Guyana has mislaid its Independence

Oct 29, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – Yesterday, at the United Nations General Assembly, Guyana abstained from voting for a resolution calling for an end to the American economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba. It was a small act, requiring neither courage nor conviction. Yet it said more about the condition of Guyana’s foreign policy.

For decades, Guyana supported the removal of the embargo. The position was not an eccentricity of one government or the indulgence of a particular political party. It belonged to a larger understanding of what independence was supposed to mean. A small country, with a small population and limited resources, could not command the world’s attention through military strength or economic power. It had to rely on principle, consistency and the authority that comes from treating the powerful and the weak by the same standards.

That understanding now appears to be in retreat. One did not need yesterday’s vote to discover the direction in which Guyana was travelling. The signs have been accumulating. What was once a foreign policy informed by the experience of colonialism increasingly appears to be a policy organised around the wishes of Washington.

The question is why. Is the United States holding some secret over Guyana’s leaders? Is there something they know, something they fear may be disclosed, that has made them vulnerable to pressure? Or has the relationship with Washington become so important to the government that the possibility of displeasing the Americans is now enough to determine a decision?

The United States has interests. It pursues them with the persistence expected of a great power. American diplomacy is not a charitable enterprise, and Washington does not need to apologise for seeking advantages for itself. The responsibility of Guyana’s leaders is to recognise this elementary truth and negotiate accordingly.

If they cannot, the consequences extend beyond Cuba. A government that appears unable to resist pressure from one powerful country may find that other powerful countries begin to calculate what concessions can be extracted from it.

Weakness, once perceived, does not necessarily purchase protection. It may instead invite demands. In international relations, the price of dependence can increase precisely because the dependent party has demonstrated its willingness to pay.

The irony of yesterday’s vote was particularly striking. King Charles is visiting Guyana starting today.  Britain, despite its close strategic relationship with the United States, voted in favour of ending the embargo. Britain has its own history of imperial power and its own interests in the world. Yet it was prepared, on this occasion, to maintain a position that Guyana abandoned. The contrast speaks for itself.

Trinidad and Tobago went further, voting against the resolution. The Caribbean, which has often spoken in the language of solidarity, is now displaying the divisions that great-power pressure can produce. Each government must answer for its own decision.

 

Cuba won the vote, with 130 countries supporting the resolution, 17 opposing it and 25 abstaining. The result was less favourable than in previous years, reflecting a concerted American campaign to change governments’ positions. The resolution is not binding, and it will not, by itself, end the embargo. Nevertheless, the vote remains a measure of international opinion. Guyana’s abstention placed it among the countries that declined to support the call for an end to the policy.

Would Forbes Burnham or Cheddi Jagan have made the same choice? Both men understood, in different ways, the importance of independence in a world where small countries are easily treated as instruments of other people’s ambitions. One need not idealise either man to recognise that the experience of colonial rule had taught their generation something about the dangers of allowing external powers to determine the limits of national judgment.

Guyana has draped itself in shame by abandoning a position it maintained for so long. And so the question remains: does Washington possess something that Guyana’s leaders fear

A country does not lose its independence in a single vote. It loses it by degrees, each concession made to avoid an argument, each principle set aside to preserve a relationship, each silence offered where an explanation is owed. Eventually, the habit of deference becomes indistinguishable from policy.

Yesterday’s abstention may have been only one vote in a large assembly. But for Guyana, the real question is whether it was an isolated decision or another step towards a foreign policy in which the country retains the outward forms of sovereignty while surrendering the freedom to exercise it.

(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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• Cuba, independence, Peeping Tom, United Nations General Assembly

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