Archive for category: Opinions

592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 Is Guyana Trading Sovereignty for Access?

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OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

Guyana must be careful not to confuse diplomatic attention with national advantage.

Washington’s renewed engagement with Guyana comes at a moment when the country is rich in petroleum revenue, strategically located, vulnerable to territorial aggression, and caught in intensifying competition between the United States and China. The offer of Exim Bank financing on the sidelines of the recent United Nations summit must therefore be examined not simply as a welcome gesture of friendship, but as part of a wider geopolitical contest for influence, markets, contracts, infrastructure and strategic alignment.

The central question is straightforward: what does Guyana owe in return?

The Trump administration has made its worldview increasingly explicit. Under its “America First” approach, foreign assistance is not treated principally as a humanitarian undertaking or an expression of goodwill. It is increasingly transactional. Assistance, financing and diplomatic support are expected to yield identifiable benefits for the United States: access to markets, preferential treatment for American firms, supply-chain advantages, valuable data, geopolitical loyalty, and the displacement of competitors—particularly China.

Guyana should assume that this same philosophy informs the new American overtures.

No responsible Guyanese would object to the country diversifying its partnerships, strengthening ties with the United States, or accessing competitive financing for infrastructure and development. Guyana needs roads, power generation, transmission networks, ports, hospitals, technology, industrial capacity and human-capital investment. But the country cannot accept financing and support on terms that make public policy subordinate to the commercial ambitions of foreign corporations or the geopolitical anxieties of a larger power.

When a United States ambassador actively presses for tax holidays, incentives and special concessions for American companies, Guyanese policymakers must ask whether Washington is seeking a fair investment environment—or a privileged one.

A tax holiday granted to a foreign company is not a gift from government. It is foregone public revenue. It is money that could otherwise help finance schools, hospitals, drainage, roads, housing, policing, local enterprise development, environmental enforcement and the sovereign wealth fund. If foreign firms receive exceptional concessions while Guyanese businesses face high borrowing costs, weak access to procurement opportunities, bureaucratic obstacles and full tax obligations, then the state has created an uneven playing field by design.

That is not partnership. It is preference. And preference, if repeatedly granted to outside interests, can develop into economic capture.

Economic capture does not necessarily arrive with a flag, an army, or a formal treaty of subordination. It can emerge through a steady accumulation of concessions: preferential access to contracts; tax exemptions unavailable to local firms; foreign control over critical infrastructure; externally dictated procurement rules; debt structures that limit policy options; and investment agreements negotiated in secrecy, beyond meaningful parliamentary or public scrutiny.

Guyana has already learned, through its oil experience, that a country can possess enormous natural wealth while still bargaining from a position of institutional weakness. The lesson should not be forgotten as the country enters new negotiations over energy, infrastructure, security, technology and financing.

The danger is especially acute where United States policy is openly tied to reducing China’s influence. Guyana must not become a battlefield for competing foreign powers, compelled to choose investors, technologies, contractors and lenders according to another country’s geopolitical priorities. China, like the United States and every other external actor, must be assessed rigorously. Its loans, projects, contractors, environmental practices, labor arrangements and contractual terms deserve scrutiny.

But replacing Chinese influence with American commercial dominance would not amount to sovereignty. It would merely change the identity of the dominant outside power.

Guyana’s foreign policy must remain Guyanese.That means engagement with Washington must be anchored in clearly stated national conditions:

◊ No exclusive concessions for American companies that are unavailable on transparent and equal terms to Guyanese and other qualified investors.

◊ No tax holidays without published cost-benefit assessments showing jobs, local-content commitments, technology transfer and revenue gains sufficient to justify the concession.

◊ No opaque Exim Bank or other financing arrangements that add to public liabilities without parliamentary oversight and public disclosure.

◊ No procurement rules designed to exclude competitors solely to serve another country’s geopolitical agenda.

◊ No surrender of control over strategic assets, including energy infrastructure, ports, telecommunications, public data systems, critical minerals and national-security infrastructure.

