GECOM Seats: Why discuss, What’s to discuss?

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ TRUTH♦ ACCOUNTABILITY♦ INTEGRITY♦ JUNE 2026                                            OP-ED |POLITICS                              BY: GHK LALL

GECOM Seats: Why discuss, What’s to discuss?

Impressive and inspired are those writings addressing the issue of GECOM commissioners.  There’s a collision with stonewalls.  No PNC commissioner is moving.  The fact of public writings, positions taken, and actions recommended confirms the existence of those stonewalls of resistance. 

Immovable.  Apply whatever force believed necessary.  No PNC leader is flexing.  No PNC commissioner is resigning on his own.  Unbelievable.  There I stand.  Troubling in messages sent.

What message is sent to citizens?  It is okay to lose, but still lining up to claim a prize is right.  Is a right.

Taken to the extreme ends of Guyana’s electoral arithmetic, that claim, that reasoning, would still rule, if not a single seat is held in parliament. 

 Going beyond the beyond, if not a single vote was gained.  Something doesn’t add here.  Loose ends.  Like persistently irritating specks in the eye, they don’t leave.  If I tell fellow citizens to walk straight, play fair, and obey the will of the people, and am still looking to hang on to what is politically weak, what redounds to my discredit, then what the hell am I about?  Who am I?  What standards set for Guyana’s largest demographic, the young?

I have absorbed provisions in the Constitution read this way and that way.  Laws crafted.  Rules made.  And procedures to bolster. 

Whether all three are at their comprehensive best, or lacking in compelling power, there is still, there is always, what’s failsafe.  Failsafe, even tamper resistant.  Because it is of infallible and nonnegotiable standing when it confronts honorable men and women.  The constitution that is written within, deeply and inerasably.  The laws that are carved out and followed.  Because they are of my mind and my hand. 

For those come from the internal texts that form the basis for rules and the procedures that are followed.  Win, lose, or draw.  If when those tests of character come, I am found wanting, hedging, dodging, then I would not only have lost my head.  There would be no face left to lose.                                 The PNC should think carefully of sinking so low.

I hear that there is no such creature as a good loser; that a good loser is a loser.  I disagree.  Today and anytime such a statement is made. 

 What I have said repeatedly to PPP Govt leaders, I re-emphasize to PNC leaders.  A man, a woman, must have a code by which he or she operates.  It’s their personally inscribed Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita.  In good times.  In times that are so tough that there are no tears left.  The spirit is that decimated.  But it is on the tests of the worst times, that the best must come out.  For then is when that code must be followed.  In letter.  Most of all, in its spirit.  In other words, my personal constitution is more stringent, more demanding, more controlling than any national constitution, as robust as such may be.

The now forgotten side of this issue would be the 109,000 Guyanese who voted for WIN.  When they are seen as mere election fodder, inconsequential soft balls to be pitched around, then I submit that all they are worthy of is being kicked from pillar to post, for all the regard that they command.  So, who is representing them around GECOM’s table?  The stronger question is: representing what? 

What generated so much disillusionment?  What led to the electoral experimentation of Guyana’s desperate?  The dreams of Guyana’s scorned and left out, the other side of One Guyana.  When GECOM seats are disputed post September 2025, that’s not a fight for empowerment of poorly represented Guyanese. 

It’s fighting for self-perpetuation, self-empowerment.  Aggregate and summarize.  Neither termination nor resignation.  Therefore, talk of discussions.  Guyanese need, ask for, bread.  They are forced to contend with stones.

More money for Guyanese: Healing oil or Snake oil

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ ACCOUNTABILITY ♦ INTEGRITY♦ TRUTH

OP-ED                                                  BY :GHK LALL-JUNE 2026

More money for Guyanese: Healing oil or Snake oil

I like it.  More money for Guyanese workers.  Not private sector minimum wage workers, regrettably.  If any local workers are due more money, private sector (and public service) minimum wage workers stand out.  More money is for Guyanese in the oil industry.  Well, that’s the call, with PPP Govt Minister Vickram Bharrat doing the honors. A timely push from the government.  But as Guyanese know better than me -waan haan caan klap.  How will the oil companies and other entities, all foreign, respond to this significant government call?  I foresee a few, ah, hiccups.  Some sneezing to cause watery eyes and runny noses.  I live with allergies, so I recognize the triggers.  More money for Guyanese is a trigger, pollen shower.

More money for Guyanese workers in Guyana’s oil industry means all the companies, local and foreign, have to shell out for cash. 

The bottom line gets thinner.  Nowhere near red.  But not as green.  Not as many greenbacks to export to U.S. banks.  Not as much for local companies keeping their stashes at home. 

