What Mr. Routledge didn’t say, I say -Pt II

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

What Mr. Routledge didn’t say, I say -Pt II

OPINION BY: GHK LALL October 2026

Exxon’s Guyana Head, Mr. Alistair Routledge, created a firestorm in Guyana with an unyielding expression of his company’s position.  Though he said much, he was careful to steer clear of certain circumstances, disciplined to silence.  What Mr. Routledge didn’t say, I say.

Exxon is here to make a profit.  All else is charity.  A bat, a hat, a sponsorship, a relationship, those are all charity.  But with a difference.  Exxon takes Guyana’s oil money and doles out tiny dollops of charity to passive, pauperized Guyanese.  Profits and set asides for charity embody how free enterprise works.  Not Samuelson nor Stiglitz, but real life with real people.

Second, Mr. Routledge wasn’t crass; he didn’t state the obvious.  Exxon’s first duty is to its own constituency.  Investors, Managers.  Other workers.  All its stakeholders.  They vote for Exxon’s slate of directors, the team at senior levels.  They are owed.  Visions that reward.  Returns that are tangible, measurable.

Third, with those two in mind, all else are byproducts, secondary; some higher, some immaterial to Exxon’s plans for prospering to the max from Guyana’s wealth.  It is capitalism at its best (and its worst, from the victims’ standpoint).  This is what the Exxon Guyana hand was wise enough to skirt around, put as much distance as he could in his Guyana Proviso 2026.  Exxon is about Exxon.  Whatever is beyond that belongs elsewhere.

Fourth, a repetition now follows.  If Guyanese really want more from their patrimony, they will have to battle.  Not by going head-on in opposition to Exxon; that’s a losing effort.  There’s America, and its armada that can be summoned to set right a quarrelsome special relationship.  Guyana’s battling has to be more nuanced.  Though the PPP Govt seeks to deny this, it has to be a better guerilla fighter, more of a stealth operator.  There’s Guyana’s EPA.  Lots of visions and operations pass under that sensitive roof.  Sanctity of contract is still honored (it must be).  But Guyana must have its own timing.  How long it desires to receive its rightful share of profits.  How much it wishes to avoid a burdening cost bank.  A war could be fought on different front, using different tactics.  The PPP Govt has done so successfully with unions. 

The PPP Govt has won handy victories in elections, through fixing the territory to suit its interests, influencing outcomes.  Whither that identical PPP resourcefulness, PPP craftiness, PPP readiness to project the same with oil and the American leviathan, Exxon?

Fifth, Exxon has also been very skilled in piloting its own interests in other ways.  What is withheld.  Audits suspended between time and space.  Apologies to Alistair Routledge, but where Guyanese interests are being lynched.  What Mr. Routledge didn’t say was that Guyana’s leaders across the divide have to show some male testicles and some of that vital female endurance (think labor pains) to get Guyana to where it should be, and the Guyanese people to some different plain.  Preferably, a higher one.

Sixth, Mr. Routledge didn’t say it, but almost all Guyanese know it, the PPP as a party, and the other political parties exist with one vision prioritized: how to retain power or get into power.  He didn’t say that Exxon can and has tapped into and prospers from that ambition.  He didn’t have to say that Exxon can play them against each other, seek the one group that wouldn’t touch the company’s wealth gathering, and has succeeded handsomely in doing both.

Seventh, since Mr. Rouledge used the royal “we” in his Declaration of Georgetown, I use it, too.  We are here to make money.  Guyanese leaders, the Guyanese people, have their own duty.  To decide on Guyana’s destiny. 

When some grasp for power, some for money, others for liberty, there is how building this nation stands currently.  What Alistair Routledge was too polite to lay on the table (is to Exxon’s benefit), I did.  (Coming up: Firing the soul of the nation).

Gunboat Diplomacy: Without the Guns and Boats

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Gunboat Diplomacy: Without the Guns and Boats

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Washington has found that tariffs, sanctions and visa revocations do what cruisers once did, and Guyana should understand what that means for a small state in the middle of it.

The gunboat was never really about the gun. It was about the message that a small state’s choices had a price, set elsewhere and collected without a declaration of war. What has changed in the Western Hemisphere is that the gunboat no longer needs a hull. A tariff schedule, a Treasury designation, a revoked visa and a conditional credit line carry the same message, at lower cost and with a deniability the old navies never had.

Pedro Abramovay of Open Society makes a useful distinction in his recent essay on the future of multilateralism. The post-Cold War order, he argues, was built for a unipolar moment, tolerant of minimal states and austerity, and deaf to demands for shared prosperity. It is now being replaced not by a vacuum but by a contest between two models.

One is a multilateralism of strong states that insist cooperation be grounded in national and regional priorities. The other is raw might-makes-right, which treats sovereignty as something to be rationed. Latin America is where that contest is playing out in real time.

Coercion as an electoral instrument

The rightward drift across the hemisphere is real, but the causal story deserves care. Crime, inflation and exhausted incumbents have moved voters in Latin America for years, and no honest editorial should pretend Washington invented those grievances. What coercion adds is an accelerant and a price tag. When a government’s creditworthiness, tariff exposure or leaders’ travel documents depend on its alignment, an election stops being only a domestic choice.

It becomes a referendum on whether the country can afford to be defiant. Voters understand that arithmetic even when no one states it. Support for aligned candidates, whether through endorsements, rescue facilities or a sudden softening of sanctions, tells the electorate which outcome the powerful will reward.

This is the real innovation. Old interventionism needed a coup. The new version needs only to make dissent expensive and compliance visible, and then let the domestic politics do the rest. It leaves no occupation to resist, no dictator to denounce, and often a legitimately elected government at the end of the process. That makes it harder to name and harder to fight.

What the Venezuela precedent teaches

Abramovay lists, among the unravelings of the order, the seizure of a sitting-then-former Venezuelan president by the United States. For Guyana this cannot be filed as a distant event. It is the demonstration that the outer limit of coercion is now unmarked. If a neighbour’s head of state can be removed by force, the line between pressure and invasion has been redrawn by the party doing the pressing.

Guyana’s official posture has been to treat this as favorable. Venezuela’s claim on the Essequibo has been the central threat to the country’s territory for decades, and a Washington willing to act decisively looks like a guarantor. But a guarantee is not a right. Protection of this kind is rented, and the landlord sets the terms.

The rent being paid

Consider what Guyana has agreed to in this period: a third-country deportee framework whose vetting, accommodation and legal basis the public cannot examine; a security architecture of memoranda on air-domain awareness; and a deep-water port at Berbice whose financing has shifted from earlier Chinese interest toward American-linked capital. Each can be defended on its own terms. Together they describe a state aligning itself, and doing so without Parliament having meaningfully weighed in.

A legislature that has sat only a handful of times in nearly thirteen months is not a body that scrutinizes the terms of a hemisphere-shaping bargain.