◊ Strong local-content provisions that require genuine Guyanese ownership, employment, training, procurement and skills transfer—not token local participation.

◊ A diversified foreign-policy and investment strategy, so that Guyana remains able to work with the United States, China, CARICOM, India, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, Canada and multilateral institutions on terms consistent with its own interests.

The government must also explain whether any American financial offer is tied—formally or informally—to market access, contract preferences, data access, security commitments, policy changes, or restrictions on Guyana’s engagement with Chinese firms. A nation cannot make informed choices when the public sees only the headline value of a financing package and not its full conditions.

Guyana does not need to reject the United States. It needs to negotiate with the United States as an equal sovereign state.

Washington’s support on Venezuela, security, investment and development can be valuable. Yet support is not a blank cheque, and friendship should not require the surrender of fiscal independence, policy autonomy or economic space for Guyanese citizens and businesses.

A country that grants special privileges to foreign corporations while its own people struggle to secure capital, land, contracts and opportunity is not building national development. It is building dependence.

Guyana must welcome investment—but reject economic capture. 

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 A Warning, Not a Celebration

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OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

Bharrat Jagdeo’s declaration that the PPP and PNC could face “extinction” unless they transcend racial division and old-style binary politics may sound, at first hearing, like a statesmanlike appeal for national healing. Guyanese should welcome any genuine rejection of ethnic mobilization, partisan hostility and the politics of permanent conflict.

But noble language about “working together” cannot substitute for public disclosure, constitutional safeguards and independent oversight.

The central question is not whether Guyana needs less racial division. It unquestionably does. Nor is it whether political co-operation can help the country govern more effectively. It can. The question is: what form of co-operation is being contemplated, who will negotiate it, what powers will be traded, what institutions will remain independent, and who will protect citizens if the two historically dominant parties close ranks against the public interest?

Those questions cannot be dismissed as cynicism. They arise precisely because Guyana’s political history has taught citizens to be cautious when powerful actors invoke national unity without first defining the terms.

The Missing Framework

Jagdeo’s remarks recalled earlier engagement between the PPP and Robert Corbin’s PNC, including discussions that reportedly collapsed amid internal accusations that Corbin was “selling out.” Whether those accusations were fair is one issue. But the episode also demonstrates the political reality that any engagement between the two major parties will immediately invite concern about secret agreements, elite bargains and the dilution of democratic competition.

If the PPP and PNC are now contemplating closer co-operation, Guyana needs a framework before it needs speeches.

That framework must answer basic questions:

– Is the proposal for issue-by-issue parliamentary collaboration, constitutional reform, a formal coalition, a government of national unity, or executive power-sharing?

– Would agreements be published before they are implemented?

– Would civil society, labor, business groups, Indigenous organizations, religious bodies, youth groups, professional associations and the diaspora be consulted?

– What protection would exist for dissenting parliamentarians, smaller parties, journalists, watchdog bodies and ordinary citizens?

– Would an arrangement strengthen the National Assembly’s scrutiny of the Executive—or further weaken it?

– What would prevent co-operation from becoming a pact to protect political elites from investigation, criticism or electoral challenge?

Without transparent answers, “co-operation” can become a pleasant word for concentration of power.

Who Checks a Unified Political Establishment?

The PPP commands overwhelming political and institutional advantage. Any arrangement in which it holds approximately 55% of the governing political weight while the PNC commands only about 18% cannot be credibly presented as an equal partnership.

It would be a relationship in which the junior participant risks being absorbed, neutralized or used to legitimize decisions already made by the dominant party.

Guyana must therefore confront a difficult but necessary question: if the PPP and PNC enter a far-reaching governing arrangement, who becomes the effective opposition?

A democracy requires more than elections. It requires people and institutions with the authority, courage and capacity to question those in power. It requires robust parliamentary scrutiny, an independent press, active civil society, functioning courts, autonomous constitutional bodies and political alternatives capable of contesting for office.

When the main governing party and the  opposition party become partners, the danger is not merely reduced debate. The danger is that national politics becomes an agreement among elites while citizens are left outside the room.