It has been hailed rather heartily that people are a company’s best assets.  That is, until money matters surface and get in the way.  More money, especially more pay, has historically led to bad friends and bad blood.  Simply ask Guyanese luminaries Lincoln Lewis and Seepaul Narine.  Poor Seepaul!  Even he own peeple in de PPP givin he haad kyaad fuh he peeple in de fields.  More money to be paid by foreign companies to local workers, so they are at a comparable level with their expatriate neighbors, is going to cause those companies to wince.  And, once they have to pony up, that may mean that local companies with local workers could be compelled to do something.  Not necessarily the same, but something more in the envelope.

I am trying to get ahead of foreign oil companies’ reactions.  To help my fine friend, VP Jagdeo, I have some good ones for him to ponder.  Years of experience is a walkover.  I walkover specific experience (yessir!)  Guyanese have six years under their belt.  Tick that box.  But there is that animal called equivalent qualifications.  How measured?  By whom?  Leave that box for now.  Then, there are those intangibles that PPP Govt agents have used in domestic public service arenas of recruitment, promotion, compensation: team player, leadership skills, organizational asset.  Any of these can be a weight that slows down the rate of pay growth for Guyanese workers.  Then, there’s that big, bad, one that’s both tangible and intangible: Evaluation Report.  Tangible because it’s usually on paper.  Intangible because it’s the product of something in the evaluator’s head.  A fine kettle of scorpions, that is.

Which right-minded foreign company executive, manager, willingly forks out millions more for local workers? 

However, deserving, overdue, they may be?  Business is a cold-blooded reptile.  Never about the milk of human kindness.  It’s capitalism, not Christianity.  What’s the edge, the bludgeon, that expatriates calling the shots have?  Make the evaluation unconscionably, improperly, tough, and few are the local workers that measure up.  Don’t have what it takes. 

At bottom, not qualifying for the kind of lovely money of which Minister Bharrat gushed so splendidly.  From the offshore oil rigs, the S-o-S comes: Georgetown -there’s a problem.  Few Guyanese workers are up to scratch.  How many Bobby Gossais can there be in an oil yard?  Translation: few of them have earned the right to more money.  Definitely not anywhere in the vicinity of any equality with highly-skilled, highly qualified, and highly compensated (and highly-cherished) foreign imports.  Before fellow Guyanese, I plead: don’t shortchange that abbreviation in brackets.

I welcome more moolah for Guyanese oil industry workers.  Has to be an industry now, with a million daily near happening.  Meanwhile, I remember inflation.  Apparently, PPP Govt fears have been tamed.  Thanks for the corroborating stats, Dr. de la Cruz.  Nonoil Guyanese will fall farther behind, have so survive.  Somehow.

Iran, Israel, Caracas -Georgetown, there’s a problem

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THE 592 GUARDIAN| OPINIONS| GTOWN ,GUYANA |June 2026

TRUTH♦ ACCOUNTABILITY♦ INTEGRITY♦

BY: GHK LALL

Iran, Israel, Caracas -Georgetown, there’s a problem

I hope that Pres Ali is absorbing.  I trust that Vice President Jagdeo is digesting the development.  The same goes for every Guyana opposition party leader.  America has made its call.  The chips fall wherever they do.  Israel is raging.  PM Netanyahu is reeling.  His competitors are positioning.  America is moving.  Proving once again that its own interests take precedence, are due the highest priority.

Which country could boast like Israel of a special friendship with the U.S?  A friendship so special that it is sacred; that it makes White House occupants cower (after they curse); that it pushes the vaunted U.S. Congress to tie itself into knots; that it rattles the outspoken American media, so that sections of it walk on tiptoe, as though weaving through a dangerous, treacherous, minefield.  It is and they are.  All of that faded every so slightly, lost some footing, and surrendered to the supremacy and permanency of American interests.  Iran has become a major irritation to Israel.  The deal-good or bad, well-received or well-trashed-showed in the clearest light where U.S. priorities are.  Even when a best friend, the best of the best, has to be pulled away from, given a wakeup call.

It couldn’t have been an easy call for President Trump.  Reports are that in the heated discussion, a choice word or two (not the kindergarten classroom kind) came from the American side of the red line.  Say what has to be said about Donald John Trump, but the New Yorker in him is still alive and just as brawling and inflaming.  It takes a leader like President Trump to deal (not the business kind) with a leader like PM Netanyahu.  Trump may be ready to move onto the next chapter.  Israel may have other ideas; was sure to have seen some sort of agreement in the making between Washington and Teheran, and have its contingencies in hand.

Provocation that could unravel a shaky bargain.  I dare not say sabotage, but little else is left.  Blood enemies, when forced to bury their hatchets, usually respond one way.  They bury them in each other’s head.  Too much bad blood.  Too many bad vibes: Gaza, Lebanon.  And, if there is one attribute that is prized in the sunny Middle East, it is the death-dealing heat of revenge.  Politics, geopolitics, geography, holy territory all get lost in the call of, cry for, gore.  All it takes is one slight, intended or misread, and the table is cleared.  Time to throw down.  It’s time to get back to Guyana.

