Amidst the clicking by the paparazzi and the clinking of the glasses- maybe of vodka- President Granger made some cordial comments about Guyana and Russia collaborating in culture and Education and Patrice Lumumba/ Friendship University.
“Guyana iterates its appreciation for Russian support for debt relief and disaster relief, he went on, then, we are pleased with the recent conclusion of a Treaty to guide our basic relations and with the signature of agreements relating to visa waivers”.
Debt disaster relief … visa waivers…what??
Rewind…
We were still parsing through his, “Guyana and Russia share common concerns regarding the threats of terrorism and other transnational crimes, noting that the common abhorrence of the negative effects of these threats forms a basis for continued cooperation within the global multilateral system” ….
quite disturbed by the overdone humility.
He had to know he was speaking to an extension of Vladimir Putin, known villain and architect of Russia’s tandemocracy that started with him, Putin, ‘winning’ the Presidency on 2000, ‘winning’ again in 2004, parking the Presidency with Dimitri Medvedev who ‘won’ in 2008 and made him, Putin, Prime Minister which was code for shadow President, and at the end of those four years Putin ran again becoming President in 2012 and has been ‘winning’ ever since, as his opponents either die from falling off of rooftops, down elevator shafts, being shot in front of the Kremlin, fall out of the race because of extended incarceration for alleged infractions or are assailed with poisonous creams that make them so sick their faces turn green for extended periods.
The welcome to this Russian Ambassador, Alexander Kurmaz, was in June of 2018 – by which time Russia had already been in Syria for 9 years, helping the murderer Bashar- Al- Assad bomb some 600,000 of his people with chlorine – many of them children and babies. We understand the protocol of deferential behavior and accept that President Granger’s intention was to infer a warm welcome. But we’re strictly averse to an embrace that suggests that we accept Russia as an equal … and particularly a moral one.
And what debt relief? Was he referring to the contracts Russia signed to mine bauxite in Guyana through Oleg Deripaska? Were the millions that were promised to Hururu- 12 million annually to use the roads and 16 million annually for their maintenance- paid up for the period they were there and damaged the roads to the point of impassability? What debt specifically is Russia relieving?
There is a strange kind of acquiescence that Guyana’s leaders seem to give to foreign countries…a subservience almost and the question of why is now posed to President Granger, as well. It seems like, in negotiating on behalf of the people, rather than determine what is fair, government negotiators ask, possibly with a cherry on top, how much of the resources they have to surrender in order to keep the investing country’s interest and once the investors are there, the negotiation then escalates to what is needed to keep them.
For the decades of having foreigners pillage under the guise of investment, Guyana remains in a state of unstable equilibrium with smiling Presidents greeting duping foreigners in the name of diplomacy and development.
The extent of how much Guyana is beholden to China remains a lodge secret that can only be assessed by the number of aid packages and areas of assistance China is involved in. We know that mainland Chinese are now the primary vendors in the country and in every County. We know that there is a seeping culture of Chinese dance and songs into Guyana’s school curricula – often called cross culture…which we’ll discount until we see Chinese singing queh queh songs to African rhythms as part of their institutionalized programs.
It’s painful, really, to call ours a culture of leadership when leadership, itself, implies pragmatic dynamism and every single leader in Guyana has swept into office on the promise of change but has taken the baton from the previous leader and run the same abominable race.
And theirs is a small time mentality, anticipated by the usually slick investor…who promises to bring, above ground, Guyana’s buried treasure but makes the selling point one of having to navigate treacherous geography, uncertain geology and risky topography. The governments, more motivated to score for themselves and Party, consider any mention of money as a windfall- the kind of Pavlovian response the slick investors anticipate from unsophisticated negotiators.
Agreements tend to reflect these attitudes.
That’s why Guyana has a China Television Channel and an immigration/tourism/business policy that has lots of mainland Chinese vending and providing labor on projects that Chinese ‘win’ the bid on and provide the labor for because the Guyanese workman ‘lacks the skill’….why China gets the repayment of the loans for the project, which includes payment for the Chinese workforce at a markup and along with the loan repayment (when not an extended lease of natural resource area) their workers get to take their money out of Guyana’s economy and back to Beijing to start their predatory stomp all over again- making contracts just to violate them because Guyana’s gonads are in China’s vice.