Here Abramovay’s argument cuts against the government’s own instincts. His claim is that states able to deliver at home have more voice abroad. Guyana’s bargaining position is strongest not when it signs fastest but when its institutions are strong enough to say what it will not sign.

Secrecy is not a negotiating advantage. It is a signal to the counterparty that no domestic constraint exists, and counterparties price that in.

The oil state’s particular exposure

There is a second vulnerability. Guyana’s economy rests on a single resource under a contract negotiated in 2016, operated by a company whose home government is the same one now wielding the tariffs. A small state whose revenue, security guarantee and migration arrangements all run through one capital has no leverage left to trade. That is the condition coercion exploits best, and it is the condition Guyana has built for itself.

What a strong state would do

The answer is not defiance for its own sake. Guyana has genuine security needs, and no serious person argues it should dismiss American help. The answer is to convert dependence into terms. Publish the deportee framework and legislate its limits. Table the security memoranda in the National Assembly. Treat the CARICOM and Latin American groupings as insurance rather than ceremony, since the coalitions Abramovay describes, middle powers and Global South states acting together, are the only counterweight a country of this size can assemble. And press the legal route on the border, where the International Court of Justice remains one of the few arenas in which a small state and a large one are formally equal.

The gunboat has changed form, but the lesson of the old one still holds. Small states that are seen to be unconditionally aligned are not protected. They are simply taken for granted.

 

US Deportation Flights Return Haitians to a City It Warns Its Own Citizens Not to Enter

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US Deportation Flights Return Haitians to a City It Warns Its Own Citizens Not to Enter

OPINION BY: Staff Writer September 2026

Human Rights Watch finds 474 people removed to Cap-Haïtien since TPS ended, received in a shipping container with no running water and $77 in cash

Since the United States terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals in late July 2026, US immigration authorities have deported hundreds of people back to a country the US State Department itself rates at Level 4 — “Do Not Travel” — its highest advisory category, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The rights organization, which sent researchers to Cap-Haïtien from August 24 to 30 to interview arriving deportees and Haitian officials, found that more than 450 people had been removed to Haiti since July, according to figures from Haiti’s National Office for Migration. Between August 20 and September 17 alone, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operated five consecutive weekly flights to Cap-Haïtien carrying a total of 474 people — a sharp escalation from the roughly one flight per month the US had operated before TPS ended. 

TPS is a US legal mechanism that shields nationals of designated countries from deportation when conditions there are judged too dangerous for safe return. Haiti was first designated in 2010, after the earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, and the designation was repeatedly renewed as the country’s security and humanitarian crises deepened. The Trump administration moved to terminate the designation in 2025; after more than a year of litigation, the US Supreme Court allowed the termination to proceed on June 25, 2026. TPS for an estimated 330,000 Haitians lapsed on July 27.

A RECEPTION BUILT FROM SHIPPING CONTAINERS

HRW researchers were present at Cap-Haïtien International Airport on August 27 for the arrival of a deportation flight and documented the reception process directly. Deportees were processed in a structure converted from shipping containers, with seating for approximately 60 people and two toilets outside — only one of which was functional, and neither connected to running water.

Shortly before the August 27 US flight landed, a separate flight carrying 105 Haitians deported from the Bahamas arrived, exceeding the container’s capacity; officials erected a tent in an adjacent yard to accommodate the overflow. Neither space, HRW noted, offered privacy for individualized assessment of medical needs, protection risks, or other vulnerabilities among arriving deportees.

Officials from Haiti’s National Office for Migration told researchers they typically received about two days’ notice ahead of deportation flights, and that the manifests supplied by US authorities listed only names, dates of birth, gender, nationality and immigration A-numbers — with no information on the grounds for removal, medical or protection needs, or family contacts. In both flights HRW examined, the number of arrivals exceeded what the manifests had indicated: 161 people arrived on August 20, and 57 on August 27.

After registration, deportees received a meal, a drink, and approximately 10,000 Haitian gourdes — about US$77 — in cash assistance, before being transferred to Haiti’s Departmental Judicial Police Service for further processing. Beyond that point, HRW found, deportees are left to arrange their own onward travel and shelter. Haitian officials interviewed across nine government institutions — covering migration, health, child protection, education, labour, identification and justice — told researchers the government has no coordinated plan for deportees’ longer-term reintegration, no dedicated shelter, and no expedited process for issuing identity documents, which can otherwise take one to three months to obtain.

CONDITIONS IN HAITI

The US government’s justification for ending TPS was that conditions in Haiti had “improved sufficiently” to no longer meet the statutory threshold. HRW’s report places that determination against United Nations figures showing at least 19,380 people killed in gang, “self-defense group,” and security-force violence between January 2023 and June 2026 — with the annual death toll rising roughly 24 percent between 2023 and 2025, from 4,789 to at least 5,915, and at least 3,050 more killed in the first six months of 2026 alone.

Nearly 1.5 million people are internally displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and more than half of Haiti’s population requires humanitarian assistance amid crisis-level food insecurity. A UN-authorized Gang Suppression Force began partial deployment in April 2026 but has not reversed the trend, according to HRW, with criminal groups that once operated mainly in Port-au-Prince expanding into at least five of Haiti’s ten departments.

Flights now land in Cap-Haïtien rather than the capital because the US Federal Aviation Administration prohibits American commercial and US-registered aircraft from flying below 10,000 feet over Port-au-Prince, citing the danger posed by criminal groups controlling the area around the capital’s airport; the FAA extended that restriction in early September through March 2, 2027. Cap-Haïtien’s own population has more than tripled in two years to over one million, according to the city’s mayor, driven by displacement and returns from other countries, principally the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos — placing further strain on electricity, water and health infrastructure that officials describe as already inadequate.

DUE PROCESS CONCERNS

Nearly all of those HRW interviewed said they held TPS and had separately filed asylum claims, permanent residence applications, or other protection claims; many of which they said remained pending when they were detained. Most said ICE detained them before TPS formally lapsed on July 27, often without explanation, during routine check-ins, at home, or following traffic stops. Interviewees described being denied access to lawyers and, in most cases, not appearing before an immigration judge before removal.

HRW cross-checked available records through the Executive Office for Immigration Review and found some interviewees had, in fact, been issued removal orders prior to their deportation — orders they said ICE never showed them and which they said they learned of only when detained. Because deportees lack access to their own immigration files, HRW said it could not independently verify the complete history of each case.

Interviewees described custody conditions at facilities including the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami and the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, as well as detention centers in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, citing overcrowding, inadequate food, limited access to medical care, and difficulty contacting relatives or counsel — findings HRW said were consistent with its own prior documentation of conditions at some of the same facilities in July 2025.

On August 24, the US Department of Homeland Security stated on X that 15 of the 161 people deported on the August 20 flight had criminal convictions. None of the individuals HRW interviewed were among those identified.

INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STANDARD

In August, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on the United States to ensure international protection where substantial grounds exist to believe a person’s return to Haiti would expose them to serious risk to life or physical safety, and stressed that deportation decisions must be individually assessed with access to due process and an effective remedy — a standard HRW’s report finds is not being met in the current pace and structure of removals.

HRW is calling on the US Senate to pass House-approved legislation that would extend TPS for Haitians through 2029, and on the US government to immediately halt deportations to Haiti in accordance with the principle of nonrefoulement — the prohibition on returning people to places where their life or safety would be at risk.

Sources draws on Human Rights Watch’s field investigation in Cap-Haïtien (August 24–30, 2026), interviews with 44 deportees, and review of flight manifests, government and UN data. — The 592 Guardian

Democracy Is More Than Elections

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Democracy Is More Than Elections

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar- October 2026

The  anniversary statement issued by Vice President Jagdeo  invites a legitimate question: can a government credibly celebrate democratic restoration while exercising power in ways that weaken the institutions democracy requires?

October 5,1992, was unquestionably a defining moment for Guyana. The end of the PNC’s long period of electoral authoritarianism restored the people’s ability to choose their government through credible elections. That achievement should be protected, not reduced to a partisan talking point.

But the restoration of democracy cannot be measured only by whether votes are cast every five years. Democracy also requires an active Parliament, constitutional restraint, accountability to the public, space for dissent, independent institutions, transparent government, and meaningful opportunities for citizens and opposition representatives to question those who govern.

It is therefore striking that the PPP now invokes the very Constitution it once repeatedly condemned as defective, exclusionary and in need of fundamental reform.

For years, the PPP argued that Guyana’s constitutional arrangements concentrated excessive power in the Executive Presidency and failed to produce inclusive governance. Constitutional reform was presented as an urgent national necessity—not merely an academic exercise. Yet, once returned to office, the party appears to have discovered the political usefulness of the same architecture it had criticized so sharply.

While the PPP-C rightly condemned the attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, its record in office must also be judged by the health of Parliament as an institution. Guyanese have repeatedly raised concerns about long recesses, limited sittings and the extent to which the National Assembly has been permitted to function as a vigorous forum for scrutiny of executive power. A democracy requires more than elections; it requires a Parliament that meets regularly, debates freely and holds the Government accountable.

Democracy Cannot Be Selective

October 5, 1992, remains a defining date in Guyana’s history. It marked the return of credible elections after decades in which the people’s right to choose their government had been profoundly compromised.

But democracy is not merely the holding of elections or the installation of a government.  

That is why the PPP-C’s anniversary statement carries such crass irony. The party condemns the PNC’s era of party paramountcy and celebrates the constitutional order that followed 1992, yet it has repeatedly found political comfort in the very constitutional arrangements it once denounced as defective, excessively centralized and in need of urgent reform.

Constitutional Convenience

For years, the PPP argued that Guyana’s Constitution vested too much authority in the Executive Presidency and did not adequately secure inclusive governance, shared decision-making or genuine national unity.

Those arguments did not disappear because the PPP-C returned to office. If anything, Guyana’s oil wealth, expanding public expenditure and concentration of decision-making make constitutional reform more urgent now than at any point before.

Yet the promised reform of the constitutional order has again been deferred, while the Government enjoys the utility of the same powerful executive structure it once criticized. That is the contradiction: condemning constitutional excess when out of office, then embracing constitutional convenience when in office.

Parliament Is Not Optional

The issue is not that Parliament did not convene after the 2020 elections. It did. The issue is whether Parliament has been allowed to operate as a meaningful, consistent and independent check on executive authority.

The current Parliament has had only four named sittings over more than 13 months. More troubling, those sittings have been principally driven by Government business rather than by a broad parliamentary agenda that reflects the urgent concerns of citizens, communities, workers, pensioners, farmers, small businesses and the opposition.

A Parliament reduced to a forum for the Government to process its own legislative program is not functioning at its democratic best. The National Assembly is not meant to be an occasional administrative extension of the Executive. It is meant to be the people’s House: a place where ministers are questioned, public spending is examined, contracts and policies are challenged, petitions are heard, and the concerns of every region can be placed on the national record.

Government business is necessary. But it cannot be the only business that matters.

The Democratic Test

The PPP-C is correct that the 2020 election crisis represented a grave threat to Guyana’s democracy. The right of Guyanese to determine their government had to be defended.

But a government that invokes democracy must also accept its continuing obligations after the election has been won. Electoral legitimacy is not a blank cheque for executive dominance, prolonged parliamentary inactivity or the marginalization of representatives elected to question and scrutinize those in power.

The democratic test is not whether a government can point to its electoral mandate. Every government can do that. The test is whether it permits institutions to operate freely when they may be inconvenient, critical or politically uncomfortable.

Oil Wealth Demands Oversight

This is particularly important in an oil-producing Guyana. The country is now managing unprecedented revenues, major infrastructure programs, large procurement contracts, land allocations, environmental questions and far-reaching development decisions.

Those matters cannot be left substantially to Cabinet announcements, ministerial statements and executive discretion. They require continuous parliamentary examination and public disclosure.

Guyana does not need a Parliament that appears only when the Government requires legislation, supplementary funds, budgets or approval for its program. It needs a Parliament that sits regularly and has the time, tools and institutional independence to interrogate how public money is spent and whose interests are being served. 

A government cannot credibly speak of defending democracy while treating Parliament—the central institution of representative democracy—as optional. Elections give a government the authority to govern. Parliament subjects that authority to examination, challenge and public accountability.

The Executive may enjoy a parliamentary majority, but that does not mean the National Assembly should be sidelined. In fact, a commanding majority makes regular parliamentary oversight even more necessary, not less.

Constitutional Convenience

The central irony is hard to avoid. The PPP-C condemns the former PNC administration’s record of authoritarianism and party paramountcy, yet it has embraced practices that reflect the same unhealthy governing instinct: the elevation of executive control above institutional accountability.

No serious observer is suggesting that the present era is identical to the pre-1992 period. The histories, circumstances and scale of abuses are not interchangeable. But democratic decline does not always arrive through the open cancellation of elections. It can also develop through gradual normalization:

⇒ Parliament is delayed, marginalized or made perfunctory.

⇒ Major decisions are made without adequate public consultation.

⇒ Constitutional reform is repeatedly promised but indefinitely deferred.

⇒  State resources and information are controlled from the center.

⇒ Critics are dismissed as enemies rather than treated as participants in democratic life.

⇒ Transparency becomes a slogan rather than a governing discipline.

A democracy can retain elections and still suffer from an imbalance of power that undermines public confidence.

 A Promise Deferred

The PPP-C statement says it will ensure “the transparent management of public resources” and fight corruption “in all of its manifestations.” Those are welcome commitments—but commitments demand measurable proof.

