Fourth of July

Jul 04, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Fourth of July in Guyana is now better than Fourth of July in America.  Just check with Exxon’s Alistair Routledge and his posse operating here by the equator.

It’s a rollicking time for the swashbuckling Americans celebrating Fourth of July every day 120 miles offshore Guyana.  Want to mess with we, Nicky?  Go ahead, make that day happen, we are ready.  Remember what was just delivered on Teheran.  Lest I forget my manners amid the heady, foamy, excitement generated by this day, I say Happy Fourth to all my fellow American adventurers in this Oil Atlantis close to the Amazon.  Don’t forget the fate of that city of legend, so please let Guyanese have that full parent company guarantee.

Hoist a cold one for me around those barbeques.  Sorry, no Bud for me.  I am more into the working man’s brew: a green bottle from Scandinavia that has the proud name of Heineken.  On this American Independence Day, there is that biggest bundle of joy: a nation that is a total dependent.  Exxon has claimed Guyana as an exemption on its taxes, or a big, fat credit, at least.  For what it did not pay a dime.  Is that some kind of fancy business or what?  The Americans (Exxon) say that it has the binding legal seal of a contract.  Wherever no corporate tax is legal, not a high crime, it should be made one.  Retroactively.

Speaking of grandfathering, at 249 years old, America is a great-great grandfather multiplied by something.  But there is America moving with all the alacrity and agility of youth dropping 30,000-pound bombs from 50,000 feet on dangerous places and sending people running for cover.  In Guyana, the Americans have a whole government (opposition, too) dodging heat, diving underground, while making a valiant pretense of walking between snowflakes.  Only Americans pack the potency of such an uppercut that can make a sitting president, several former presidents, many parliamentarians, almost all the people in the private sector, and civil society in close to its entirety dance on a pinhead, and still have room to spare.  What a people!  What a country!  I speak not of Guyanese.  Me! I am sticking to apple pie, God, mother, country, and Exxon.  Guess which one comes first?

Imagine how America is made great once again.  Even more gloriously, look who is responsible.  What the Russians couldn’t do with their Warsaw Pact, nor the Chinese with their Silk Belt (a porcelain yoke), the Americans have done in the Middle East, cast eyes on Panama, corner India into backtracking, and hold Venezuela on a tight leash.  How great is that for a country that is a shade under two and a half centuries old?  What is to be said of a country still going strong at 249 years young, one that has Guyana’s strongmen (all four of them) eating out of its hands?  I am keeping close tabs on the US Ambassador, Excellency Nicole D. Theriot.  She never speaks a hard word, is rarely seen making the rounds (in the stalking manner of her predecessor), and yet the plenipotentiary’s word is law.

See that contract managing things out on the ocean, boys, keep far from it.  Just be smart, and not get any ideas about it.  That is power.  That’s the presence of a giant.  That is why I am lobbying to be the Exxon Guyana Country Head.  No work, no stress.  The American Ambassador does the heavy lifting.  Recall that the business of America is business.  Or what once applied to General Motors, now applies to Exxon: what’s good for Exxon (GM before) is good for the country [America].  Telling it like it is, that’s what I do.

I am sure that is what the likes of Bharrat Jagdeo and Anil Nandlall (and the other) have heard, which explains why they are always turning sideways, or scurrying for caves to hide themselves.  It doesn’t matter whether it is the New American Century, or the New American World Order, all (and I mean all) of Guyana’s political majors have broken camp, and retreated deeper into impotency’s shadows.  Say oil contract and it’s a copout.  Say ring-fencing, and they wring themselves into rags.  Say taxes, and they develop a tormented look.  Say, Happy Birthday, America! And they knock one other down, in their haste to deliver their gifts.

Oil is the biggest.  Doesn’t matter that it belongs to Guyanese, and not any politician to give.  While Cheddi Jagan was banned from American precincts, his deplorable descendants have red carpets rolled out for them, into which they promptly bury their noses.  It’s their nauseating way of singing, Happy Birthday, America.  America should be retired now.  It can’t, not when Exxon is here.  The best I have is ‘America! America! God shed his grace on thee…’

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

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• Exxon’s Alistair Routledge, ExxonMobil, Fourth of July, GHK Lall

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