I warned (humbly) Pres Ali, VP Jagdeo.  Ally with America.  But don’t lock eggs in one safe.  Keep a spare key.  Keep something in reserve.  Ali laffed.  Jagdeo mocked.  I do my duty.  American soldiers fighting by the side of Venezuelan soldiers.  In January, American soldiers were killing Venezuelans while extracting that remarkable gentleman, Nicholas Maduro, (remember him?). Meanwhile, in June American soldiers are waging war alongside Venezuelans soldiers.  Who will fight for Guyana, but poor, ole slobs, like me?  Flyover or no flyover at the last presidential inauguration.  I said once that it is good to be American.  Still stands.  But is Pres Ali still laughing?  Is VP Jagdeo still smirking?  I reintroduce Benjamin Netanyahu as a timely, haunting, reminder.

The Venezuelans were uncanny, unambiguous, and mighty unsavory, too.  No ICJ!  I ask Excellency Richard Van West Charles to convey my apologies to the Bolivarian plenipotentiary here and the powers in Caracas.  No to the ICJ means that there will be a land-for-peace deal sometime or the other.  Remember Netanyahu.  Remember my words.  For by that time, I will be gone, Trump gone, Routledge gone.  Only Drs. Ali and Jagdeo left.  Doctor’s diet and good ole fashioned oil living.  But what of Guyana and its special relationship with America?  Oh, that!  A pyrrhic victory is still a victory.  What choice left?  What’s left with leaders like Ali, Jagdeo, and the whole kaboodle?

Israel has assets, will go on battling.  Guyana has Excellency Ali, who went from Captain America to Captain Bligh.  On a boat, with neither partner nor paddle.  I pray for this country.  Pray for me, somebody.  One last thing: God bless America.  Guyana also.

Arms bust: Guyanese perils amid unknowns

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THE 592 GUARDIAN| OPINION| GTOWN GUYANA JUNE 2026

Arms bust: Guyanese perils amid unknowns

BY:GHK LALL
It’s a ton of guns.  Twenty-three machine guns and over 500 rounds seized from a vehicle with a Venezuelan driver represent some serious tonnage.  The quantity and type of guns (AK-47) make them a frightening proposition.  Throw in over 500 rounds of ammo, and somebody was readying for a war.  The Venezuelan component makes the seizure even more ominous.  I am hoping that the intelligence has it right with that across-the-border connection.  While that may be so, what to think of one man with 23 machineguns notorious for their killing power language?  He may be superman.  He was certainly daring to drive around with that stash that fills up a passenger vehicle.  But he alone is not capable of using all those weapons simultaneously.

 

Guyana law enforcement net(s) captured a nest of guns.  But there has to be a network of engaged Venezuelans somewhere in the area.  How many and where?  Meaning, networks and men at the ready.

 So far, I have been accepting at face value a Venezuelan connection of some sort, and going along.  But what if it is really not so?  What if there are a few Guyanese hands in the mix?  The Regent Street gas station bombing had a Venezuelan as the number one accused.  There were, however, a couple of Guyanese in supporting roles.  Is the same program in action here?  And, if (a big if) Guyanese are involved in this big gun bust, are they of the market garden variety?  In other words, run-of-the-mill, street corner, citizens of this republic.

I think that it is a reasonable place, fair questions.  How can it not be, when Guyanese inhabit an environment that is trapped in secrets?  And, when so many pieces of information (if any) that come from public institutions are made up of more secrets.  And, when the Guyanese people, having been fed so many deceptions by their own folk, absorb what may be the whole truth, but cannot bring themselves to believe that what they are getting is only part of the story, a half-truth.  By definition, there’s no such animal as a half-truth; and, if that is considered, it’s really a disguised lie.

Time to zero in some more on this insinuated Caracas connection.  First, the lead accused in the Regent Street gas station bombing, a Venezuelan, admitted to the crime, only to reverse himself in court.  What to make of that mystery development?  I recommend that Guyanese watch out for some report of one of those cellblock suicides by hanging.  The issue, then, would be whether that was by his own hand, or that of those helping along, accelerating his departure.  Second, some Venezuelans are struggling to make it here, for different reasons.  To be in such a situation makes a man desperate; especially when he has debts here, and a family across the border.  A desperate man will grab at any opportunity that offers a quick, sweet, payoff for a couple hours of work. 

Especially, if it comes with assurances of there being no loose ends, and everything is under control.  Recall those instances that became public and involved drug mules recruited to do some transportation for a nice piece of change.  They take that chance, when the odds of getting past watching eyes are high.  Third, I have some difficulty believing that Caracas is so unsophisticated, so reckless, as to put 23 machineguns all in one bag and in only one operator’s hands.  When something is too good to be true, it usually isn’t.  Couple that to a thoroughly untrustworthy regime, with willing and powerfully-placed supporting players, and my interpretation is that Guyanese are in a terrible place.