There would be fewer incentives to expose corruption, challenge questionable contracts, scrutinize oil revenues, investigate procurement decisions, confront abuses of state resources or demand accountability for failed policies. The opposition’s most fundamental democratic role—to hold the government accountable—could be compromised at precisely the moment when Guyana’s petroleum wealth requires unprecedented vigilance.

The Road to a One-Party State

Guyana has already witnessed opposition figures cross the floor to join the PPP. Such crossings may be defended as individual political choices, but their cumulative effect matters. When elected representatives leave the opposition and join the governing side, especially in a political environment where the State controls vast resources, citizens are entitled to ask whether principle, pressure, political survival or inducement drove those decisions.

The risk becomes more serious if a weakened PNC enters an arrangement with the PPP while its parliamentary ranks continue to fragment.

With the right incentives—ministerial appointments, state boards, contracts, diplomatic postings, access to resources, promises of political protection or other forms of patronage—what would prevent further defections? What prevents the remaining PNC parliamentarians from becoming politically isolated, individually targeted or gradually drawn into the governing apparatus?

The concern is not imaginary. It is rooted in the established regional and international pattern by which dominant parties consolidate authority: weaken the opposition, absorb its leaders, reward loyalty, marginalize critics and present the resulting political imbalance as national consensus.

A democracy without a credible opposition may still conduct elections. It is not, however, a healthy democracy.

Constitutional Reform Must Not Become Constitutional Manipulation

There is an additional concern that cannot be ignored: constitutional reform.

Guyana’s Constitution should not be treated as untouchable. It contains unresolved questions about governance, inclusion, rights, accountability, electoral representation and the relationship between citizens and the State. Serious constitutional reform may be necessary.

But constitutional reform must never become a vehicle for political self-preservation.

Citizens have every right to be alert to the possibility that a PPP-PNC accommodation could create the parliamentary numbers, political climate or elite consensus needed to amend presidential term-limit provisions or otherwise reopen the path for former leaders to seek a third presidential term.

Whether such an objective is currently under discussion is not the point. The point is that the concentration of political power creates the opportunity for it.

A weakened or compromised opposition may no longer be able to stop self-serving amendments. A legislature dominated by parties operating under a broad agreement may become less likely to resist changes that serve political leaders rather than the public. And by the time citizens understand the full implications, the legal architecture may already have been altered.

No constitutional change involving presidential eligibility, term limits, electoral rules, political financing, judicial independence, parliamentary oversight or executive authority should proceed through closed-door party bargains. Such changes must require full public consultation, publication of proposals, independent expert review, parliamentary debate and, where appropriate, approval through a referendum.

Unity Cannot Mean Elite Immunity

Jagdeo is correct on one central point: Guyana cannot afford to remain trapped forever in the traumas, stereotypes and political suspicions inherited from the 1960 s.

But unity cannot mean asking citizens to forget history while the political class retains all the power. It cannot mean that the PPP and PNC agree to manage the country together while avoiding serious examination of their respective records.

Both parties have faced long-standing accusations of placing party paramountcy over national priorities. Both have been associated, at different periods, with patronage, opaque decision-making, ethnic mobilization, institutional distrust and the use of political power to advance partisan interests.

The answer to this history is not to merge the two systems of political control. It is to build institutions strong enough to restrain both of them.

Guyana does not need a bipartisan arrangement that shields political leaders from scrutiny. It needs:

– A genuinely independent Parliament with empowered committees and meaningful opposition oversight.

– Full transparency in oil, mining, infrastructure, procurement and public spending.

– Strong conflict-of-interest laws, asset declarations and enforcement against illicit enrichment.

– An independent judiciary and constitutional commissions insulated from political interference.

– Campaign-finance laws that expose who funds political parties and candidates.

– Protection for whistleblowers, journalists, civic activists and public servants who expose wrongdoing.

– Fair access to state media and safeguards against the use of public resources for party political advantage.

– Electoral reforms that ensure voters can choose among credible alternatives rather than being forced into a political duopoly.