Guyana’s oil wealth makes constitutional reform, parliamentary scrutiny and institutional independence more urgent than ever. Vast public revenues, major infrastructure contracts, land allocations, procurement decisions and development priorities cannot be left substantially to executive discretion. The larger the public purse, the stronger the guardrails must be.

A serious democratic agenda would include:

⇒ A clear, public timetable for constitutional reform.

⇒ Regular and robust sittings of the National Assembly.

⇒ Stronger parliamentary committees with real access to records, contracts and officials.

⇒ Full transparency in public procurement, oil-revenue management and major development projects.

⇒ Protection for independent media, civil society, whistleblowers and dissenting voices.

⇒ Reforms that reduce excessive concentration of authority in the Executive Presidency.

 The Test of October 5

The PPP-C is entitled to commemorate October 5, 1992. But it cannot own that date while ignoring its deeper meaning.

Democracy was not restored so that one party could replace another at the commanding heights of the state. It was restored so that no government—regardless of party, race, history or electoral majority—could operate beyond sustained public scrutiny.

The true tribute to the struggle for democracy is not another anniversary statement condemning the sins of yesterday’s rulers. It is the willingness to submit today’s rulers to the same democratic standards.

Guyana must reject party paramountcy in every form: the crude authoritarianism of the past and the constitutional convenience, executive overreach and institutional neglect of the present.

October 5 Belongs to Guyanese

The PPP-C is entitled to commemorate October 5, 1992. But that date belongs to all Guyanese—not to one party and not to any government.

Its meaning is larger than the defeat of one administration and the rise of another. It is the principle that no party, however popular or historically significant, should be permitted to dominate the State without meaningful oversight.

Guyana rejected party paramountcy in 1992. It must reject every modern form of it now: executive overreach, constitutional convenience, weakened parliamentary scrutiny and the belief that an electoral majority relieves a government of its duty to answer to the people

Part Two: Brazil’s Election Is a Test of Guyana’s Strategic Preparedness

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 Part Two: Brazil’s Election Is a Test of Guyana’s Strategic Preparedness

Lula or Bolsonaro, Guyana Needs Guarantees—Not Promises

Guyana’s future cannot depend on the goodwill of Washington, Brasília or Caracas. It requires a disciplined foreign policy that treats territorial integrity as non-negotiable, diversifies security and trading relationships, and converts diplomatic assurances into transparent, enforceable commitments.

Brazil may accept US deterrence as useful, but it is unlikely to accept Guyana becoming a permanent American strategic outpost—or the Essequibo controversy becoming commercial currency in a Washington-Caracas settlement.

The danger for Guyana is that Brazil’s resistance to US dominance and Washington’s appetite for transactions could converge around the same word: “negotiation.” Yet for Guyana, negotiation cannot mean reopening territory that is before the ICJ or converting sovereign rights into the price of regional calm.

Guyana should watch Brazil’s presidential election with the seriousness it deserves. Brazil is not a distant Latin American giant whose politics matter only to Brazilians. It is Guyana’s neighbor, a major regional power, a vital trade route, a possible energy partner, a security stakeholder and a country whose choices can influence whether northern South America moves toward stability or deeper geopolitical contest.

But Guyana must avoid one of the oldest errors of small-state diplomacy: mistaking political affinity for national protection.

Whether Brazil returns Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or elects Flávio Bolsonaro, Georgetown should not be seduced by slogans, ideological labels or campaign rhetoric. Guyana’s interests are too serious to be left to assumptions about who is supposedly friendlier to Washington, harder on Venezuela or more enthusiastic about regional integration.

Brazil has its own interests. It wants no war near Roraima. It does not want Venezuelan military movement across its territory. It does not want a refugee crisis, armed spillover or regional instability along its northern frontier. And it does not want Guyana’s border controversy transformed into an open arena for great-power competition.

Those interests can align with Guyana’s interests. But alignment is not the same as commitment.

Under Lula, Guyana may expect continuity, dialogue and a preference for regional diplomacy. Brasília would likely continue to oppose military escalation and favour restraint. That may be useful. But Guyana must be alert: the language of dialogue can become dangerous when it is used to preserve the fiction that Guyana must negotiate territory already governed by the 1899 Award and before the ICJ.

Peace is not achieved by rewarding an aggressor with a seat at the table to renegotiate another country’s borders.

Under Flávio Bolsonaro, some may assume Brazil would take a firmer line against Venezuela because of his likely closeness to President Trump and his political hostility to the Venezuelan establishment. That assumption is far from safe.

If Washington is willing to transact with Delcy Rodríguez for oil, debt, mining and political cooperation, then a Bolsonaro-aligned Brasília may ultimately mirror that same transactional logic. It could be tough in rhetoric and flexible in practice. It could denounce Venezuelan authoritarianism while supporting “regional arrangements” that pressure Guyana to soften its insistence on a final legal settlement.

Guyana must not confuse anti-Maduro rhetoric with pro-Guyana policy.

The Brazilian election therefore presents a challenge—not merely an opportunity. Georgetown must move beyond ceremonies, memoranda, promises of integration and repeated announcements of future cooperation.

Guyana needs enforceable commitments.

♦What is the actual timetable for the Linden-Lethem road corridor?

♦What financing has been secured?

♦What are the terms of customs, border facilities, freight movement and security control?

♦What precisely is contemplated on energy interconnection?

♦ Who benefits from Brazilian agricultural investment?

♦ Which companies are involved, what land is being discussed, and what protections exist for Guyanese communities, producers and public revenues?

These are not technical footnotes. They are questions of sovereignty.

Guyana cannot build its future on vague declarations about Brazil being a “strategic partner” while the public remains unable to examine the terms, timelines, investors, costs and obligations behind that partnership. Development without transparency is not strategy. It is exposure.

Nor should Guyana permit Brazil’s understandable wish for regional calm to become a mechanism for Venezuela to keep Essequibo permanently under political negotiation. Brazil has a legitimate interest in peace. Guyana has a non-negotiable right to territorial integrity. The two can coexist only if Brazil accepts that peace must be built on law—not on a compromise imposed upon the country whose territory is under claim.

Guyana should therefore seek firm commitments from whichever government emerges in Brasília:

♦ Brazil will oppose any use or threat of force against Guyana.

♦ Brazilian territory will never be used to facilitate military aggression against Guyana.

♦ Brazil will respect and support the ICJ process and the binding character of its eventual ruling.

♦ Brazil will not endorse any political formula that reopens Guyana’s sovereignty over Essequibo.

♦ Bilateral infrastructure, energy, trade and agricultural initiatives will be governed by transparent agreements, public accountability and clear benefit to Guyanese citizens.

That is the standard Guyana must set.