Couple that to a thoroughly untrustworthy regime, with willing and powerfully-placed supporting players, and my interpretation is that Guyanese are in a terrible place.

The concern for me is that there are these seizures of machineguns-10 in Berbice recently and now 23 across the Demerara River close to each other, who are the real people behind these gun busts?  And, where is all of this leading, towards —what objective(s)?  The latest is two others, one with a Guyanese sounding name, now in police custody.  What does that say?  Confirmation of who’s who could still be long in coming.  And, when all is said and done, Guyanese are in a dangerous place.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

Justice Arif Bulkan: Guyana devours its own

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THE 592 GUARDIAN♦ TRUTH ♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY

Justice Arif Bulkan: Guyana devours its own

Dr. Arif Bulkan.  I thought that all Guyanese-from First Citizen Ali to the last citizen-would have been proud.  By the distinction of a Guyanese finally making it to the CCJ.  Not as a petitioner or advocate.  But as one of its respected justices.  Like so many things about this country, restarting and restudying it are now mandatory.

There is a problem with Justice Bulkan.  Please, pray tell, what offends so much?  Then, help with what basis for such determined resistance, such a call, that there be recusal?  To acknowledge what failing, what imagined flaw, that has contributed to his falling from the gracious considerations of those who fear?  Out of a cohort of nine, one is feared?  Is fairness, what is right and just, feared that much in Guyana?  And not by ordinary citizens, but by those who have amassed so much power in their hands?  “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown….” (Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2, Act III, Scene 1).  Every leaf that stirs disturbs the peace of those who live with dreads, many largely earned, a few imagined.  Justice Bulkan belongs to the latter category.

It is to the credit of the Hon Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, SC, that he hasn’t lodge any objection (Motion to Recuse) before the Caribbean Court of Justice.  Mr. Nandlall, acting in his capacities as attorney general and a legal practitioner, would earn eternal encomia for coming out publicly and denouncing sharply, with all that he is capable of, any efforts to tarnish Justice Bulkan’s honor.  As a man, as a man of the law, as a man of considerable standing in this country, he can clothe himself with honor, if he doesn’t shrink from taking that mandatory step.  If he hasn’t wrapped his arms and his mind around the implications of the attack on Justice Bulkan, then I lend a hand.

An attack on Guyanese-born, Justice Arif Bulkan is an attack on all Guyanese.  By misguided attempts to scorch one of its stellar sons.  Pres Ali is made to look like a man of unwarranted vehemence, of destructive venom, when he is not.  As Guyana’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ali has to be troubled, when what was unleashed against a Guyanese at the heights of regional jurisprudence questions his intellectual and legal honesty, through scurrilous efforts to taint him. 

The court that stands at the peak of the regional pyramid loses some luster, if only because of vile, brutish, endeavors. 

  

If there were grounds, one millimeter, I could pause, reflect, and admit that a closer look is mandatory.  But where is that one pebble (one only) where Justice Bulkan has stumbled, dropped to his knees, due to the weight of relationships that are contrast sharply with standing norms?  Or any other weight, for that matter.

This country does devour its young, its free of mind, its men and women who hold to that indefinable construct called conscience. Guyana has expelled its most promising, still sends its best and brightest hurrying to wipe the dust from their feet, and out of a place now irretrievably lost.

 It is no wonder that so few seek to return to their homeland, a land now so universally attractive.  Others want to return, but it’s for what they can get out of Guyana and its newfound riches.  It is damnation for those whose who still think and wish to live: ‘ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’

It is a fitting note in which to close due to the proven notorious family ties of the famous utterer of those inspiring words.  For who was John F. Kennedy’s father, if not Joseph P. Kennedy.  Rumrunner.  Stock manipulator.  Lawbreaker.  The list is longer still.  Yet his son made it all the way to the White House and the presidency of the United States.  The sins of the father turned upside down. 

In Guyana, made up sins, fabricated crimes, are what remains in efforts to weaken Justice Arif Bulkan, attach a dark cast to him.  I offer Justice Bulkan and his family what works for me.  Adversity is an opportunity to learn humility, grow in integrity.

Carolyn Rodrigues for UN Sec Gen -I endorse

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THE 592 GUARDIAN -OPINION

Carolyn Rodrigues -Birkett for UN Sec Gen -I endorse

BY:GHK LALL

Way to go, Excellency Ali.  Excellency Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett is Guyana’s nominee for the prestigious and demanding role of United Nations Secretary General.  Why not?  Since everybody globally have their eyes on a wedge of Guyana’s riches, here’s an opportunity to do some horse-trading.  A vote for Excellency Suzy is a favorable ballot cast for a portion of Guyana’s patrimony.  There is plenty to share around. 

The Ali government can be depended upon to be generous.  Recall that politics, whether at the bottom-house level or the rooftops of the world is about quid pro quos (something for something). 

