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

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

 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.

Guyana Must Stand With Cuba’s Independent Journalists

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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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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.

 

 

 

  

MV Barima COI -expected operations, findings

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

 MV Barima COI -expected operations, findings

OPINION BY: GHK LALL October 2026

Pres Ali sez that Guyanese could expect a Commission of Inquiry into the MV Barima tragedy that is of the highest quality. The president has given the same assurance in other circumstances and what Guyanese were left to deal with was Excellency Ali type quality

Most Guyanese, including many from the PPP base, have a different definition, interpretation, and expectation of what real quality is, looks like, should be.  It’s painful, but the president’s history with quality leads me to low to no expectations re the MV Barima COI.  I present my expectations, which any quality COI should easily deliver awake or asleep. 

First Finding: a culture of political intrusion and direction contributed heavily to 100 lives lost.  Those in the political directorate who held up that and other boats, who overloaded it.  They indirectly (and directly) killed 100 struggling, lower-rung-of-the-ladder natives.  Names named.  All the way up.

Second Finding: a culture of executive and administrative acquiescence had a hand in sending that boat and those bodies in it to the bottom.  Cargo?  Who cares about any damn minister’s precious cargo now lost?  Highlight that, so that Guyana sees how governance functions, when the parades and speeches are done.  Bottom line conclusion: an overloaded boat had an overdue date with the seabed and fishes.

Third Finding: there’s a clear picture of ministerial and managerial actions that reek of material derelictions.  Responsible leadership.  Risk appetite.  Safety considerations.  This finding should go above two names or two government portfolios.  

Fourth Finding: ultimately, responsibility for the MV Barima tragedy rises above the names held out, goes beyond the clamor of vigilantes galloping forward and hunting for vengeance.  Vigilantes go well with vengeance.  But vigilantes-however well-intended, well-grounded, and well representative of the bottled rage of a people-are never about true justice.  It’s the justice of the emotionally crazed, the bloodthirsty.

Fifth Finding: indeed, ministerial heads have hands stained with blood.  But there are heads that are above their heads.  Ministers don’t operate in vacuums, or the isolation of remote islands.  Ministers accumulate reputations.  Depending on that record, honestly compiled, they remain in place, or are terminated.  When they are retained, despite chronic ills, then responsibility and accountability spiral higher.  Who kept them?  Who condoned their weaknesses?  Who covered up their gaps?  Who fostered a tragic culture (we are in charge and to hell with everybody else)?  We do as we please, don’t answer to anyone.  It was only a matter of time before a boat capsized, a road collapsed, a helicopter crashed, a children’s dorm burned.

Sixth Finding: 100 dead, Guyanese shattered, numbed, disillusioned.  This can’t be clean governance.  This has no ingredients that underpin trusted leadership at the highest level.  Any level.  Irresponsibility and treachery accelerated tragedy.

Seventh Finding: leadership platitudes added the profane to a painful set of circumstances.  Leadership must talk way less, speak to truth far more, and work constantly and sincerely at generating real trust.  Not racially motivated trust.  Not money trust (bartered for as part of an exchange).  Not propaganda energized trust.  But real trust from real people, who don’t owe anything to anyone, most of all political dominators and dominatrices.  This is right.  This is wrong.  This is who doesn’t belong.

In other countries, ministers were rolled out of offices, with their heads preceding.  In some instances, entire governments took the honest, decent step.  They departed.  National leaders have done so, on principle, or in response to the power of the people, and the pressures they brought to catastrophic issues. 

A point worthy of note is that those national leaders had no well-tended, well populated pastures to retreat to, settle down, and write their memoirs.  Or a textbook on cunning, but failed, leadership. 

A proper, honorable, self-respecting, MV Barima COI could, with one eye closed, one ear blocked, and one part of its mind otherwise occupied, arrive at the above findings inside a week.

“Not Our Job”: The Three  Words That Reveal Exxon’s Attitude Toward Guyana

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA 

 “Not Our Job”: The Three  Words That Reveal Exxon’s Attitude Toward Guyana

OPINION BY: Dr. Vincent Adams October 2026.

My Response to  Exxon ‘s Routledge Insulting Remark “not our job to build the nation”

Exxon’s Alistair Routledge usual full of himself outburst that “It’s not our job to build the nation…they didn’t vote for us…we are not representatives of the people” in response to a media question about Guyanese demanding more from his company, was typical of his imperiousness and disdain for the Guyanese people from the day he set foot in Guyana, to the extent that distinguished Attorney Christopher Ram joined by others, publicly called for his removal. See October 25, 2025 Kaieteur News article “Ram calls for dismissal of Exxon Guyana President…”.