The PNC’s Particular Dilemma

Jagdeo’s remarks place the PNC at a crossroads. The party must decide whether it will renew itself as a modern, credible and independent opposition—or allow itself to be drawn into a relationship where it possesses little leverage and risks losing its identity.

The PNC cannot simply discard “excess baggage” by entering an accommodation with the PPP. It must first confront its own internal governance, public credibility, leadership culture, electoral strategy and relationship with the smaller parties and constituencies that have formed part of the wider opposition space.

If it enters a governing compact from a position of weakness, it may gain short-term access but lose its long-term purpose. Its supporters may conclude that their votes no longer provide a meaningful check on power. Its leaders may become administrators within a PPP-dominated system rather than representatives of an independent political alternative.

That would not advance democracy. It would deepen public cynicism.

Cooperation Must Be Limited and Public

There is room for responsible co-operation between the PPP and PNC. They should be able to work together on national security, disaster preparedness, border defense, infrastructure standards, racial harmony, constitutional rights, education, healthcare and long-term management of petroleum revenues.

But such co-operation should be structured around specific national objectives—not around opaque political settlements.

A responsible model would include publicly negotiated, time-limited agreements on clearly identified issues. Every agreement should contain measurable objectives, implementation deadlines, reporting duties and independent review. It should preserve the opposition’s right to criticize, investigate, vote against the government and present an alternative program to the electorate.

Co-operation on an anti-corruption law, for example, is legitimate and necessary. Co-operation that neutralizes the opposition’s ability to investigate corruption is not.

There is a decisive difference between national consensus and political cartelization.

Citizens Must Remain Alert

The future of Guyana cannot be entrusted solely to the PPP and PNC, however historic or powerful they may be. The country’s future belongs to its citizens: Indo-Guyanese, Afro-Guyanese, Indigenous peoples, mixed-race Guyanese and every other community; those at home and abroad; workers, farmers, entrepreneurs, professionals, young people and pensioners.

The emergence of a younger electorate that thinks beyond inherited racial loyalties should be encouraged. But young Guyanese must not be offered a false choice between racial division and elite political unity.

They deserve something better: pluralism, accountability, transparent government, genuine inclusion and leaders who understand that national development is not measured only by roads, buildings and oil revenues. It is also measured by whether citizens retain the power to question, organize, dissent and replace those who govern them.

Guyana must reject racial politics. It must also reject unaccountable political consolidation. The country needs co-operation where it serves the people—and opposition where it protects them.

 

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“Washington’s War on Justice: Why the Global South Must Not Look Away”

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OPINION BY :Hem Kumar October 2026

For small states, developing countries and peoples who have historically had little power before empires, armies and global financial institutions, this should not be treated as a distant quarrel between Washington and The Hague. It is a warning.

Power Versus Principle

The United States has long demanded accountability from others. It invokes democracy, human rights, the rule of law and international norms when censuring governments it considers hostile or troublesome.

But now, when an international court examines alleged crimes involving Americans or Israeli officials, the response is not legal argument. It is economic force. It is intimidation. It is an effort to make the court financially and operationally incapable of carrying out its mandate.

Rubio did not merely criticize the court. He promised to restrict transactions with it and cut off the resources necessary for it to function. The sanctions can affect the ICC’s banking, software, travel, contracting and other routine operations, while US-linked companies are being given time to unwind their relationships with the court.

That is not a defense of justice. It is an assertion that justice must stop at the gates of power.

If the allegations before the ICC are baseless, then let them be challenged on evidence, law and due process. Let lawyers test the case. Let judges weigh the facts. But no serious democracy can credibly preach the rule of law while seeking to financially suffocate a court because its jurisdiction has become inconvenient.

The Global South’s Stake

The world must be clear about what is at stake. The ICC was never created for the comfort of the powerful. It exists because victims of mass atrocity are too often abandoned by domestic systems compromised by war, political influence, fear or impunity.

For countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the principle is fundamental: a person accused of the worst international crimes should not acquire immunity simply because his country possesses immense military force, wealth or diplomatic leverage.