Brazil’s election is not a reason for Georgetown to choose sides in Brazilian politics. It is a reason for Georgetown to insist that Guyana’s interests survive any change in Brazilian politics,

Lula or Bolsonaro, Guyana must not be dependent on personal relationships, ideological sympathies or diplomatic pleasantries. The country needs written commitments, public agreements, strategic diversification and a foreign policy disciplined enough to understand one fundamental truth:

“A promise from a powerful neighbor is useful. A guarantee that protects Guyana’s territory, economy and sovereignty is indispensable.“

Brazil’s election matters to Guyana because Brazil is simultaneously a trading partner, land-link, security neighbor and regional power; yet neither Lula nor Flávio Bolsonaro should be treated as Guyana’s automatic ally. Guyana’s interests require binding commitments from Brasília, not ideological assumptions about either candidate.

This op-ed focuses on Brazil as the indispensable regional actor. It  explains why Guyana cannot afford to see Brazil merely through the lens of who is friendlier to Washington, more hostile to Caracas, or more rhetorically supportive of Guyana.

These are the  central pillars Guyana needs to ratify:

  • Brazil is central to Guyana’s trade, the Lethem corridor, agriculture, energy interconnection, border security and access to northern South American markets.
  • Brazil wants no war on its northern frontier and will resist Venezuelan military escalation.
  • But Brazil also wants regional autonomy and may resist a dominant US military or diplomatic role in its strategic neighborhood.
  • Lula may favor dialogue, mediation and regional diplomacy, which can protect peace but risk prolonging political debate over Guyana’s settled border.
  • Flávio Bolsonaro may be more aligned with Trump, but that alignment could weaken—not strengthen—Guyana’s position if Washington is simultaneously making deals with Delcy.
  • Guyana must demand clarity on the ICJ process, non-use of Brazilian territory for aggression, infrastructure delivery, cross-border trade and security cooperation.

Can Guyana turn Brazil’s geographic importance into enforceable national advantage, or will Georgetown remain dependent on changing political moods in Brasília?

 

Routledge: regret to differ from Adams, Ram, others

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Routledge: regret to differ from Adams, Ram, others

OPINION BY: GHK LALL October 2026

I regret differing from respected brothers, Dr. Vincent Adams and Chris Ram, two peerless Guyanese.  The source of the difference is Exxon Guyana President, Mr. Alistair Routledge’s statement that “it’s not our job to build the nation…they didn’t vote for us…we are not representatives of the people.”  Though I recoil from what Mr. Routledge said, he is right, except for one point, and on a limited basis only.  I dissect his statement, the main points of which are quoted in the preceding sentence.  

“It’s not our job to build the nation….”  The Exxon Country Head has been terribly wrong in many areas, many matters, many representations (billboards, reserves, revenue flows, and more).  He, however, is right that Guyanese should NOT look to Exxon to build Guyana.  Building Guyana is the job of the Guyana Government, Guyana’s political groupings, and the Guyanese people.  They must work at it with a passion, will it to rise from the derelict state (mentally, politically, governmentally) that it is today.  It is Pres Ali’s role to lead in building of Guyana, not Exxon’s board of directors, not Darren Woods, not Alistair Routledge. 

When the president puts aside divisive, destructive, politics, and engages political and civil society constituencies, then that’s from where the duty to build the nation starts and soars.  Hopefully succeeds.  At least, it increases the probability of progress.

When Pres Ali abandons his leadership role, lacks the courage to fight for what could build Guyana, through sheltering in a cracked glass house, that does not devolve to Exxon.  It shouldn’t, mustn’t.  Incidentally, Mr. Ali’s glass house has a name: sanctity of contract.  When he retreats there, doesn’t lift a finger to fight for developments that could build this nation, then why should Exxon? 

If Guyana refuses to fight for itself, why should others?  Who would do so for the abjectly fearful (doing nothing), the craftily resourceful (dodging leadership duty), and the smartly angling (retaining power)?

In lambasting Mr. Routledge, prominent Guyanese are giving their own pathetic leaders, their cowardly government, undeserved coverage.  One issue that I take with Mr. Routledge’s “build the nation” statement is his and Mr. Woods’ insistence that Exxon is a true, helpful, constructive partner, that the Guyanese people can hope to have, actually have.  If so, then helping to “build the nation” is part of a superbly profiting partner’s portfolio.  Can’t be as lopsided, as the record attests.  Nor as secretive.  Nor so destructive to the political and social fabric of this country.  A genuine partner will embrace that duty, as part of its enriched presence, for the wealth to be shared, a country to rise. 

Agreed that there’s no such animal as benevolent capitalism; and business is business, with no place for sentiment.  Hence, Exxon should sell itself as explorer and profit taker and not a partner

Not anything else.  It is my only qualification in agreeing with Mr. Routledge, speaking for Exxon’s High Command.  Recalling him would be reversing where Exxon’s Board and CEO stand.

“They didn’t vote for us.”  What is there to disagree about in that Routledge challenge?  Exxon’s board voted for a CEO, who then selected (voted) for Alistair Routledge as the best viceroy, the best warrior, for the company’s interests in Guyana.  Guyanese voted for Ali, Mohamed, Norton, Campbell and Walton-Desir.  They have to carry the burden of visions and actions on what is required to “build the nation”.  Then deliver on it.  It is improper, appalling, to delegate that to Exxon.  What are Guyanese: paralytics and misfits?  Not capable to tie their own shoe laces, unready to fold their hands into fists, and to stand for this nation?  It has been so, hasn’t it?

“We are not representatives of the people.”  I don’t usually agree with Mr. Routledge.  How can I disagree with him now?  Guyanese put Ali, Jagdeo, Nandlall, Norton, Campbell, Mohamed, Walton-Desir where they are to represent them, fight for them, even die for them.  They prefer to wound each other.  In some respects, Mr. Routledge just insulted them.  He savaged them.  I translate.  The people made them (YOU) their representatives.  Now get off derrieres and do all that can be done to build the nation.  Don’t look to Exxon. 

Guyanese have slackers for representatives where their patrimony is concerned.  Routledge is representing his constituencies well.  I wish I can say that about my Guyanese brothers and sisters sitting as the people’s representatives.

Finally, Alistair Rouledge could be, should have been, recalled for many other maneuvers.  Not on this statement, though.

Leonorians grateful for President Ali’s initiative

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

Leonorians grateful for President Ali’s initiative

SPORTS REPORT BY : Jai LAll October 2026

Cricket Returns to Leonora After More Than 35 Years. Pres. Ali, delivers on promise to his fellow Leonorians .President Irfaan Ali delivers on commitment as new floodlit facility brings renewed hope for West Demerara cricket.

After more than 35 years, live cricket has returned to Leonora—bringing joy, pride and renewed optimism to a community once regarded as a cricketing powerhouse on the West Side of Demerara.