It must be noted that this is not about Exxon, since Routledge’s behavior is like chalk and cheese compared to his predecessor Mr. Rod Henson, who, though a fervent company loyalist, was an exemplary professional who exhibited great mindfulness and respect for the country’s rule of law, Government authorities, and the people of Guyana.

I challenge Routledge to name a single Guyanese who would have ever indicated any expectation that it was Exxon’s “job to build Guyana”; so, his melodramatics in answer to a fair and predictable question in context of his company hauling off record breaking profits from a country with 58% poverty, was uncalled for, and unnecessary.

As expected of a supposed seasoned Manager, he could have come up with a thousand gracious answers; however, he just couldn’t resist his proclivity for poking another finger into the eyes of the Guyanese people with his patronizing mouthing off.

Instead of washing his mouth on the Guyanese people, I wish that Routledge would for once, have the common decency and manners to at least fess up that his company needs Guyana far more than Guyana needs his company; and express his gratitude to the people for resuscitating his company. It was Guyana’s oil that bailed Exxon out of a financial crisis when it was laying off employees, shedding its high liability assets such as the Canadian tar sands, and yes, being kicked off of the Dow Jones Industrial list of the US 30 blue chip companies; and it is Guyana’s oil that accounts for 60% of his company’s 19.3 billion barrels of worldwide proved equivalent oil reserves, even with his company’s dishonest lowballing of Guyana’s reserves to Exxon’s financial advantage.

In other words, there will be no Exxon without the people of Guyana’s oil.

Emboldened by a Govt that was described by the Honorable Judge Kissoon as “derelict, pliant and submissive” to Exxon, there seems to be no end to the disrespectful behavior of Routledge taking the warm hospitality and good natured demeanor of the people as weakness.

Was  Mr. Henson’s respect, care and concern for  Guyana and its people, the reason  he was removed and replaced by Mr. bombastic Routledge?

The answer became obvious as Routledge, since his  arrival, a has been taking full advantage of the “derelict, pliant and submissive” PPPC Govt, to, perpetrate his numerous atrocities:

  1. Falsely declaring that “prior to 2023, we were not making profits here in Guyana, so there were no tax credits from that”, though Exxon’s own income statements recorded profits of G$132 billion in 2021 and G$637 billion in 2022.
  2. Putting up billboards across Guyana, falsely propagandizing and misleading  the nation that Guyana is receiving 52% of oil revenues, which is contractually  impossible, the  fact is , Guyana  is only receiving- 14.5%. 
  3. Reverse the prohibition on flaring of billions of tons of toxic produced gas into the atmosphere, allowing unlimited flaring for a paltry fee that is miniscule to the money Exxon makes from the flaring.
  4. Contemptuously justify flaring, saying that poor Guyana needs the money charged for the flaring and that flaring in Guyana is OK because Guyana’s atmosphere is clean; so, there is  room to take up more pollutants, when, at the same time, Exxon had committed to cut flaring by almost half in the rest of the world.
  5. Publicly threaten that if Guyana doesn’t cooperate and allow for  flaring, Exxon may take its business elsewhere.
  6. Join with the Govt. to fight tooth and nail in court to overturn the full liability assurance enshrined in environmental permits to cover oil spills, without which, would leave an environmental catastrophe and bankrupt Guyana and the Caribbean countries.
  7. Join with the Govt to drop the EPA’s legal proceedings against Exxon for refusing to pay the small fine of $500 USD for six small oil spills, with the bonus of the removal of the EPA Attorney prosecuting the case for EPA.
  8. Illegally exceeding the safe oil production rate enshrined in the permits, compromising the health, safety and environment, and increasing the risk of an oil spill without liability coverage.
  9. Tripling the timeline- to 9 days, the time to deploy the capping stack equipment to stop an oil spill, thus, recklessly allowing an extra 6 days of oil gushing into the ocean.
  10. Imposing upon the Govt that there shall be no talk of renegotiation of the lopsided oil contract, despite both President Ali and VP Jagdeo prior shouting from the rooftop that it was the worst contract ever which steals the nation’s patrimony and will be renegotiated as soon as they get into office; but when in office, became so cowardly muted that scared to even request renegotiations under the cover of “sanctity of contract”.
  11. Add further insult with his recent ridiculousness that Guyana’s oil reserves have dropped from the already preposterous 11 billion barrels, further increasing Exxon’s withholdings by $ billions for decommissioning.  

