US will find ways to work around sanctioned individuals

Sep 22, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Thank you, Excellency Theriot.  The US always does, doesn’t it?  That is, find ways to work around troubling, tricky situations.  From ‘concerns’, as previously articulated by the US Ambassador to Guyana to “find ways” to coexist with the sanctioned Azruddin Mohamed, now of WIN ascendancy, covers much ground.

It is better for Excellency Theriot to tell it in her own words: “I do think we have to wait until the final results, the official results come out. But I can tell you we’ve had OFAC-sanctioned individuals in government in other places in the world, several in fact and we find ways to work around that… You just have to be creative in ways to work around it.”  Creative it will be, and there is none more skilled than the US at coming up with the innovative to facilitate its own interests.  In thinking of this, and the surety of American footsteps in a challenging situation, I can’t help looking at Guyana and that Exxon oil contract.  It is just standing there daunting and seemingly impregnable, because Guyanese political powers from Government to Opposition, with a few lonely and desultory exceptions, dare to think creatively relative to finding ways to working around it.  Going head-on against it is out of the question; but finding ways to circle around it could lead somewhere, once the effort is genuine.  Guyana’s interests are at stake, remember.

Ambassador Theriot is so unlike her predecessor.  As Guyanese know, she doesn’t say much.  But when she does, it has considerable weight.  I continue to try to get the measure of her, knowing that she speaks not for herself, but for the US.  Excellency Theriot first spoke in general terms, then swiftly cut to the chase.  Her words follow, and again they carry much meaning. “We wouldn’t be able to work directly with Mr. Mohamed in any sort of transaction or financial situation…but we could work with the people, the other parliamentarians, I assume he’ll be in parliament and the other parliamentarians and other people on the particular committees that we’re dealing with.”

Mr. Mohamed is part of the sweep of consideration, then he is not.  It is up to a point only, and never directly.  He will have to accept that, which I think is more than a generous development, and learn to live with it.  As a practical matter, what choice does he have?  There is, however, an opening for the WIN group that I discern in the ambassador’s carefully crafted words.  Consider the following: “we could work with the people, the other parliamentarians…”  Note how tight that was.  “We could”, not that we would.  There are no guarantees.  From what I can glean out of this, Mr. Mohamed is forced to operate within the confines of two restraints.  First, he is handcuffed; and, then he is in isolation.  Take it or leave it, buddy.  That’s the way it is, that’s the way it will be.  Now, the challenge for Team Mohamed is how to get creative itself in scoping out ways to work with the Americans.  Or, at least, be in the frame of their good graces, if I may be permitted to say it in such a manner.  Notwithstanding this narrowest of openings in which the Mohamed team has to maneuver, its members should be wise.  That is, don’t get too creative.  Take what is given, and function with it.  Be content.  It is a form of house arrest, but don’t expect more.

In taking in all of this, another lesson peeked through, which Guyanese do well to ponder.  According to the ambassador, direct dealings with Mr. Mohamed is out.  No transaction.  No financial situation.  Clear as midday and hard as steel.  But consideration can be extended to his team relative to parliamentary dealings.  I hope that the private commercial banks in Guyana absorbed that standard, that slice of flexibility.  Though said before, I say it again.  Americans are not superior beings; the sole repository of perspicacity and sagacity.  Supermen and wonder women, when circumstances demand.  But they are not superior beings, infallible.  Guyanese politicians have groveled before the Exxon contract, and Guyanese banks went on bended knee when the OFAC sanctions gave this whole country a chill.  Be men not mice.  Consult and do not self-destruct reputationally.  Whether oil contract reaction (sanctity) or OFAC overkill (sanctions), find ways to work with, work around, the challenges that stand before.

I close with words from Excellency Theriot.  “So, there are ways to work around it, and we will just follow the U.S. law as it prescribes working with OFAC-sanctioned individuals.”  Thanks again, Excellency.  Whatever US laws prescribe.  Guyana, as a sovereign nation, should have some laws of its own.  Let those apply, take precedence, prevail.

(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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• Azruddin Mohamed, GHK Lall, OFAC-sanctioned, sanctions, Theriot, US Ambassador

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