The new Leonora Sports Ground, located behind the Leonora Police Station, came alive under lights on Friday, October 2, when President Dr Irfaan Ali led a President’s XI in a friendly 20-over tape-ball match against a Leonora XI, captained by Jeetendra Kishore, popularly known as “Jit.”

The President’s XI made 225 runs for the loss of five wickets before bowling out the Leonora team for  178 runs. President Ali also made his mark with the ball, claiming three wickets in an entertaining contest that drew cricket lovers, former players, youths and residents from across the community.

For Leonorians, the occasion represented far more than a friendly game. It marked the return of organised cricket to a village with a proud sporting history—one that produced strong teams and players and was once among Region Three’s cricketing behemoths.

The ground was unofficially opened on September 27,  2026, with a 50-ball softball cricket competition involving Leonora Pasture “Legends,” the Leonora Police Station, the Leonora Muslim Youth Organization, and Leonora A and B Cricket Club.

Leonora Pasture “Legends” won the tournament, followed by the Leonora Police Station, the Leonora Muslim Youth Organisation, and Leonora A and B Cricket Club.

The prizes reflected the strong community support behind the venture:

♦ First prize: $100,000  and a trophy, donated by Imran “Wolf” Roti & Furniture Store

♦ Second prize: $75,000 

♦ Third prize: $50,000 , donated by Nadesh’s N&R Welding Co. and Reuben’s RH Int.

♦ Fourth prize: $25,000 , donated by Bacchus Ent. Construction

♦ Additional trophies were donated by Kesho’s Murthy Store

The softball competition was organised through the efforts of members of the Softball Cricket League Region Three and the Leonora Police Station Management Committee.

The restoration of a proper home ground for Leonora is the result of sustained community advocacy and collaboration. Credit has been extended to President Ali, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Charles Ramson, Minister Steven Jacobs, Local Government Minister Priya Manickchand, the Regional Democratic Council of Region Three, the Stewartville-Cornelia Ida Neighbourhood Democratic Council, Mr Lionel Rasul, persistent petitioners and other community-minded citizens.

For years, Leonora’s cricketers and sports lovers waited for a safe, accessible space where young people could train, compete and develop their talent. That wait has now ended.

The new facility gives youths an avenue to practise cricket, exercise and participate in constructive recreational activity. It also provides a positive environment that can help steer young people away from drugs, alcohol misuse and other harmful influences.

The location—near the Atlantic seawall, Leonora Police Station and Leonora Cottage Hospital—offers a healthy and secure setting for sporting development. There are also plans to further improve the facility’s standards and ambience, in keeping with President Ali’s call for citizens to “Get Up, Get Out and Get Active.”

For Leonora, this is not simply the opening of a sports ground. It is the revival of a community tradition, the restoration of sporting pride and an opportunity for the village to once again pursue its place among the champions of the West Side.

Leonora has waited a long time. Now, with a ground of its own and renewed community support, the village can begin its journey back to its glorious cricketing days.

 Special thanks are extended to President Dr Irfaan Ali; Mr Jai Lall, President of the Leonora Cricket Club; the club’s executive and general membership; and all supporters whose unwavering commitment helped bring this long-awaited project to fruition.

 

 

 

 

 

Guyana Must Stand With Cuba’s Independent Journalists

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Guyana Must Stand With Cuba’s Independent Journalists

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

The imprisonment of Cuban independent journalist Henry Constantin Ferreiro should concern not only those who defend press freedom in Cuba. It should concern every Caribbean citizen who understands that democracy cannot survive where governments treat independent reporting as a form of defiance.

Henry Constantin, director of La Hora de Cuba and a regional vice president of the Inter-American Press Society, has reportedly been placed in pre-trial detention after being accused of “disobedience.” Yet the wider context cannot be ignored: Constantin is an independent journalist working in a system where the state has long treated free reporting, dissenting views, and unapproved public discussion as threats to political control.

When a government describes the exercise of basic rights as “disobedience,” it has inverted the very meaning of law. 

In a democratic society, journalism is not an act of rebellion. It is an essential public service. Journalists investigate the decisions of public officials, pursue information that powerful people may prefer to keep hidden, test official explanations against evidence, and give the public the material needed to make informed judgments.

That work may be inconvenient. It may embarrass ministers, agencies, corporations, and political parties. But inconvenience is not illegality, and criticism is not a crime.

For Guyana, the case carries a particular relevance. Our country is undergoing a profound economic and political transformation, driven largely by petroleum wealth, major infrastructure spending, foreign investment, mining, environmental questions, and high-stakes decisions over the public purse. At such a moment, public scrutiny is not optional. It is indispensable.

Guyana needs more reporting—not less—on oil revenues, production-sharing arrangements, procurement, environmental safeguards, land and mining concessions, public contracts, regulatory enforcement, conflicts of interest, and whether national development is improving the lives of ordinary citizens.

A government confident in its stewardship should not fear those questions. It should answer them.

A government that fears independent journalism will almost always try to make the journalist, rather than the repression, the issue. It will point to administrative rules, procedural allegations, vague offences, and carefully chosen criminal labels. But a legal label does not erase political reality.

When a journalist is targeted because he has persisted in informing the public outside official control, the charge may be written as “disobedience,” but the underlying offence is independence

Press Freedom Is a Regional Duty

The Caribbean is often described as a region bound by shared history, geography, and democratic aspirations. Those values mean little if we speak loudly about freedom only when abuses occur beyond our borders, or only when the victims are politically convenient.

Guyana must consistently defend the principle that no journalist should be imprisoned merely for doing journalism. This principle must apply in Cuba and throughout the Caribbean, regardless of ideology, diplomatic alliances, or political discomfort.

It must also be defended at home.

The danger does not always begin with a prison cell. It can begin with public officials vilifying reporters, restricting access to information, withholding public records, using state platforms to smear critics, threatening lawsuits to chill reporting, or treating legitimate questions as evidence of hostility to the country.

These methods may differ in severity from outright imprisonment, but they share a common purpose: to weaken independent scrutiny and teach others that silence is safer.

Guyana’s democracy must never accept that logic.

A Warning Against the Language of Control

Words matter because governments use them to shape public understanding. When wrongdoing by the powerful is exposed, the messenger is often attacked. A journalist may be called unpatriotic, malicious, politically motivated, anti-development, or opposed to national progress.

These labels are designed to shift attention away from the facts.

No citizen should have to prove loyalty to a government before being allowed to demand accountability. Patriotism is not silence in the face of possible wrongdoing. Real patriotism is insisting that a country’s wealth, laws, institutions, and future be managed honestly and in the public interest.

The purpose of journalism is not to make power comfortable. Its role is to place facts before the public, especially where institutions refuse transparency and where ordinary people are denied access to information that affects their lives.

That responsibility becomes even more important in closed political systems, where the state controls major media outlets, public institutions, communications infrastructure, and the official record of national life.

In such circumstances, an independent reporter is not simply doing a job. He or she is defending the public’s right to know.