The court’s work extends across situations involving Afghanistan, Sudan’s Darfur region, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Ukraine, Venezuela and Palestine, among others. Human Rights Watch warns that court-wide sanctions could jeopardize access to the basic financial and technological services needed for the institution to operate.

The implications are chilling. If Washington can weaponize its control of financial networks to punish an international judicial body, then which smaller institution will be safe? Which state will be able to rely on neutral rules when those rules inconvenience a powerful government? Which victims will be told that their suffering is legally meaningful only when the accused lacks geopolitical protection?

That is not a rules-based world. That is a world governed by rank.

A Bitter Moment of Contrast

The cruelty of the moment is sharpened by its timing.

The sanctions were announced as the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navi Pillay, a former ICC judge and internationally respected jurist whose life’s work has been defined by the pursuit of accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

One institution was honoring the labor of international justice. Another was moving to destroy the means through which that justice is pursued.

The contradiction could not be clearer.

And it should trouble every government that invokes international law when its borders, citizens, resources or sovereignty are threatened. A state cannot demand respect for law only when law protects its own interests, then fall silent when the same legal order is attacked elsewhere.

Guyana Cannot Be Selective

Guyana, like every small state, has a particular reason to defend international law consistently.

Our territorial integrity, our maritime interests, our sovereign rights over resources and our place in the world do not rest on military superiority. They rest on principles: the sanctity of borders, peaceful settlement of disputes, treaty obligations, international adjudication and the proposition that might does not make right.

Those principles cannot be selectively defended.

A country cannot celebrate international courts when they affirm its rights, appeal to global institutions when its security is challenged, and then remain indifferent while a powerful country attempts to cripple an international court because it has dared to investigate persons protected by power.

The lesson for Guyana is not that it must pick a side in every quarrel between global powers. It must not. Guyana’s foreign policy must remain anchored in Guyanese interests, regional stability, non-alignment, sovereignty and principled engagement with all partners.

But neutrality must never be confused with moral silence.

Small states have no interest in a world where international institutions are permitted to function only with the approval of a superpower. Today it is the ICC. Tomorrow it may be another treaty body, arbitration mechanism, court, climate institution or multilateral process upon which vulnerable nations rely.

CARICOM Must Speak Clearly

CARICOM should not be timid on this question.

The Caribbean understands the history of unequal power. Our nations emerged from slavery, colonialism, extraction and external control. We know what it means for major decisions to be made elsewhere, by people insulated from the consequences borne by smaller societies

That history demands clarity.

The region should affirm that international justice cannot be dismantled through financial coercion. It should support measures that protect the ICC’s ability to maintain banking, technological, travel and operational services. It should insist that the principle of accountability applies to every state and every official—not merely to those without powerful friends.

This is not anti-Americanism. It is pro-law.

It is also a test of whether the international community truly believes that genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are crimes against all humanity—or whether those words are simply tools to be deployed against the weak.

No One Above the Law

The ICC is not beyond criticism. No international institution is. Its record, resources, pace and uneven reach have all invited legitimate scrutiny. But criticism is not a license for demolition.

The Trump administration’s action presents the world with a simple and uncomfortable question: does international law apply to everyone, or only to those too weak to resist it?

For the Global South, for small states, and for every victim waiting for justice where domestic systems have failed, the answer cannot be uncertain. No nation should be too powerful to investigate. No official should be too protected to prosecute.  

And no court created to confront humanity’s worst crimes should be allowed to die because it has come too close to the powerful.

 

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  Unity Talk Cannot Mask Exclusion

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Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo chose an evening intended to honor the life and public service of former PNCR leader Robert Corbin to make a political pitch to the very party Corbin led. It was a crude and opportunistic display, delivered when PNCR supporters, relatives, colleagues and friends were mourning a loss . 

Mr Corbin’s passing ought to have been an occasion for reflection on his record, his convictions and his contribution to Guyana. Instead, Jagdeo used the platform to advance the PPP’s familiar narrative: that the country’s future depends on the two major parties “working together,” and that old political divisions must be abandoned.