For Exxon to recover any semblance of credibility and confidence of the people as seen during Mr. Henson’s tenure, I join with Christopher Ram and the others in calling for the removal of Mr. Routledge.

Editor’s Note 

“Alistair Routledge’s declaration that building the nation is “not our job” should outrage every Guyanese. Exxon’s executives cannot celebrate record production, extract Guyana’s finite petroleum wealth, and facilitate the export of billions in profits, then wash their hands of any obligation to the country that has made that windfall possible.

This is not merely an unfortunate comment. It is a blunt admission of Exxon’s corporate posture: Guyana’s oil is its business, but Guyana’s development, people, infrastructure, environmental security, and future are somebody else’s problem. That is the mindset of a company treating a sovereign nation as an extraction zone rather than a partner deserving respect and a fair share.

Exxon may not have been elected to govern Guyana. But it cannot demand the benefits of our national patrimony while disclaiming every responsibility that comes with operating here. Guyana must never accept a relationship in which Exxon carts off the wealth and tells Guyanese to build the nation alone.

We concur with  and  fully endorse Dr. Vincent Adams’s  call for Routledge to go and would caution him in our local vernacular ‘don’t bite the hand the feed you ‘. 

 

A Portfolio Without a Ledger

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA  

   A Portfolio Without a Ledger

OPINION BY: Hem Kumar October 2026

One American lender, at least six projects, and no published terms. The first numbers came from an ambassador.

In our previous editorial we set out a test for any arrangement with Washington: who proposed it, on what terms, through what process, with what sight for the National Assembly, and under whose name. The past ten days have supplied the material to apply it.

What Has Been Said

On Monday 21 September President Ali met John Jovanovic, Chairman and President of the US Export-Import Bank, in New York. The Department of Public Information published its account the next day. On the public record, the picture is this:

♦Energy. EXIM is expected to support financing for phase two of the Gas-to-Energy project, and the bank will continue working to complete phase one at Wales. It has also signaled interest in a second GTE project.

♦ Berbice. EXIM will be part of a structure investing in the deep-water port.

♦Widening scope. The President said EXIM’s support is widening into housing, security and other areas of national interest. The release adds Amaila Falls, where US companies are expected to play a role, and the Lethem Airport. 

♦ Housing. Mr Jovanovic pointed to an Affordable Housing Construction Project advanced with US companies. Six days later, on 28 September, US Ambassador Nicole Theriot told a podcast that two American firms, US Frame Factory of Louisiana and Golden Shield of Indiana, will build 10,000 homes, with EXIM funding. The state-owned Chronicle reported this on 30 September.

What Has Not

The DPI release names no amount, no instrument, no borrower and no tenor. It says “financing,” and no more. EXIM is a lender, guarantor and insurer of American exports, not a grant-maker, so the Board proceeds on the understanding that these are loans or loan guarantees whose repayment will fall on the Guyanese public, directly or through state entities. The government has not said otherwise. It has not said which projects the loans attach to, whether any is tied to the purchase of American goods and services, or what “security” financing means. We have seen no published loan agreement, resolution or paper tabled in the National Assembly for any of them.

The ambassador supplied the firms and the number. The government supplied the adjectives.

The Patron’s Bargain, Applied

Mr Jovanovic told the President that Guyana’s success is America’s success in bringing stability to the hemisphere, and that Mr Ali could be a “catalyst for stability.” That is the language of usefulness. It is an honest description of how Washington sees Guyana: as a regional asset whose value is measured by what it does for American ambitions. The Free Press critique we examined last editorial warned what follows when a patron’s favor tracks usefulness and the terms are left unwritten.

Stability is a fine thing to be a catalyst for. Guyanese are entitled to ask who sets the terms of the catalysis, and who pays when it is called in.

The security reference deserves its own scrutiny. It arrives in the President’s words, in a sentence about EXIM. We have seen nothing that explains which US agency would fund what, on what terms, or how it relates to the drone and air-domain-awareness arrangements whose data-sharing terms remain undisclosed.

