Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 02, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
It has to be the most comical opera in international relations since Thucydides wrote his fantastic book two thousand years ago on relations among states and titled, “The Peloponnesian Wars.”
Any student of world politics would know that Guyana is one of the poorest countries in the world. Any student of politics would know in terms of quality of life, Guyana ranks very low among the sovereign states that sit in the United Nations. Any student of politics would know that in terms of modern infrastructure, Guyana is a very primitive land.
This is a country where in the 21st century, the capital city hasn’t got a proper functioning sewage system. This is a country that built a bridge four years ago that is the identical version to one that the Allies constructed in the Second World War as seen in the famous movie, “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”
This is a country where once you build a house you have to buy a large black tank imported from Trinidad to store water. Central supply of water does not reach any house throughout Guyana at a height of twenty feet above ground level. This is a country where the only university has virtually collapsed.
This is a country that only one month ago acquired a modern fingerprinting system for the police that the world has been using decades ago, and it was a donation from the American Government. This is a country where the police began using the speed gun only two years ago after the British Embassy donated six of them. This is a country where at the beginning of the year the entire police force had only three breathalyzer machines.
This is a country where magistrates and judges write down every single word that is said by the person in the witness box, an anachronistic practice the world left behind decades and decades ago. This is a country of 800,000 persons where the population conducting business and trade and financial services in the society is one of the smallest in the world, but a cheque by any of the eminent business companies deposited in bank takes four days before the recipient can have the money.
This is a country where a sitting CARICOM Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, in 2010, said that Guyana is an embarrassment to the region because it is an international beggar. Here is where the nudity of Guyana is laid bare. This country never stops begging the Inter-American Development Bank and it starts from the President right down to all his Ministers.
Addressing the UN General Assembly last year, President Jagdeo was indignant that the UN raised the economic status of Guyana, thereby taking it off the list of countries whose poverty rating entitles them to greater UN financial assistance. Knowing that the elevated ranking will result in aid reduction, Mr. Ramotar, in fact, rejected such an improved status. Mr. Ramotar just wants Guyana to keep receiving financial handouts.
The government of this kind of hellhole has become bold enough to revoke the visa of a consultant employed by the American Government who was the administrator of a democracy project. This project is needed in this country to teach its people about the lost value of democratic institutions. How institutions should be democratic, accountable and transparent is something we lost since Cheddi Jagan became Premier in 1957 right up to the present moment. This was the asset of the democracy programme.
The visa cancellation is the irony of all ironies. The US, which helped Ramotar and Luncheon and company to come to power in 1992, is now told it is interfering in Guyana’s internal affairs because the US is helping us to understand how public institutions should relate to the citizenry.
When we beg the US for money, when we send our wives to get babies in the US so they can become American citizens, it is alright. But not when the US wants to help to strengthen democracy?
The visa recall by a virtual nonentity in world politics is a nasty insult that the American people should not accept from Guyana. For far too long the US has turned a blind eye to atrocities committed by the PPP Government and a majority of the population cannot understand why, especially in the area of drug trafficking.
Captain David Clarke has named names for the US Government as to who in the corridors of power are involved in drug trafficking. But to date the US has not moved against these people. Will this visa insult be the straw that broke the camel’s back? Every Guyanese, in and out, is waiting to see how the US will retaliate against this nonentity.
Jagdeo giving Exxon 102 cent to collect 2 cent.
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