Other countries’ people

Jan 13, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – Note is taken of Guyana-US talks about this country accepting the citizens of other countries here (Demerara Waves, Jan 05, 2026).

It is polite to call that process talks, which may already have concluded. Guyana gets to look good: it is locked in discussions with the mighty USA about taking those human beings for which the US is seeking a dumping ground. Guyana is perfect. Not due to its vast spaces and great opportunities; nor its wonderful climate that is very healthy for folks in need of rehabilitation. Guyana is perfect for one and one reason only: it can’t say NO!

Because Excellency Nicole D. Theriot was part of the Demerara Waves caption, I didn’t want to dismiss outright the talk about “talks.” What talks, may I ask? The issue is when they start to arrive, and how many were decided upon, with Guyana having no say. It’s the nature of the so-called special relationship between the US and Guyana.

Special in that it should remind still thinking Guyanese of that Exxon oil contract. People all over the world also call that special, because it is so one-sided. It so handcuffs and hogties Guyana, with leaders helpless and reduced to mere messenger boys and smiley faces, as if they are emojis; or in the throes of some rictus interval. To their credit, local leaders, regardless of the political party to which belong, have tried to look like men, walk like men, and talk like men. I salute them for trying, when the cards are so stacked against them.

Now I return to my earlier inquiry: what choice does Guyana and President Ali have? No is neither an option nor an answer. Either way it is suicidal, and that’s a potent that this country has to swallow. Guyana can try that, and then check the skies (and the seas) to determine to which far horizons its Air Force safety net has vanished, as if this country has suddenly become the Bermuda Triangle. Enter Venezuela. This is a big game played by big boys with big guts and big ideas. If Guyana’s Pres. Ali cannot utter one quiet word of departure (not disapproval, not disagreement) about the manner in which the head of a sovereign nation is airlifted, as though a bag of oil, then it is questionable about how much say he has in the citizens of other countries being dumped here. Guyana doesn’t have a choice, really.

I will go out on a limb and assert that the talks were over before they started, and for a simple reason. The US studied what was before its people. Tallied up the matrixes. Weighed which countries would put some resistance, and then, viola, which countries stand as sitting ducks, and are waiting to be picked off. To say this differently, from a US point of view, there is Guyana, and it is duty bound, on the pain of its own self-destruction to take as many people as are stuffed into planes and packed off to GT. A nice bucket of turkeys, those are. This national oil patrimony, of which I hear so much, has now mutated into a plague on Guyana’s house. Everybody wants it. Guyanese, by and large, can’t get it. But it can be, and is, used to hold this country to ransom. Instead of the oil enriching, it has made a dependent of this country, with the US holding the Gerber Baby formula bottle.

The issue at hand is not if Guyana will absorb of these whatever citizens they are called. The issue is how many, and when the shipments of live human cargo will start. Since it is a New Year, I will be kind and give to Pres. Ali and his government that they have a number in mind. Unfortunately, it is my belief that the US has already made that call, and they have a piece of paper waiting for Excellency Ali to sign on the dotted line. He may have a fit when he sees those zeros that are not loan dollars, but people that are part of Planned Parenthood Guyana. The showman will have one of those rare moments, where he must try his best to be a serious man. If there is any Guyanese, who truly believes that Americans like Secretary Marco Rubio have any two-way conversations with the likes of Guyana in mind relative to this acceptance issue, then they just haven’t lost their heads. It confirms that they never had one in the first place.

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Demerara Waves, Excellency Nicole D. Theriot, not disagreement, not disapproval, US and Guyana, Venezuela

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