A fair bargain, I say.  Depending on what is gotten for what is given away.

The Guyana Government (PPP) may not like Guyanese born Dr. Arif Bulkan in the role of CCJ jurist. 

It is reported to have stood in the way of his ascending to another role in Europe that was a tribute to his perspicacity and sagacity. 

Indeed, his mind and the manner in which he employs it will always be two perennial bestsellers.  The hope is that I am getting through to Excellency, Dr. Ali, Guyana’s president.  Call of the curs, sir.  Vehemence in politics is pardonable.  Up to a point only. 

But the PPP’s thirst for vengeance and the vindictiveness and viciousness that must accompany it to reinforce should have no place in Guyana’s politics.  Let that be monopolized by Donald Trump.  Let him have exclusive rights to those depraved standards.

If Guyana is ever going to come within 100 miles of One Guyana, then PPP savagery against Dr. Arif Bulkan should not be. 

Who are the haters now, if not the PPP?  But there is Excellency Rodrigues-Birkett whose name is now entered in the UN Sec Gen race.  I support her nomination for several reasons.  Notwithstanding her former flair for table-climbing, political gyrating, and other such entertaining antics.  What is past is past. 

There is her nomination to which I lend my voice.

First, she is Guyanese.  Two, she is female -would make a groundbreaking Secretary General. 

There is a female CARICOM Secretary General, Excellency Carla Barnett.  There was a woman Commonwealth Secretary General, Baroness Patricia Janet Scotland.  Excellency Rodrigues-Birkett is Guyanese, a woman, and third she is also of indigenous heritage.  She is also fairly astute.  Politically.  Recall how she praised former U.S. Ambassador Brendt Hardt (another devout Roman Catholic), days before her sister ministers in the PPP scorched him with a so-called feral blast, and in his castle of all places.  An unbeatable combination; a winner for whom I would vote eight days in every week.  It’s the way that the PPP has practiced voting, isn’t it?  After all the horrors that the Spaniards, Dutch, French, British (and now Americans) inflicted upon the Incas, Aztecs, Caribs, Arawaks, and other indigenous peoples native to this hemisphere, it is time for some leveling of the scales, an executive and administrative repatriation of sorts.

The U.S. has a big say, holds a significant amount of sway in things of this nature (like it does with the ICJ), and it is a special friend of Guyana. 

So, I am counting for the U.S. to favor Sister Suzie.  China is a partner, ally, and fellow traveler alongside Guyana.  Thus, nothing prevents that superpower from the Orient to throwdown with thumbs up for Guyana’s choice for UN SG.  It should be a lock.  Naturally, it depends on what Guyana is offering in return.  Get real, Guyanese.  Welcome to the real world.  Pres Ali has made his name (such as it is) as a willing soldier when it comes to deal making.  This is his big opportunity to give a big hand up to Susan Rodrigues-Birkett.  She can depend on him.  I am.

In the spirit of One Guyana, I urge all Guyanese to rally behind Excellency Rodrigues-Birkett’s nomination. 

Let us all show Pres Ali, and the PPP, how it’s done.  Politics is cast out.  Bygone begone.  If only Guyana worked like this, Guyanese thought like this.  What could be a better manifestation of Essequibo belongs to Guyana, Essequibo is OURS!  Where is Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett from if not the storied shores of Essequibo.  She is ours.  Therefore, the UN SG job should be hers.  Whoever seeks to do business here better get that right.

Memo for Messrs. Woods, Routledge -UGGI Survey -Pt III

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Memo for Messrs. Woods, Routledge -UGGI Survey -Pt III

THE 592 GUARDIAN ♦ OPINION

BY: GHK LALL

I’m the bearer of bad news for Mr. Darren Woods and Mr. Alistair Routledge, Exxon’s CEO and Guyana Country Head, respectively.

Wished it were different.  No such luck.  Must disappoint.  I humbly refer them to the University of Guyana Green Institute Survey (UGGI) titled: Trust, Oil, and Building a Better Society.”  The news is the worst that could be expected for foreign oil companies in Guyana.  Due to its oversized height, its muscular presence in Guyana, Exxon stands foremost.  I think “foreign oil companies” is a careful euphemism for Exxon.

Messrs. Woods, Routledge: Guyanese are not inspired by charity.  Bats, hats, apparel, sponsorships, community enhancements, UG monies all qualify as charity.  Cheap charity compared to real richness in a real 50:50 partner.  I believe that Guyanese think, sense, they are being tricked and cheated.  When foreign oil companies rank the lowest (2.50 out of 10) on the UGGI trust barometer in the minds of Guyanese, Exxon is savaged, has close to no standing, must rehabilitate itself.

For Mr. Routledge’s information, the only Guyanese impressed by his billboards are those feeding at Exxon’s trough.  Those swayed by handouts.  Those who live with an inferiority complex.  And those who are comfortable under the yoke of colonizers.

