Intention and expansion

Dec 15, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

---

(Kaieteur News) – What is the real meaning of that Statement of Intent (SOI) signed by Guyana and the US?  Did the Ali PPP Government just sign what is almost as binding as a mutual security pact, with defense guarantee provided by the US?  In that stealthy, backdoor maneuver, is the understanding by those around that signing table, that a foreign military alliance was just sealed, through what looks like a treaty costumed as an SoI, and with official blather about expanded military exercises?

I say it straight up and right away, so that everyone has in writing where I stand.  Guyana needs the USA next to it, giving a hard stare at Maduro and his clique of adventurers in Caracas and give them other ideas about territorial grabbing.  Guyana’s territory.  If not other ideas, then a long pause, at least to facilitate some reflection and adjustment of ambitions.  Second, of all the heavies out there, and available to Guyana’s cause, I will take the USA, 11 out of 10 times.  Now that that’s clear, I proceed.

The US is already on a war footing.  The world has seen this massing of forces before, from Afghanistan to Kuwait to Iraq, and now in the vicinity of Venezuela.  A show of overwhelming force was what General Colin Powell called such escalatory and preparatory actions in readiness for war.  What else could such be, deterrents?  But before the knot is tightened around Senor Maduro’s neck, Guyanese heads have to be worked on; massaged, twisted around, and made to see light and right.  Might, also.  With respect, General Omar Khan can talk cheese, but he knows that the sum of his arsenal and assembled manpower is just that: cheese.

For his part, Pres. Ali dug deep and found a diplomat dormant.  A peace pipe, he smokes.  He understands something else: with America in Guyana’s corner, Venezuela stays in its own corner, reduced to boasting as though it is some wrestler at a weigh-in for one of those extravaganzas.  He also knows that with Americans coming here and presenting their programs, his only choice is to get with that program.  Twist it or dilute it, and it’s still a war program.  Those gunboats are not out there for fishing, nor those aircraft up there for sightseeing.  Thus, it was time for putting pen to paper and committing Guyana to America’s undeclared war.  Ostensibly for combatting drug running, and ousting the whole Maduro cabal.  So, now there is the Guyana-America alliance.  SOI is the polished, almost neutral, nearly innocuous label affixed to what is nothing but a war plans that traps Guyana in the role of active partner, condoner, to the heightening of tensions to white hot temps.

I think the PPP Govt had no choice.  But I also think that the PNC is sensible to sound the alarm.  Whatever this SOI is, share it with all Guyanese.  It is their sons and daughters that will have to make sacrifices; their tears wept.  It will be the lot of all Guyanese (sans fat cats) to feel the brunt of stringencies and sabotages that could result from any deterioration of where matters stand currently.  The Guyanese people have a right to know and need to know.  After all, it is their behinds on the line, in one form or the other.  Come clear with that SOI.  Come clean with the fullness of its commitments that are owned by this nation.  This is not a moment or a development for the usual sly games that have characterised PPP governance and leadership for donkey years.  Too much is at stake.  Too little is known.  And with every known, there are many unknowns.  Here’s one: what’s the role of Guyanese in any accidental belligerent incident?  And another: how about Guyana’s territory and its utilisation of for launching probing or intel gathering ops?

This cannot be business as usual; bigger than the regular sleazy domestic politics.  This is about the present, future, and lives of Guyanese.  From the frontline as part of joint exercises or, by luck of the draw, around a gas station; or any other location well-scoped out and set about.  Thinking like the back-to-the-wall Venezuelan strongman, with that SOI, Guyana has gone from neighbor in the way to adversary coming his way.  A man driven to desperation can be a man that becomes unhinged.  He has assets here.  His head in in a vise.  The long and short of this SOI signed is that Guyanese need to know, have a right to know, and must know what their government committed them to with the US.

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

---

• expansion, GHK Lall, intention, Statement of Intent, US military

---