The freedom to question government is especially vital in resource-rich states. Oil wealth can strengthen democratic institutions when decisions are transparent and citizens are fully informed. It can also deepen secrecy, patronage, and concentrated political power where scrutiny is dismissed as an obstacle to development.

That is why Guyana must protect the right to investigate, publish, criticize, and demand answers.

Stand With Henry Constantin

The Danger of Pre-Trial Detention

The use of pre-trial detention against Henry Constantin raises a grave concern. Such detention should be exceptional, necessary, proportionate, and subject to swift, meaningful judicial review. It should never become a mechanism by which a government punishes a person before trial, avoids public scrutiny, or leaves a critic in legal limbo.

A person is presumed innocent. A journalist must not be confined for weeks or months simply because the state can invoke broad accusations while delaying a fair and transparent hearing.

When the machinery of justice moves slowly for the accused but swiftly for the state, the law ceases to function as a shield for liberty. It becomes an instrument of control.

The question is therefore not simply whether an official accusation has been made. The question is whether the accusation is being used to silence independent reporting and discourage others from following the same path.

Every authoritarian government understands the deterrent value of one imprisoned journalist. The intended audience is not only the person behind bars. It is every editor, reporter, student, activist, citizen, and family member watching from outside the prison gate.

The message is clear: remain silent, or pay the price.

Henry Constantin should be released immediately and unconditionally. Pre-trial detention must not become a substitute for due process, a means of punishing a journalist without conviction, or an attempt to force him into silence or exile.

His case should remind us of a basic truth: journalism is not disobedience. The right to inform and be informed is not a gift from those in office. It belongs to the people.

Guyana, as a Caribbean democracy with a growing international profile and enormous public stakes in how its resources are governed, should stand firmly on that principle.

To report is not to rebel. To publish is not to conspire. To question power is not to commit a crime. Journalism is not disobedience. It is freedom in practice.

A society that protects journalists protects its own right to know. A society that punishes journalists for telling the truth places its freedom in danger.

 

Teach the Truth, Defend the Inheritance

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

Teach the Truth, Defend the Inheritance

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Guyana’s education system arose from colonial structures. While its curriculum has evolved since independence, many students still encounter history through frameworks that give disproportionate attention to European “discovery,” imperial administration, British institutions, plantation economics, and colonial-era milestones.The 592 Guardian ask: Who is centered in the story Guyanese children are taught about Guyana. Decolonising education does not mean hiding difficult history or teaching children to hate other peoples. It means refusing to present conquest as discovery, exploitation as development, and the colonised as passive spectators in their own homeland.

A major focus could be the treatment of the first peoples: Lokono, Kalinago, Wapichan, Makushi, Patamona, Wai Wai, Akawaio, Arekuna-Pemon, Warrau and others. This editorial argues  that Indigenous Guyanese must not appear in textbooks only at the beginning of history, followed by disappearance from the national narrative. 

Their contemporary political rights, knowledge systems, conservation practices, languages, village governance, cultural institutions, and continuing struggles over land and consent belong in modern Guyanese civic education.

Guyana stands again at a decisive historical crossroads. Vast oil reserves are producing unprecedented revenues. Gold continues to leave our soil. Foreign corporations, international financiers and political intermediaries now circle a country once dismissed as marginal, poor and strategically irrelevant.

But before Guyanese celebrate this new era as proof of national arrival, we must confront a more sobering question: have we learned to recognize the old machinery of exploitation when it returns wearing modern clothes?

Our ancestors knew that machinery well.

They encountered it in the plantation economy—a system in which land was seized, human beings were enslaved, labor was coerced and the wealth produced in Guyana was shipped outward to enrich colonial masters, absentee proprietors, merchants and the British Crown. The plantocracy did not build its fortunes through benevolence, partnership or “investment.” It accumulated wealth through a system of racial terror, theft of labor and the calculated degradation of African people. 

The story did not end with emancipation. It evolved.

After slavery, colonial power sought new pools of cheap and controlled labor. Indentureship was imposed within an economic order designed to preserve plantation profitability. Indigenous peoples endured continuing incursions upon their lands, resources and ways of life.

Across the country, communities were expected to supply labour, surrender land, absorb hardship and accept political subordination, while others determined the terms under which Guyana’s wealth would be used.

Yet Guyanese people did not submit quietly. Enslaved Africans resisted from the first day of bondage. They plotted, fled, fought, organized and rebelled. The Berbice uprising of 1763, led by Cuffy and sustained by countless others whose names history has neglected, remains a declaration that human beings cannot be reduced to property. Emancipated Africans built villages, bought land, formed institutions and fought to exercise the freedom they had been denied. Workers struggled for dignity. Communities defended culture, identity and survival. Political activists carried the fight forward into the long campaign for self-government and independence.

The rights and liberties we now possess did not arrive as gifts from empire. They were wrested from systems built to deny them. That is the inheritance Guyanese children must understand.

Burkina Faso along with several other nations in Africa and the Commonwealth decision to remove colonial terminology and colonial assumptions from its education curriculum should provoke urgent reflection in Guyana. We too must ask whether our schools still teach our history from the viewpoint of those who conquered, extracted and ruled—or from the standpoint of the people who endured, resisted, rebuilt and created this nation.

Words matter. They condition how a people understand power.

When invasion is called exploration, conquest is called discovery, dispossession is called development and exploitation is called partnership, injustice is made to appear natural. The colonized become background characters in their own history. The conqueror becomes the hero. The victim is told to be grateful for the civilization supposedly delivered at the end of a gun, a chain or a contract.

Guyana needs no curriculum of hatred. It needs a curriculum of truth.

That truth must name Indigenous dispossession. It must teach the crime of African enslavement without euphemism or apology. It must honestly explain indentureship and the economic purposes it served. It must recognize the contributions, sacrifices and political struggles of every people who made Guyana: Indigenous, African, Indian, Portuguese, Chinese, European and mixed-heritage communities

But it must do more than recount suffering. It must teach resistance, achievement, organization and agency. Our children must learn that their fore-parents were not merely acted upon. They acted. They defied the whip, challenged the plantation, bought land, formed villages, built families, defended communities, organized labor and demanded a nation of their own.

This is especially urgent in the oil age.

Guyana’s current wealth is not merely a commercial opportunity. It is a test of whether political independence has matured into economic sovereignty.

We must teach future generations how to read the arrangements through which their national patrimony is managed. They must understand royalties, profit shares, tax concessions, production agreements, environmental obligations, regulatory failures, local-content requirements, public accountability and the consequences of allowing wealth to escape while communities remain underdeveloped.

They must be taught to ask: who owns the resource? Who negotiated the terms? Who carries the risk? Who takes the profit? What remains in Guyana when the resource is gone?

These are not abstract questions. They are the modern expression of an old struggle.