The mistake that Exxon and Mr. Routledge made was to dismiss Guyanese as pushovers.  Indeed, they are some at high elevations who are, and others who would do anything, from selling country to their souls, to be Exxon pushovers.

There are other Guyanese who are insulted by cheap clothing to keep them quiet, and big billboards intended to control their minds.

Mr. Woods, Mr. Routledge: it is my obligation, sirs, to convey that sparkling rhetoric doesn’t sizzle Guyanese hearts.  A first example: ‘partnership with the Guyanese people.’  It falls flat when audit obstinacy, renegotiation resistance, and complete transparency (new oil reserves, access to all areas of Exxon’s offshore ops, accounting records, and 50:50 profit calculation) incite more distrust than comfort.  Where is this partnership spoken about so smoothly?  What does it look like?  Who in Exxon harbors expectations that Guyanese are convinced that their country, their government, shares in a bona fide partnership, one of equals?  The UGGI report on foreign oil companies exposed how poorly they shape up relative to trust.

A second example: it is degrading, infuriating, for Guyanese to hear, Messrs. Woods and Routledge, about benefits for the Guyanese people, thanks to Exxon world-class management of their wealth.

Exxon harvests spectacular profits, season after season, from its “crown jewel” in Guyana, but the Guyanese owners of that same wealth, same crown jewel, live a meager existence.

  Exxon’s profit numbers and Guyana’s Oil Fund inflows do not begin to compare.  Which practical partner, one committed to a fair, straight, partnership, would not agree to ringfencing new projects?  Skirts around genuine 50:50 profit sharing when investments have been paid off, and Guyanese leaders are happy to be tethered to a merry-go-round?  Benefits are not on an equal footing, not fair.  One reason why so many locals are so distrustful of foreign oil companies.  To put brutally, many see caricatures: Ugly American, predator colonizer, ruthless exploiter.  This isn’t to disparage Guyana’s oil partner.  It’s to sound an alarm.

Mr. Woods and Mr. Routledge, when Guyanese observe their leaders slobber about sanctity of contract, grind themselves into putty, and render themselves silly, the source of their impotency traces straight to Exxon.  Their political power, their national leadership strength, hinges on the drivel of sanctity of contract.  It’s why national government ranks almost to the bottom on the UGGI’s trust scale.  Just above foreign oil companies.  The closeness in both earning such low marks from Guyanese on crucial trust could be linked to suspicions of collusion between the two.  Two peas in the same pod.  The incumbent government to retain power, the oil company to prosper to the detriment of Guyanese.  This not only reeks, but it also enrages.

Which citizen of any country is pleased to see national leaders reduced to quivering, bluffing, and bouncing from empty rhetorical stuffing?  The supine character of Guyana’s national government renders it contemptible, coats Exxon with disrepute.  Oil patrimony, democracy and liberty should never be gutted from this state.

Mr. Woods, Mr. Routledge: the game’s up.  The story is out.  Trust in Exxon is tantamount to a dead man walking.  I wish this bitter cup wasn’t mine to drink.

The Return of Sarah Ann Lynch

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THE 592-GUARDIAN OPINION

TRUTH ♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦ INTEGRITY♦

The Return of Sarah Ann Lynch

OPINION BY : GHK LALL

My position was always clear.  Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch, U.S. Ambassador to Guyana during 2019-2024, was more than a Foreign Service professional, more than a political appointment.  What the CIA did to the PPP’s Cheddi Jagan in the 1960s through the combined efforts of the media, trade unions, and nefarious political operators, the agency did with Sarah Ann Lynch in the face of the PNC’s David Granger in 2019-2020.  Now, Excellency Lynch is back.  Political success means economic rewards.  A little scripture may also help to nudge Guyanese in a thoughtful, national direction: what is hidden has a way of coming to light.  Democracy for Guyana, or the paramountcy of U.S. interests, is the choice. 

Excellency Lynch was the one-woman army that was on the move, always moving skillfully, even over to the Office of the then Leader of the Opposition, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.  It was too much, too rich, too unlike the more studied, restrained efforts of diplomats.  Whose orders from the world capital are let local processes stand supreme.  Said differently, be a peacemaker not a warrior envoy.  I recall the late Jimmy Carter in Panama during the reign of Manuel Noreiga. In sum, when the Americans want to be rid of real or imagined threats, the jobs get done.  Sarah Ann Lynch filled that role superbly.  So well, that some Guyanese wanted to make her their new Queen Victoria, i.e., erect a statue in her honor.

Now Sarah the Great is back.  More subdued.  More on the sweet, smiling, side.  But still in the mold of a general on the move, but with new objectives in mind.   That is, very much involved in moving what is in U.S interests along. 

