Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 14, 2010 Editorial
On Tuesday night, Chile began bringing up the thirty-three miners who had been trapped half-mile underground for sixty-nine days. The miners had been working in the mine when some 700,000 tons of rock came crashing down, sealing them deep in the bowels of the earth. The last man was brought to the surface last night.
We can imagine the panic above the surface, and below, the reaction of the owners of the mine and the mental state of the families of the miners when news of the mines collapse spread. Needless to say, the initial reaction must have been that the men had died although thoughts of death do not come readily to people exposed to such situations. For seventeen days there was no word from underground but the Chilean administration did not race to conclude the worse. Using equipment at their disposal, some from outside the borders of the country, they drilled a hole through solid rock and learnt that all of the miners were alive.
The miners also displayed the kind of fortitude that fashions countries. They did not roll over and die. They used ration that was meant to last them for forty-eight hours to keep themselves alive for seventeen days. There was no indiscipline with one individual trying to grab the lion’s share of whatever there was.
Guyana has a lot to learn here. Discipline is the hallmark of survival. It is also the element that lifts people beyond the heights of greatness and above all, it saves nations. There was no ethnic problem beneath the surface; men realized that they were all alike and in the same boat. They needed to pull together. Nationality did not even matter because not all of them were Chileans.
Chile’s national response also provides something for this country. Despite the passage of seventeen days the administration did not conclude that the men were dead and that there was no need to expend further time and energy to get the bodies to the surface.
Man is a most ingenious animal. He never surrenders once there is a glimmer of hope and so it is with the poor people of Guyana. It is the affluent ones who dampen enthusiasm.
Technology allows people to do many things these days. It allowed the relatives to see that the trapped miners were alive and well and it allowed for communication in the other direction.
There was no bickering about getting the men to the surface; it was simply a question of how soon.
Guyana has the capability to present a unified front. It did so when the present administration moved to the World Court to put to rest once and for all, Suriname’s claim to a portion of Guyana’s maritime boundary.
It is a pity that this is not a continuous effort because the nature of the politics is such that madness creeps into the system as election nears.
Then there is the question of political gain; nobody wants to surrender space. This was not the case in Chile. There was a concerted effort to harness the best brains and the best resources.
People set up camp by the entrance to the mine and remained there for the more than two months, the period that the men remained underground.
This was support to the maximum. There are no reports of any hostility; there were no reports of disunity when the order was determined for the men to be brought to the surface. And there are reports that even those who have met with their rescued relatives are remaining at the site of the miners’ return to the surface as a measure of solidarity with those who still have to wait for their relatives to exit the mine.
There is a lot to be gleaned from the Chilean experience. Indeed it represented the longest anyone has survived in a collapsed mine but it has also demonstrated national unity, the kind that Guyana so desperately needs.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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