The Exposure Question

This Board has previously reported foundation-engineering concerns, contractor and payroll irregularities and cost overruns on the Wales project. The DPI release says EXIM will continue to work to complete it and is interested in a second. The public should be told, before phase two is financed, whether EXIM who is already a lender on phase one, on what terms, and what the combined exposure across GtE, the port, housing and the rest will be.

Seen project by project, each number may look manageable. Seen together, they are a sovereign balance sheet decision, and nobody has yet put the sum on the table.

The Test, Scored So Far

♦Who proposed it? Unclear. The ambassador and the EXIM chairman have both described the housing project. No Guyanese ministry has, so far as we can establish, set out its origin.

♦ On what terms? None published.

♦ Through what process? None stated, including whether any tender or exemption applied to the housing contractors.

♦ With what sight for the Assembly? None that we can find.

♦ Under whose name? No named officer has accepted responsibility for the package.

Every one of these answers could be supplied in a day, and supplying them would cost the government nothing if the deals are sound. The speed with which this portfolio is moving is not a measure of its merit. It is a measure of how little of it the public has been shown.

The 592 Guardian calls on the Government to publish the financing terms for each project, table the agreements in the National Assembly, and name the officer answerable for the whole.

— The Board

Sourcing note: Facts on the EXIM meeting are drawn from the Department of Public Information release of 22 September 2026. The housing announcement is drawn from the Guyana Chronicle report of 30 September 2026 on Ambassador Theriot’s podcast remarks. The characterization of EXIM financing as loans or guarantees is the Board’s understanding and is not stated in the release. Observations about the absence of published terms reflect the Board’s review to date.

When TikTok Becomes the Therapist: Guyana Cannot Leave Mental Health to the Algorithm

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

When TikTok Becomes the Therapist: Guyana Cannot Leave Mental Health to the Algorithm

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

In Guyana, where too many people still suffer silently and too many families only confront mental illness when a crisis explodes, social media has become an unlikely first point of contact. A young person scrolling TikTok at midnight may find words for feelings they have never been able to explain—but an algorithm cannot diagnose them, treat them, or keep them safe.

For a country still trying to dismantle the stigma around depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, self-harm and suicide, that distinction matters. Social media can be a doorway to awareness. It can also become a trapdoor into misinformation, self-labelling, fear and isolation.

A Name Can Help

There is nothing foolish about a person recognizing themselves in an online account of distress.

Someone who retreats into elaborate inner fantasies may encounter the term “maladaptive daydreaming.” Another person who experiences rage or panic at chewing, tapping or other ordinary sounds may discover discussions of misophonia. A person gripped by unrelenting doubts about a partner may find content about obsessional jealousy.

For some, that discovery is a relief. It tells them: I am not alone. This experience has a name. Perhaps I need help.

That is the constructive side of the internet. It can puncture silence, reduce shame and give people the confidence to talk to someone they trust or seek professional support.

But a name is not necessarily a diagnosis.

The social-media model is built on instant recognition: “If you do these five things, you have this condition.” That may be excellent for views, likes, shares and followers. It is a reckless basis on which to interpret someone’s mental health.

The Algorithm Rewards Certainty

The problem is not simply that young people use TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or Facebook for information. The problem is that these platforms reward content that is emotionally gripping, short, certain and easily identifiable.

Nuance does not trend.

A responsible clinician may need hours, several conversations, medical history, family context and careful screening before reaching any conclusion. An influencer can pronounce on a supposed disorder in 45 seconds, often without knowing anything about the person watching.

That is how ordinary human distress becomes medicalized overnight.

People can be anxious without having an anxiety disorder. They can be sad without clinical depression. They can daydream, become jealous, dislike noise, feel socially awkward or struggle to concentrate without having a psychiatric condition. The real question is whether the pattern is persistent, difficult to control, causes severe distress, and disrupts a person’s education, work, relationships, sleep, safety or ability to function.

The difference is not trivial. It is the difference between recognizing a difficult feeling and being told—by a stranger with a ring light—that one’s entire identity is a disorder.

Guyana’s Special Vulnerability

Guyana cannot discuss this issue as though it exists only in American universities and affluent online spaces.

Our young people are online. Our families are on Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and Instagram. Our children are being exposed daily to a global flood of mental-health content—some helpful, some careless, some exploitative and some plainly dangerous.

At the same time, access to mental-health services remains uneven, particularly for people outside Georgetown, people without money for private care, vulnerable children, survivors of abuse, and families who fear gossip, shame or dismissal.