What’s a better vehicle than a trade delegation to manifest such interest, with her as the lead player?  She knows Dr. Jagdeo well.  Dr. Jagdeo knows both Excellency Lynch and how much he and the PPP owe her.  It’s an inspired choice by Washington to send down its diplomat cum best kept secret agent now wearing her new hat of trade envoy.  Both trade leader Lynch and Guyana’s leader Jagdeo know that it’s collection time: the piper has to be paid.  In a word -opportunities.  In two stages: open the door and let in a flood of Americans.  The downside is getting ready to see the Chinese relegated to second chair, a much smaller one that reduces them to a shadow.  Ms. Lynch’s presence is part of a pattern.  Check it out.

 Americans in influential positions have been saying it more often, more openly, now: the U.S. must be closer positioned, enjoy a bigger drag, on the Guyana milking cow.  Recall two Guyanese political patriots, Messrs. Todd and Persaud.  Whether here or in DC, the language is the same.  Security, aviation, technology and, naturally, that codeword for business, investment.  American businesses must get more, and there are no two ways about it.  I don’t have a problem (yet).  The PPP Govt’s problem is how will Dr. Jagdeo serve two masters who each have their own interests, demand priority treatment simultaneously?  The Chinese must be monitoring these incoming U.S. delegations and outgoing Guyanese ones, with alarm.  They didn’t too much for democracy back in 2019-20.  But they have been good for PPP style of business for decades.  How the Guyana’s milking cow is going to be milked by these two elephants remains to be seen.  Recall that the French are also lining up, making their objectives clear (more business here), and the British are singing the same song. 

When all this is aggregated, Pres Ali and Vice President Jagdeo see themselves as investor darlings.  Reality can be a vicious animal.  The foreign legion-Americans, Brits, Chinese, and French (Canada’s gold cup already overflows)-stalk, come to grab.  The PPP Govt has no choice, but to give.  Freely.  Cheaply.  Smilingly.  There was Dr. Jagdeo grinning from ear-to-ear.  His 2019-2020 bargaining partner, Excellency Sarah Lynch, is back in town.  Thus, the world turns.  Remember: Americans only have permanent interests, merely convenient friends.  Marco Rubio could talk cheese.

Appealing to Excellencies Ali, Phillips, Jagdeo: UGGI Report -Pt II

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592 GUARDIAN ♦OPINION♦ TRUTH♦ ACCOUNTABILITY♦ INTEGRITY

Appealing to Excellencies Ali, Phillips, Jagdeo: UGGI Report -Pt II

BY: GHK LALL 

This is a public appeal to every leader and minister in the Government of Guyana.  Excellencies Ali, Phillips, and Jagdeo, and the entire cabinet is included.  In fact, this courtesy is extended to the ruling party’s Central Executive, all voting and nonvoting members.

I regret to inform you that trust in the national government is low.  Quite frankly, and most respectfully, Excellencies and honorable Guyanese, the trust of the Guyanese people for their national government could not be lower.  Please refer to the University of Guyana Green Institute (UGGI) Independence 60 Survey, and the Preliminary Report captioned: “Trust, Oil, and the Society being Built.”  Though the sample is small (134), the area narrow (Region Four), and the age and education spread could be much wider, the finding on trust for the national government is remarkable.

On a scale of 1 to10, with the latter representing great, almost total, trust, national government received a meager 3.72 score.  Not good at all.  It is my belief that an expanded survey would yield close to the same trust score, if not worse.  Shabby and trashy for a country that is frequently in the news globally.

This means, dear leaders and ministers that the visions, mentality, policies, procedures, approaches, standards, and practices of the national government are all in need of a massive overhaul.  It means, honorable gentlemen and ladies, that the Guyanese people are not buying One Guyana nor all Guyana.  Nor that national government is doing the right things.  It means that the ethics of the national government leaves much to be desired.  It means, it must be said, that from the president to the vice presidents to the ministers are viewed mostly distrustfully, found wanting.  Undoubtedly, hardcore national government insiders would have an opposite view.  Namely, that the national government in place today is the most trusted ever.  Those who have benefited immensely and unfairly can be expected, reflexively to scorn what the UGGI Independence 60 Survey found, because their bread has been richly buttered.  I think it would be wise, practical, self-enhancing for the Survey to be absorbed, taken with utmost seriousness, by national government.  With honest intention to do something about what the people think, how they see where national government is.

For the information of Excellencies Ali, Phillips, Jagdeo and all ministers: playing to selected and captive crowds, preaching to the faithful flock has its benefits.  But the utility is limited, and misleading.  For there is more to Guyana, that other side of Guyana.  It is not of those against current national government or wanting others to be the national government.  It is of Guyanese who are seeking substance behind the words, quality leadership from those who hold those positions, and to experience the effects of living in this glorious Oil Republic.

 Try this reality.  My own experience with traditional, diehard, supporters of this national government has been almost overwhelmingly negative.  The negativity begins and ends with distrust.

