Activists take a stand, will Pres. Ali please stand

Jan 17, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

(Kaieteur News) – The band may be small, but its members spoke with big voices, gave every impression of big hearts.  Spirits that will not be extinguished.  A timeless boldness that is priceless, and of which this country needs so much.  Guyana could use a few more like Danuta and Vanda Radzik, sisters of the soil, sisters under the sun in front of the US Embassy on Duke Street.  Alongside stood Sherlina Nageer and Candacy McEwan, the latter of Trans United Guyana.

And, to roundoff the group, there was the ubiquitous and tireless, Chris Ram.  A tiny setting populated by Guyanese made of steel.  Where is Pres. Ali?  What has the PPP Government said, stood for, other than emptiness, what is meaningless?  This is the first call: Pres. Ali, please stand up, sir.  Say something of substance, Excellency.  Anything that reinforces the feeling that Guyana is still a sovereign nation, with its own voice.

Partisans may rail at the bunch in front of the American Embassy.  Who are they, why are they rattling cages best left alone?  Permit me.  Those same names also came out publicly to protest (peacefully) against Russian aggression.  If against Russia, why not the USA?  I have grown jaded by words like colonialism and imperialism, but not when uttered by Vanda Radzik.  Those two words with a long, abominable history for colored peoples sounded just right considering the circumstances next door, and the way that intrusions and encroachments, and insertions and extractions, have all played out.  If that is not imperialism minus top hat and cloak, then what is?  It was imperialism and aggression most naked.  For the second time, my appeal goes out: will President Ali please step forward, take the microphone?  For a leader prone to rushing rapids of verbal pugnaciousness, he has been curiously reticent.  It’s unlike the leader that Guyanese have come to know, so numb they have become from his salvos of rhetorical bombast.

Despite the fiery representations, the protest was always calm and cool, and never less.  The security flotilla circling round and round that city block expanse was largely overdone.  Since it was before the US Embassy, US security assets had to be engaged.

Now it is Ms. Radzik again: “Trump does not care about Guyana or the government or us the people of Guyana. It is only the oil that he is concerned about and he wants to do everything to protect his interests in our oil; Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the whole world and he is determined to pocket those for the USA. What right have they to our sovereignty and our resources? They belong to us!”

Spoken like a warrior, a true activist; one that pours her heart into an issue.  One taking the lead and registering the positions of the others in that short line of women (and one man) with placards that draw attention to the abominations that happened just out of Guyanese sight and earshot.

Mr. Ram, the lone male, in the protest line, spoke to international law and democracy.  “I don’t think one has any doubt that this is about democracy. In fact, if it was democracy the US government would not be doing what it is doing. They have admitted that this is about oil and we have to be mindful that we ourselves are a newly developing oil economy.”

Since the removal of Maduro is all about oil, and in the brazen manner almost cavalier manner in which it executed, Guyana needs to be alert (and smart), given that it probably has more oil than has been disclosed to it, and it is a minnow compared to Venezuela.  Citizen-activists are sharing their outrage at how Plan Maduro was executed.  Why this time of all times has Pres. Ali created space to put on a voiceless disappearing act.  Not even a courtesy word that he has all but abandoned the demands of courageous democratic leadership at this hour of test.

Word came to me that Guyana attended an OAS meeting convened for the express purpose of discussing Venezuelan developments.  The Guyana representation not only sat on their hands; they say on their mouths.  It is a startling irony that men like Ali and Nandlall are always screeching about international law, yet when push comes to shove, they wrap their tails around their legs, slink away.  Guyanese activists took a stand.  Pres. Ali must show he is of substance, not exemplary in the weak, cheap, and shallow.

(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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• activists, Danuta, GHK Lall, Vanda Radzik

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