The recited talking points from Ali attest only to an untrained mind, bereft of his nation’s political history and an obedience to his Vice President to say things that make him sound fiercely combative – when, in fact, he sounds like the unverified scholar he clearly is.
Referring to the PNC as monsters, election riggers and practitioners of anti-democracy is the kind of ironic projection that can easily be proven as the overarching ideology of the PPP, since the rule of Cheddi and Janet…
with Janet perfecting the practice in hijacking the Presidency by defying a court order not to swear in, after an election Claudette Singh ruled null and void BECAUSE OF FRAUD ; then as an illegal President, knighting Jagdeo as her successor…. making him an illegal holder of office as well…
who followed her example, stole 45,000 votes in the 2001 elections and was court- ordered to give The United Force a Parliamentary Seat after he got caught with his hand in the election cookie jar, by Desiree Bernard who delayed his planned snap swearing in, like Janet had to after her hijacking of the office.
US State Department shelves groan beneath the weight of diplomatic cables recording PPP mal-governance… from their election heists, integration of drug barons into their administration to syndicated murder run by their elected officials from government Ministries… which demotes Irfaan and his suspect academic portfolio even lower, when he airs his lack of public knowledge so breezily.
Nothing, we’ve concluded, makes the case for Guyana’s return to teaching civics and political history unbridled by political affiliation, like a rehearsed Irfaan on the stump.
But his uninspiring over-recitation of Party lines should not be taken in isolation of their trigger – the Unites States Agency for International Development, USAID, report recommending shared governance to manage oil revenue.
It’s the history of the USAID, its founding purpose to take over the covert agenda of ‘democracy assistance’ that the CIA could no longer execute, that causes us to evaluate the sentiments of Irfaan and Norton, now both leaders of the Government.
The Democracy Assistance programs that USAID administer are known euphemisms for America’s bolstering of center right political leaders and its funding of Nongovernmental Organizations. So, it’s alarming to hear so much weight being placed on its suggestion…by both the governing and opposition arms of the current government.
An examination would attest to the history of the PPP and its founders, Cheddi and Janet, as being on the CIA’s watch list for their communist ideology, as would the US State Department’s documentation of the Jagdeo Administration engaging in everything from murder to drug enterprise.
There being no Center nor Right here, the next label to examine is the garlanded ‘Champions of Democracy’, subliminally bestowed upon the PPP by the US Ambassador .
For all the preceding reasons, it’s a counterfeit characterization of an administration with an unenviable volume of unflattering antidemocratic political activity, much of which is recorded in the diplomatic correspondence of democratic world bodies.
It’s no strange coincidence that this government, which was all but campaigned for by the US Ambassador and has since commissioned a CIA cloned USAID to work on its election reform in Guyana, is now bandying this agency’s crafted talking points of power sharing to manage natural resources.
Key point of note here is that no other resource garnished ‘sharing’ but this one; at this time; when Guyana is gushing billions of barrels of oil, being drilled by America’s favorite resource rapist, through a poorly negotiated contract by this company, in which a large number of US law makers have invested abundantly -environmental preservation be damned.
Sure, we want power sharing over every natural resource and will contend over the loss of bauxite gains to Russia’s Oleg Deripaska and the 4.7 acres of land he received for pittance from Jagdeo, whenJagdeo was leasing our land, unbeknownst to us and using our treasury as the PPP piggy bank…some other time.
But right now, we’re praying for due diligence from this iteration of the elected Opposition, a realization that it has to be a counter-hegemonic arm of government…now that the cooptation of the current governing arm is unquestionable.
Advocacy for power sharing is loud, as it should be.
But we remain students of why these agreements have to be brokered at all and they are invariably the result of intractable racial tensions and political strangulation by the race that owns power at the moment.
And if there’s thought that USAID has a blue print for Guyana’s ethnic mending, then it would be wise to look worldwide at the countries in which they’ve professed to be able to establish resource power sharing; most of which has since failed because a salve for core wounds was never part of the solution.
In 2018, when Trump was planning to merge the agency with US State Department, a frantic career diplomat, Andrew Nastasios of USAID screamed: “I don’t think they understand what the role of USAID is, what USAID’s mission directors are. USAID’s mission directors are among the most influential foreigners in the country” …
confirming for us who think out loud that the agency’s mission is not primarily development but the promotion of America’s interests abroad.
Might be a good point at which to mention that USAID in its ‘assistance’ to help with resource power sharing in Nigeria and South Africa did pledge to contain the environmental hazard of flaring…an issue that Irfaan has backhanded and the USAID seems not to think is pertinent to Guyana.
Might also be a good time to underscore that USAID’s call for power sharing is not an act of their benevolence or concern for whether every Guyanese receives due patrimony from the nation’s oil resource.
It is a strategy to ensure America’s energy security.
This is a key part of its mission…has been from its inception and remains that today.
Before he won, Irfaan had said that he was not going to renegotiate the Exxon contract…should he win.
We’re submitting that he was not clairvoyant at all but accepted a pre-condition before being hoisted in to government by a US led campaign against Granger’s pretend stance for fair recount, which garnished open letters from its feeding trough by the Joe Singh’s and Yesu Persaud’s, along with admonishments from the CARICOM Community and resident Western diplomats, all of whom depend significantly on US largesse.
Mr. Norton’s current leaning towards leaving the existing Exxon Contract in place is discomfiting.
Power sharing, we’ll stipulate, is more than just the literal translation of the two words…irrespective of what politicians may be induced to believe when they take secret meetings with US Senators and Exxon Lobbyists….and are entreated to foppish compliments by foreigners, usurping our national agenda to execute theirs.
We’ve noted that the US Ambassador made the journey to Sophia to meet with the new Opposition Leader.
We are hoping that he has not read more into this pro forma visit than he should, or thinks that the Madam has now acquired a savory taste for him or his Party.
Talks of power sharing for natural resources would demand sophisticated negotiators; proven professionals in the field…. who know how to address the underlying issues of division, determine essential elements of the sharing agreement, as they establish a system with all the mechanisms to make the agreement serve its purpose – then be absorbed into the daily activities of government in prescribed order naturally and without a further and continuous sit down.
And these conversations cannot be had excluding the fact that expert consensus concludes that Exxon outmaneuvered Guyana’s Oil Contract negotiators.
They cannot be had without contemplating Exxon’s jack boot print in the oil industry, its strong lobby that is powerful enough to remove laws , in its home country, that demand that it discloses all monies it pays to foreign government officials, to extract resources.
They cannot ignore Exxon’s presence in the jungles of hundreds of countries with ethnic conflicts, why they catalogue these countries under ‘Democracy’, ‘Authoritarian’ and ‘Transitional’ and why their oil contracts with them reflect Exxon’s perrception of their politcal practice…. with authoritarians being dealt with like Gangstas… Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, Equatorial Guineau…population be damned.
Can’t, either, ignore Exxon’s propensity to hide suspicious payments to government officials by filtering through their companies in other countries.
Point is, if a social label were requested for Exxon, it would be Gangsta…and in every dimension of its operation.
So, we’re asking that the Opposition be wary of responding to ‘power sharing’ as it falls off the lips of Irfaan and to give it the anatomical examination that is mandatory for a venture that is so novel to our political administration. It’s a heavy lift which requires more than verbal counterpunching for public consumption.
We’re grateful that we have an Opposition, the other arm of Government and will support its thrust for resource power sharing, done the expert way, with the citizens as beneficiaries at the forefront of serious conversations.
The country deserves a government that works.
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