The lament is that piracies are too much, that accepting responsibility is alien to the culture of national government, that taking genuine action to right the ship of state is yet another trick played on citizens, and that being answerable to the people has distilled to either mocking or ignoring them altogether.  Note: this is not from the UGGI Survey, but from my own encounters with those who trusted enough to vote into national office.

Trust means that someone is seen as dependable, because he or she has delivered, proven true to their promises.  A track record that’s its own best recommendation.  Trust in national government, especially in this time of an unprecedented, unmatched, bonanza, means that its principals are seen as honest, honoring oaths, fighting for the Guyanese people, and not first for what benefits themselves, circle.  No spins; just doing honest things.

 In closing, I wish I could trust the names mentioned and their companions. Most unfortunately, I cannot.  When they prove themselves worthy of all Guyanese, rich and poor, I trust.  Guyana would be a better society.  I am better.  National government is held in high esteem.

 At bottom, citizens make countries, decide on and evaluate national government. Their assessment carries the most weight.  There’s the survey, its findings.  The national government should resolve.  Separately, oil investors can expound freely, smartly, about Guyana’s democracy, and its sweet business environment.  But they themselves are held in the lowest repute by Guyanese. 

Next: trust and foreign oil companies, with Excellencies Woods and Routledge featuring prominently.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

US Ambassador on Guyana’s Independence

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BY: GHK Lall

I really thought that the script had changed.  I really have to stop making these mistakes.  I erred about America’s regret over its role in changing the history of this country.  What could have been but now can never be known.  US Ambassador, Excellency Nicole D. Theriot, did the honors.  In an OP: Ed piece in Kaieteur News, this is what the now energetic and increasingly vocal American plenipotentiary had to say on Guyana’s Independence Diamond Jubilee: “I am honored to reflect on six decades of friendship, partnership, and shared progress between our two nations.  President Lyndon B. Johnson, welcoming Prime Minister Burnham to the White House just weeks after Guyana’s independence in July 1966, captured the spirit of that moment.”  I am sorry, Excellency, to be the party pooper.  But clinically, this must be dissected, dealt with cards face-up on the table.

President Johnson welcoming Prime Minister Burnham so shortly after Guyana gained Independence was the icing on America’s cake.  Recognition and reward for Guyana holding the line against the spread of communism.  Guyana is not contributing as one more fallen domino in the heat of the Big Power faceoff.  America’s AFL-CIO did its part.  So did America’s CIA and those it cultivated in the local environment to thwart communism’s march.  The PPP was then heart and soul for communism, Marxism, and socialism.  Thus, it lost out on that first battle.  Today, it is proud to count among its own, right up there in the Office of the President, those who were among communism’s (and Jagan’s) vilest enemies.  My word shouldn’t be taken.  The archives are there.

Without giving him any inch than I do, LFS Burnham did what he had to do to cultivate that “friendship and partnership” of which Ambassador Theriot spoke so engagingly, so lushly.  It came at a price, which he wasn’t ready to pay.  Regardless of what was and is still thought of him, there was a line that Mr. Burnham couldn’t and wouldn’t cross.  Not when country and people have to be betrayed and sold down the drain.  He became an enemy.  So, the script was scrubbed.

The PPP of Dr. Jagan first, then Dr. Jagdeo, studied that same script.  In this context, Dr. Ali is of no value, merely a hanger-on, who is in the right place and right time to be a beneficiary, one of the biggest.  Dr. Jagdeo more than Dr. Jagan decided that since the Americans couldn’t be beaten in a head-on fight, then beat them with tricks at their own game.  Become bigger capitalists than the capitalists themselves.  What can be bigger, brighter and more beautiful than “sanctity of contract?”  Now, there’s “friendship and partnership” of the kind that neither Burnham nor Jagan would ever kneel before, come within 100 years of considering, much less approving.  Pres Ali is the one doing the parroting about “sanctity of contract.”  But the credit belongs to Dr. Jagdeo.  When power and its consolidation and retention are part of the equation, then “sanctity of contract” is what it will have to be.

It is fasconating to watch Excellency Theriot manifest some of that famed Louisiana fire, when she lit that Independence bonfire about 60 years of “friendship and partnership.”  To whose advantage, to whose loss?  There is Exxon, redder and whiter and bluer than America.  More Golden Arrowhead nowadays than Guyanese.  Take a bow, Ambassador of Oil, Mr. Alistair Routledge.  With friends and partners of this caliber, I will take my chances with Dr. Guillotin.  It is better to lose my head for standing for what is believed.  It would be a crime inconceivable to join with those who hang themselves by the nuts from their betrayals of people and patrimony.  And for what, but the harlotry of power?  I urge my fellow Guyanese to review what it is that harlots do.  What they surrender.  What they sell.  And to whom they sell.  Those who come and go.  Those who take, then leave.  Whether corporate or country, this is the friendship and partnership between Guyana and America, as I see it, appalled by it, and am sickened by it.  Thanks, Ambassador Theriot for speaking to truth in a funny, most likely unwitting way.