Guyana the ward of the world

Nov 25, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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(Kaieteur News) – Thirty years after democracy’s return to Guyana, the EU hands over this year’s final elections report.  On each occasion that the EU, Carter Center, OAS, and others have to get elbow deep in Guyana’s elections, it says how much this country is still trapped in the same place that it has been for the last seven decades.

For anyone or any place or anything to be at a standstill for seven decades must rank as a tragedy made up of countless catastrophes.  In welcoming the EU and its final report, which shouldn’t have any surprises (only newly discovered tricks), and alongside other issues in this country, one conclusion becomes blindingly obvious.  Guyana is not a country.  Guyana is a ward of the world.  This makes Guyanese dependents on the charity of others.  Think of these matters.

In thanking the EU for its efforts during the last elections, I ponder regarding why Guyana still needs foreign elections cops.  Clearly, Guyanese at the top don’t trust one another, but they still turnaround and say ‘trust me.’  It is always either the Black man’s or Indian man’s tendencies, faults, visions, and all deformed.  The other, not both; or self.  That is the substance of Guyana’s governance and leadership, and Guyana is still called a country.  There is no leadership will for consensus and carving out a common vision and a common place as a destination.  The inevitable fallback comfort is what I call the orphan’s syndrome.  Somebody will come forward; someone will take care of the business at hand, whatever it is.  And so they have, despite the remaining deficits and the substantial unease that linger.  This cannot be the quality of Guyanese existence, except that it is.

Example One: a child dies in mysterious circumstances, and something as routine as an autopsy degrades into a national crisis.  The Foreign Legion has to be summoned.  At the end of that process, Guyanese still believe in their gut that something is missing.  The challenge to that is a country is run on a combination of spiritual courage, cerebral vigor, much more.  The reality is that Guyana lacks all of those at leadership levels, leaving this country as a ward of the world, and Guyanese as dependents on the care of others.  In a country this rich in natural resources, there is this dependency by leaders and citizens on the world, like destitute friends and third cousins.  This mentality is so ingrained now that foreign helping hands are taken for granted: expected and accepted.  Whether elections or autopsies, this is where Guyana is.  Thus, the EU came with its postmortem results.

Example Two: gold smuggling was denied first, and then smuggling friendships disowned.  One leader champions GRA and GPF investigations.  Another leader is fired up with newly discovered zeal: ‘we are going to come and get you’ was his warning to the mining sector, a generous donor community.  I present to Guyanese, their Teflon Man Number One, and Teflon Man Number Two.  The locals who didn’t know nothing, did not know nobody, relative to gold smuggling, are now afire with righteous zest.  But like national elections and autopsies, who is it that does the probing, the real investigating?  Foreigners, with Americans rising to the occasion.  Without OFAC, there is no gold smuggling.  With the outcome of a Federal Grand Jury in Florida, gold smuggling is Teflon Man One and Teflon Man Two highest priority.  Americans had to tell them about gold smuggling and tax evasion, before they came to their senses and grudgingly agreed that those exist.  Before, ruling politicians had no such knowledge, no such relationships.  They must think that Ambassadors Lynch and Theriot are country bumpkins.  Note how that the 2025 EU report touched upon strict campaigning rules.  Money features, and long before elections.  Where millions are donated, onerous rules are dismantled, and gold smuggling doesn’t exist.  Go back to May 2021, and there was one Teflon Man banishing it -no evidence.  The Americans inform Guyana otherwise.

Example Three: drug smuggling is no longer a scourge.  Ask the Yanks who left Manhattan, parachuted into Matthews Ridge.  The Guyana Police was so trusted that it was spared the trip.  Ask the Europeans who intercepted one big shipment after another out of Guyana.  Point is, without foreign intervention Guyana is the law-abiding nation of which Teflon Man Number Three from Carmichael Street loves to boast. A regular entertainer is he.

Example Four: the current matter of a Convenor for the EITI has hit the ceiling fan.  The call is for foreign intervention.  No give, no gain.  No moving, no breaking new ground.  No thinking, no maturing.  A warm welcome to foreigners holding Guyanese hands, cleaning their noses, and helping them across the road.  Guyana is the ward of the world.

(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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• Carter Center, EU, GHK Lall, OAS, Ward

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