The plantation class used chains, coercion and forced labour to cart away Guyana’s wealth. Today, a neo-colonial industrial order can achieve comparable outcomes through unequal agreements, corporate leverage, weak oversight, secrecy, tax arrangements and the political capture of public decision-making. The instruments are different. The danger is familiar: a country rich in resources, while its people remain spectators to the export of their own inheritance.

This is not an argument against foreign investment. Guyana needs capital, expertise, technology and trade. But partnership cannot mean surrender. Investment cannot mean that the investor acquires the lion’s share while the owner of the resource is left to manage polluted rivers, weakened institutions, inadequate infrastructure and unfulfilled promises.

A nation that does not understand its past can be deceived in its present.

The forthcoming presence of King Charles III in the Caribbean heightens the importance of this conversation. The British monarchy cannot approach the descendants of enslaved people with ceremony while avoiding its central historical responsibility.

The Crown sat atop an empire enriched by African enslavement, indentureship, plantation production and colonial extraction. Britain’s wealth was not made in isolation; but from the blood, labor and suffering of millions.

There must be no sanitized account of that record. Slavery was among the worst crimes against humanity. It was legalized theft of life, labor, family and future. Its legacy did not vanish when the formal system ended.

It lives on in the unequal distribution of land, wealth, opportunity and power across the Caribbean and the wider world.

A genuine apology is necessary because it identifies the crime and acknowledges responsibility. But words without repair, restitution and concrete redress are insufficient. They risk becoming performance—carefully managed expressions of regret designed to preserve comfort without confronting consequence.

Guyana must not permit its history to be softened for the comfort of those who benefited from it, nor must it allow its future to be negotiated in a way that repeats it.

We owe the freedom fighters, village builders, labor organizers, Indigenous defenders and anti-colonial patriots more than ceremonial remembrance. We owe them vigilance. We owe them courage. We owe them an educated citizenry capable of identifying exploitation whether it comes in the form of a plantation decree, a colonial ordinance, a mining concession or an oil contract.

Their legacy must be paid forward.

Let Guyana therefore undertake a serious, transparent and scholarly review of its curriculum. Let teachers, historians, Indigenous leaders, community organizations, students and families participate. Let the result be a national education rooted in evidence, dignity and civic consciousness—not partisan indoctrination, not ethnic exclusion, and not colonial nostalgia.

Teach our children the truth: where we came from, what was done to our peoples, how they fought back, and why sovereignty is more than a flag and an anthem.

Only a people trained to recognize exploitation in every shape and form can prevent its return.

 

Part One: Washington, Delcy and the New Risk to Guyana’s Sovereignty

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

Part One: Washington, Delcy and the New Risk to Guyana’s Sovereignty

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Guyana Must Not Become the Price of a Trump-Delcy Deal

Guyana’s future cannot depend on the goodwill of Washington, Brasília or Caracas. It requires a disciplined foreign policy that treats territorial integrity as non-negotiable, diversifies security and trading relationships, and converts diplomatic assurances into transparent, enforceable commitments.

The live danger for Guyana is not merely a Venezuelan military move. It is the possibility that Venezuela’s unlawful claim becomes bargaining capital in a Washington-Caracas transaction, with Guyana asked to pay for regional “stability” by negotiating territory, oil or sovereign rights that are not Washington’s to trade. 

Guyana must now confront a diplomatic reality that is as dangerous as any military threat: Venezuela may be seeking accommodation with Washington without surrendering one inch of its unlawful claim to Essequibo.

Delcy Rodríguez has shown that Caracas can speak the language of “cooperation” with the United States while continuing to wave the map, repeat the claim and demand that Guyana return to a so-called negotiated settlement. That is not peace. It is a calculated effort to make Venezuela acceptable to Washington without making Venezuela accountable to international law.

And Georgetown must understand the trap.

The question is no longer whether President Donald Trump dislikes Nicolás Maduro or whether Washington has traditionally supported Guyana’s territorial integrity. The question is whether a transactional United States administration, pursuing oil access, debt settlements, mining opportunities, migration control and political leverage in Caracas, may come to see the Guyana-Venezuela controversy as an obstacle to be “managed.”

That word—managed—should alarm every Guyanese.

Because in the language of powerful states, “managing” a controversy often means asking the smaller, law-abiding country to make concessions so the larger, disruptive country can be brought into line. Venezuela creates the instability. Venezuela rejects the court. Venezuela asserts a claim over two-thirds of Guyana. Venezuela threatens, provokes and refuses to accept the legal process.

Yet Guyana, because it is peaceful, democratic and internationally compliant, may be asked to demonstrate “flexibility.”

That would be an outrage.

Guyana did not manufacture this controversy. Guyana did not invade Venezuela. Guyana did not redraw maps. Guyana did not invent an imaginary entitlement to another country’s territory. Guyana has taken the dispute to the International Court of Justice precisely because law—not intimidation, oil politics or gunboat diplomacy—must determine borders.

There can be no moral equivalence between the victim of an unlawful claim and the state making that claim.

Yet the risk is clear. If Washington sees Delcy Rodríguez as a useful partner in a broader Venezuela reset, Caracas may attempt to sell the illusion of stability in exchange for economic relief, political recognition or commercial re-engagement. And where does Guyana fit into that equation? It could be treated as the party expected to give something up—perhaps in the form of “joint development,” “shared resources,” “special arrangements,” or renewed negotiations dressed up as a regional peace plan.

Guyana must reject that script before it is written.

There must be no oil-sharing formula that implies Venezuela has a lawful claim to Guyana’s territory. There must be no joint-development arrangement that converts illegal aggression into an investment opportunity. There must be no political deal that suspends, dilutes or circumvents the ICJ process. And there must be no foreign pressure—whether from Washington, Brasília, CARICOM or elsewhere—to make Guyana negotiate what is not negotiable.

The 1899 Arbitral Award is not a bargaining chip. Essequibo is not a peace offering. Guyana’s sovereignty is not available for lease, discount or exchange.

President Irfaan Ali has correctly stated that Guyana will not compromise its territorial integrity in pursuit of an “amicable” arrangement. That position must now be hardened into national policy, repeated without ambiguity and backed by diplomatic action. Guyana must insist that every partner state publicly recognise three essential principles: the ICJ process must proceed; the eventual ruling must be respected; and no side arrangement can prejudice Guyana’s sovereign rights.

This is the test of Guyanese diplomacy in the coming period.

Washington may pursue its interests. Caracas may pursue its schemes. But Georgetown must pursue Guyana’s survival as a sovereign state. No government has the authority to trade away the country’s territory for temporary calm, foreign approval or commercial convenience.

The real danger is not merely that Venezuela may threaten Guyana with force. The real danger is that Venezuela’s threat may become bargaining capital in somebody else’s deal.

Guyana must make certain that it is never the price of a Trump-Delcy transaction.