PM Phillips said so, not I

Dec 23, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

---

(Kaieteur News) – “With sovereignty comes responsibility…the most solemn of these responsibilities is the obligation to safeguard our national sovereignty and preserve, protect and defend our territorial integrity.”  Impressive and inspiring.  More than normal because of the speaker’s rare elevation, almost that a basketballer.  Take a bow, Prime Minister Mark Phillips.  If it were any other, armchair general would have applied.  But not the PM, who is a real-life retired general.  If anyone has a clue about sovereignty and responsibility and associated obligations, there is PM Phillips.  He spoke in the context of territorial integrity, and that expectation, irreversible commandment to defend to the death.  Bravo, man general!  Spoken like a true solider.  With his permission, I take those same words and fit them to another national context that has similar searing standing.  Or should have.

“With sovereignty come responsibility…”.  Appreciate if that wisdom could be whispered to Pres. Ali.  Vice Pres. Jagdeo.  The cabinet.  The Speaker of the House.  There is stirring border patriotism, up to and including great personal sacrifice.  And there is the fiercest patriotism that must be embedded in natural resource protection.  Whatever has to be tabled, relinquished, if necessary, let it be.  Power is one.  Retention of power by any means, shouldn’t be about surrendering the obligations that accompany sovereignty, its inheritance.  I started to write betrayal of leadership obligations, abscondment for self-preservation and maintenance of the political status quo, but abandoned.  Xmas does that to me.

It is a sacred right to defend the land against all comers.  Perhaps, Mr. Phillips, a political holy man, can educate Guyanese, as to why that same sacred obligation to defend the fruits of that same land (and attendant seas) does not command the same call to duty.  Doesn’t exist.  In avoiding putting PM Phillips on a spot, I ease into this lesson, with his own words pilfered for background, basis.  Sanctity of contract.  Clearly, undoubtedly, inarguably, sanctity of contract currently vanquishes sanctity of sovereignty.  The same sovereignty and all those duties that PM Phillips thoughtfully specified.  It is my immovable position that the call to preserve and protect territorial integrity must extend to and energise the preservation and protection of this nation’s natural resource birthright.  No matter the power of Exxon and its daunting imperial projection, a full fight must be waged.

I offer what should find favor with an old general in the still youthful PM.  When a mighty foe cannot be overcome conventionally, then preservation and protection of national assets (inviolable borders, sacrosanct family gifts) must be undertaken by nonconventional ways.  Should I say a scorched earth stand?  I shudder, but the type of irregular combat that fits the situation, is to the advantage of the shorthanded.  Pres. Ali may be lost in his blissful fantasist world.  But not former presidents Donald Ramotar, Bharrat Jagdeo, and David Granger.  Here is a name that should ring a bell to General Phillips, all those former presidents.  General Vo Nguyen Giap.  And another Ho Chi Minh.  Point made, lesson over.

Sanctity of contract is to surrender all those noble responsibilities of which PM Phillips spoke so glowingly relative to territorial integrity.  Sanctity of contract, I believe, represents the worst in what is cowardly.  Sanctity of contract is a king abandoning his post without so much as hard stare in his direction. Of what value is this patented farce of defending borders, of preserving national dignity, when there is the groveling, rolling over and lying as if dying before a feared foe, without a finger lifted?  Words and postures for the sake of both.  They wear rather thinly, Mr. PM.  If there can be this shameless kowtowing at the feet of Mr. Woods and his Viceroy, Mr. Routledge, then what intestinal sturdiness, what innovative sagacity can be brought to bear against a formidable and rampaging Maduro?  Talk is easy and talk is cheap.  When a considerable portion of this nation’s energy is misused against Guyanese freethinkers held as hated enemies, then not the best is left for the machinations of a man like Maduro.

Sad to say, and to my dismay, when PM Phillips spoke from one side of his mouth, he went off halfcocked and came out half-baked.  A man who tells half the story.  Merry Christmas, PM Phillips, sir!

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

---

• defend, GHK Lall, Mark Phillips, sovereignty, territorial integrity

---