was a sense that couldn’t be shaken. Guyana’s president, a sovereign head-of-state, was less concerned about partnering, and more engaged in creating the best impression possible.

There is no disagreement at this paper that the best possible relationship with the U.S. is vital to Guyana’s interests, even to its continued existence as an untouched and undivided nation. But Guyana also has the dignity of being a sovereign nation, and that has to mean something. It should not be so cheap that it is bargained or surrendered so breathlessly to American dictates and priorities. Focusing on President Ali’s own words, we find a warning and cowering willingness towards partnering with that which is enslaving. What does the president mean by, “We must do nothing that will put these partnerships that we have worked so hard to develop at risk?” What could he have meant, what signal was he giving under silvery lights and so unambiguously? From our perspective, so recklessly and so self-degradingly, too. It calls for going below the surface gloss, with probing and dissecting in an attempt to flesh this out.

At the head of the biggest table in Guyana stands the biggest elephant. It is ExxonMobil, and its mere shadow has been enough to cause shivering in the PPPC Government camp. From President Ali to Vice President Jagdeo to Ambassador Hinds (also a former president and prime minister), the chorus has been crystal and sweet and flawless. ExxonMobil is feared and treasured, and the best expression of self-preservation is to walk around the company on sly tiptoe. There is one way that surpasses all others in the eyes of ExxonMobil, in the strategic visions and economic interests of the U.S. It is those three words that hang around the necks of Guyanese like a rope. Who has been better than President Ali in selling, pronouncing, and backing “sanctity of contract?” Who has reduced himself to being a man of straw, and a leader lacking in the required essence, when ExxonMobil has to be faced? Time and again, it has been Guyana’s President Ali, a leader now content to creep and crawl before the US and the world, with “we must do nothing…to put these partnerships…at risk.”

Does this mean that if the interests of Guyanese have to be sold for next to nothing to maintain the partnership, then it will be done? Guyanese interests, their destiny and prosperity, are exposed to the greatest economic risks conceivable, and there was their president virtually endorsing that reality. Whatever the risk to this country and its citizens, most of them poor and struggling, the ExxonMobil and US relationships come first, must never be risked. This is how a country confirms that it languishes sickeningly on the bartering block of political butchers.

The question is repeated: partnering with the U.S. or sucking up to it?

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Editorial, partnership, President Irfaan Ali, slave ship, U.S. and Guyana

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