That gap is precisely where the algorithm moves in.

When counselling is difficult to access, when parents do not know how to respond, when schools lack enough trained personnel, and when public discussion still treats mental illness as a source of embarrassment, an online creator can appear to be the only person listening.

The Ministry of Health’s 2024–2030 National Mental Health Action Plan acknowledges the need to decentralize services, expand community-based care, integrate mental-health support into primary healthcare, strengthen prevention and improve research and information systems. It also states that public mental-health services are available free of charge through the Mental Health Unit, Georgetown Public Hospital and the National Psychiatric Hospital in Berbice.

That is important progress. But policy documents and public announcements must become lived reality in every region, village, school and household.

Awareness Is Not Diagnosis

Guyana needs mental-health literacy—not a culture of online diagnosis.

Parents should not mock children who say they are anxious, depressed, overwhelmed or unable to cope. Teachers should not dismiss warning signs as “attention seeking.” Religious and community leaders should not reduce mental distress to moral weakness, bad upbringing or lack of faith.

But neither should adults surrender young people to an internet culture that turns every painful experience into a label and every label into an identity

The responsible message is simple: if online content resonates with you, take it seriously enough to seek credible information and, where possible, professional help. Do not take it as final proof that you have a particular condition.

A young person may be dealing with grief, bullying, family conflict, economic pressure, violence, abuse, sleep deprivation, trauma, substance use or a physical-health issue. They may indeed have a diagnosable mental-health condition. But they deserve a real assessment—not an algorithmic verdict.

The American Psychological Association advises that adolescents should be screened for problematic social-media use when it begins to impair daily roles and routines, and that exposure to content encouraging self-harm, suicide, eating-disordered behavior or other psychologically harmful conduct should be reduced.

What Must Be Done

Guyana needs a national response that matches the speed and reach of the digital world.

–Expand accessible, confidential counselling, in schools, regional health facilities and communities—not only after tragedy, but before crisis reaches the breaking point.

– Train teachers, parents, faith leaders and community workers, to identify warning signs, respond without stigma and refer people safely.

– Build digital literacy into public-health education, teaching young people how to distinguish lived experience, peer support, credible information and clinical diagnosis.

– Demand better platform safeguards, including stronger action against content that glamorizes self-harm, promotes dangerous conduct or presents unsupported diagnostic claims as certainty.

– Give public services visibility, so every Guyanese knows where to turn when they or someone they love is in distress.

– Hold government accountable for implementation, because a national plan means little if services remain too distant, too understaffed or too difficult to reach.

The Ministry of Health says the 915 Suicide Prevention Helpline is toll-free, while its mental-health platform also offers online chat support and free counselling services; in an immediate emergency, persons are advised to contact emergency services or go to the nearest health facility.

Beyond the Scroll

Social media may introduce someone to a word that changes how they understand their pain. That can be valuable. It may even be the first step toward recovery.

But TikTok is not a therapist’s office. Instagram is not a clinic. A viral video is not a psychiatric assessment. And an algorithm designed to keep users scrolling cannot be trusted to decide what is happening inside a vulnerable human mind.

Guyana must meet this digital age with compassion, services, education and accountability. We must make it easier for people to ask for help before they are forced to seek certainty from strangers online.

Mental-health awareness is necessary.

But awareness without context can become misinformation; misinformation without support can become harm; and harm left unattended can become tragedy.

 

When Public Office Becomes a Plea for Privilege

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592 GUARDIAN♦ACCOUNTABILITY♦INTEGRITY IN JOURNALISM♦GUYANA

 When Public Office Becomes a Plea for Privilege

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar October 2026

Daniel Seeram is entitled to pursue every remedy available to him under the law. He may apply for judicial review, seek bail pending sentencing, appeal where the law permits, and demand that his rights be respected at every stage. That is not the controversy.

The controversy lies in the argument now being advanced in support of his release: that his continued detention disrupts the work of Guyana’s Border Patrol Unit, a state security body whose operations, it is claimed, include weekly engagements with the President.

That assertion ought to trouble every Guyanese who believes that public office carries responsibility rather than privilege.

A man convicted by a court of assaulting and causing actual bodily harm to his former wife is now asking the High Court to consider the importance of his government assignment as a reason why he ought not remain in custody pending sentencing. The question is unavoidable: when did a state appointment become a mitigating circumstance against the ordinary administration of justice?   