There is nothing wrong with national unity. Guyana desperately needs it. But unity cannot be reduced to a speech, nor can it be demanded selectively by a government that continues to centralize power, marginalize critics and operate without the full democratic scrutiny that Parliament is meant to provide.

The obvious question is: where, precisely, is the policy  framework for cooperation?

Parliament has been shuttered. The opposition’s role in national decision-making is severely constrained. Major decisions on oil wealth, contracts, infrastructure, procurement, land, governance and public policy are routinely made from the top down. Consultation is too often ceremonial, while dissenting voices are dismissed as hostile, irrational or racially motivated.

No serious partnership can grow in that environment.

Jagdeo speaks of trust, maturity and a new political framework. Yet trust is not built through carefully timed speeches at funerals or memorial events. It is built by conduct: respect for institutions, adherence to constitutional safeguards, transparency in government, meaningful consultation, fair access to national opportunities and a genuine willingness to share decision-making power.

The PPP cannot credibly present itself as the architect of unity while practicing exclusion in government.

The Electoral Calculation

This intervention also carries an unmistakable electoral dimension.

The PPP’s traditional support base is already highly consolidated. If it hopes to broaden its parliamentary strength, it must attract voters who historically identify with, or are sympathetic to, the PNC and PNCR. That is why the language of “new thinking,” cooperation and transcending race is now being deployed with greater urgency.

A crossover is most useful to the ruling party when he or she can be displayed as proof that old loyalties have been abandoned. The former opposition figure becomes a symbol at rallies, public meetings, government events and party platforms—a face intended to reassure Afro-Guyanese communities that joining the PPP does not mean abandoning one’s identity, history or community.

But symbolism is not inclusion.

The real test is whether crossover figures are participating in consequential policymaking, shaping budgets, influencing oil-sector oversight, directing public investment, supervising procurement, determining national-security policy or holding the executive accountable. Or are they chiefly being used to give the PPP a more “national” face while actual power remains tightly held by the same political center?

The answer matters because Guyanese have seen this pattern before: prominent recruits are loudly celebrated, assigned roles of visibility or usefulness, then deployed to persuade those who remain politically unconvinced. The recruitment of individuals can be portrayed as national unity, while the institutions of government remain closed, centralized and resistant to genuine power-sharing.

The larger prize could be a parliamentary majority large enough to alter constitutional arrangements, including the term-limit provisions that prevent a president from serving more than two terms. A 44-seat majority in the 65-member National Assembly would provide the kind of supermajority needed for major constitutional amendments.

That possibility makes Jagdeo’s outreach more than a sentimental appeal to national healing. It is a power play.

Guyana must be vigilant whenever constitutional change becomes politically convenient for those already in command of the executive, Parliament and the country’s rapidly expanding oil revenues.

Constitutional reform must never become a vehicle for entrenching an individual, a party or a governing elite.

Corbin’s Legacy Deserves Better

Robert Corbin believed in engagement, but engagement did not mean surrender. He could defend the PNC’s interests fiercely while recognizing that Guyana’s divided political culture required dialogue. That was political maturity, not political submission.

If Jagdeo is sincere, the PPP should demonstrate it through action:

• Reopen and properly convene Parliament as a functioning arena for national debate and accountability.
• Establish structured, good-faith engagement with the parliamentary opposition on oil revenues, national development priorities, security, constitutional reform and public procurement.
• Strengthen independent oversight bodies rather than treating scrutiny as obstruction.
• End the practice of concentrating decision-making within a narrow executive circle.
• Guarantee that national opportunities, contracts, employment and development reach all communities fairly.
• Commit publicly that constitutional reform will not be used to facilitate a third presidential term or perpetuate any leader’s hold on power.

Until then, the rhetoric of unity will remain exactly that: rhetoric.

A government cannot demand that its opponents “get over” history while reproducing the same political instincts that keep Guyana divided—control, exclusion, distrust and the use of state power for partisan advantage.

Mr Corbin’s passing should have prompted humility. Instead, Jagdeo saw an opening. Guyana should not confuse that calculation with reconciliation.