But back to Russia and President Granger’s charm offensive for the Ambassador who is a window into the sinister continuity of Putin’s Presidency and a Soviet system that incubates his despotism. We’re still perplexed by his fawning of this operative …especially when we consider that Vlady would never have met with an Ambassador. He would have sent an agent of like stature because he wields his Presidency and wears it as a bargaining tool for all who want to cut deals with him.
Seriously, this is Russia; a managed democracy leavened by kleptomania and sudden-death syndrome.
When did Guyana start its genuflection at their altar and why this President, whom we all thought knows better?!
But that’s a mere fraction of our diplomatic worries.
There’s a troubling trend within the ideologies of the two major parties from which the leadership inevitably comes.
To get right to it, UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262 of March 27 2014…the Sovereignty of the Ukraine….Guyana abstained from voting. Yes, you would wonder why a country with its own sovereignty threats would abstain from voting for Ukraine’s right to resist a Russian invasion, having fought co-option into the USSR in 1922 and regained its independence after USSR collapse in 1991…
Per Putin, he wants his Crimea back …which was gifted to the Ukraine by Nikita Kruschev in 1954 but this is instructional only … not to decipher the mind of a despot.
But what is Guyana’s position …now that we have a President who is not only a man of military foundation but a historian who should be able to recall the Ukraine-Crimea history and make an evaluation on whether Ramotar, through Jagdeo, was right in registering Guyana as abstaining from a vote for Ukraine’s sovereignty, when Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.
By abstaining from the vote, Guyana supported Russia’s aggression and we’re wondering if this President merely accepted his inheritance of an aggressive Russia or feels about its politics, the way his predecessors do.
We’re wondering what bauxite deals were made through Oleg Deripaska and by extension Putin, with the previous Administration and how grave is President Granger’s anxiety for the parts of the industry that Oleg, Putin’s touring advisor on Aluminum, left, in yet another abandoned natural resource contract.
We’re not sure what all this means for Guyana since these deals are not shared with the public for whom they are made.
What we’re concerned about now is a government that would waive visa requirements for Russians, give them mining and employment permits and those very Russians, in return, handcuff black Guyanese employees to the rooves of their accommodation and beat them as they hang; concerned about a government that would be so diplomatic it would share out visas to foreigners who would beat any Guyanese and retain diplomatic standing in the country; that these Russians who have escaped vetting because of diplomatic immunity are given weapon permits and use those weapons to terrorize their Guyanese employees.
Of course the Government’s excuse will be that the matter is in court but the Russians have already extricated themselves by claiming that the criminals who abused the locals are Ukrainians… which now begs the question who in Guyana issued Ukrainians visas and weapons permits to roam the country’s mining areas and why didn’t that agency know the nationality of the people to whom they issued visas.
Better yet, why is the Guyana Government accepting that bleepin excuse from Russia? In whose diplomatic pouch did these thugs arrive? Is Guyana that administratively challenged…or frightened that Russia will revoke the scholarships they throw around as collateral, that benefit the extended relatives of so many Guyanese politicians?
This is not new behavior by countries given permits to work on Guyana’s extractive resources. There’s a list of yet to be addressed atrocities committed by Bai Shan Lin…a list made ostensibly to give the impression that government was looking in to the matter….of course as China continues to enjoy unchecked expansion into Guyana’s economy in the name of diplomacy.
That foreign nationals repeatedly abuse Guyanese on their soil and their embassies remain in operation suggests that parts of Guyana’s sovereignty have been pawned…and for contracts whose details remain the property of the government du jour.
Contrary to the usual retorts to observations of this nature, we are hardly suggesting that Guyana does not engage diplomatic relations with other countries.
What we are asking is for the Government to reveal what contracts it may have with these countries that disrespect them as government; that even remotely give these foreigners the idea that they can attack Guyanese while virtual guests in their home and why the Government remains neutered in the face of foreign aggression on home soil, as it leads those who elected them to represent their interests.