Seeram’s position at the Border Patrol Unit is not a private job. It is a national-security appointment. It is connected to state authority, public confidence, the integrity of the borders, and the serious responsibility entrusted to those who operate close to the country’s security apparatus. Such an office should impose a higher threshold of conduct, not create a softer landing when the holder is convicted of a violent offence.

If the Border Patrol Unit cannot function because one convicted official is unavailable for a few days, then the issue is not bail. The issue is institutional weakness. A state security entity cannot be built around the personal availability of one man, especially one who is awaiting sentencing after a criminal conviction. Any properly administered public body must have continuity plans, deputies, lines of command, and procedures capable of surviving the temporary absence of an official.

And what happens if a custodial sentence is imposed on November 2?

Will the court then be told that imprisonment cannot proceed because the Border Patrol Unit needs its coordinator? Will a victim impact statement, the probation report, the aggravating factors, and the court’s final sentencing discretion be expected to yield to the scheduling needs of a government agency? Surely that cannot be the standard Guyana is now prepared to accept.

This is why the matter extends beyond Seeram’s personal application. It reaches into the heart of equal justice. The ordinary Guyanese who is convicted of assault does not generally arrive before the court with the implied weight of a state-security title, weekly meetings with the President, political access, or the suggestion that official duties should soften the consequences of a remand order.

That does not mean Seeram must be denied rights because of his employment. Quite the opposite: the law must be applied fairly, soberly, and without prejudice. But fairness also means that state office must not become an informal passport to exceptional treatment. A convicted citizen is still entitled to due process; a connected official must not be entitled to more process, more comfort, more access, or more accommodation than the public can reasonably expect.

There is also the unresolved question of fitness for office. What is the government’s position on retaining a national-security official who has been convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm? Has he been suspended, placed on administrative leave, relieved of sensitive duties, or permitted to continue exercising state authority as though nothing has occurred?

Those are not vindictive questions. They are questions of public administration. They concern standards, integrity, victim protection, and the credibility of a government that routinely speaks of law and order.

The High Court must be allowed to determine Seeram’s application on the law, and the Magistrate must remain free to proceed to sentencing on the evidence, the probation report, the victim impact statement, and the relevant aggravating and mitigating factors—without political atmosphere, executive intrusion, or the quiet pressure that can follow a man who holds a sensitive state appointment.

But the executive, too, must understand the limits of its role. It cannot be seen to mobilize protection, access, or institutional convenience around a convicted official in a manner that suggests the law bends differently for those close to power.

If Seeram’s lawyers believe the Magistrate erred, let them make that case on law. Let the High Court decide it on law. Let the eventual sentence be determined by “the evidence, the statutory framework, the probation report, the victim impact statement, and the principles of justice.”

But this case is not only about the rights of the convicted. It is also about the right of Farzana Hamid to equity, fairness, dignity, and confidence that the law sees the harm done to her as seriously as it sees the professional convenience of the man convicted of causing it. A victim of domestic violence must not be made to feel that state office, political proximity, or institutional influence weighs more heavily than her safety and her right to justice.

If Guyana claims to care about the persistent scourge of domestic violence and femicide, then it must mean more than public statements, commemorative observances, and official slogans. It must mean allowing the courts to act without fear or favor. It must mean accepting that a woman’s decision to leave a marriage does not give any man a license to assault, intimidate, or punish her afterward. The fact that this offence was committed against an ex-wife, after the relationship had legally ended, should deepen—not diminish—the seriousness with which the country views it.

And what message are we sending to Guyanese women if a convicted senior official can invoke the importance of his government job as an argument for exceptional accommodation? What should women conclude when the public sees concern for the operational needs of a state unit raised alongside the incarceration of a man convicted of violence against his former spouse?

Seeram is entitled to due process, legal representation, and every lawful remedy open to him. But Farzana Hamid is entitled to no less than a justice system in which power, status, access, and public appointment do not tilt the scales.

Equality before the law cannot be a promise reserved for the powerless while the connected are offered a separate lane around accountability.

For every woman watching, this is the real test: when she reports violence, will Guyana’s courts protect her with the same seriousness that they protect the convenience and standing of the powerful? 

But let no one confuse a government job with immunity.

Public office is not a shield from accountability. It is an added burden of accountability. And if Guyana allows state authority to become a plea for private privilege, then the message to every ordinary citizen will be chillingly clear: there is one measure of justice for the connected, and another for everyone else.