Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:07 AM
Dec 03, 2018 Letters
Dear Editor,
Reference is made to the letter titled, “Mr. GK Lall s telling us to be happily enslaved by this contract” by one Nigel Hinds (KN Dec 02). I thought I had responded to the last local, and that I would not ever be drawn again. But when a total stranger starts using words like “traitor” and “quislings” and “self-seeking” and “money”, I confess resolve fades and I am compelled to answer.
Mr. Hinds is acrimonious in venting his spleen; he is entitled. I, too, should be angry at his tone and choice of words, but I will let no man surpass me in courtesy. None; especially those I consider lesser. But there are some things that I will say for the public record. This traitor and this quisling wonders where is the Guyana that is left to be betrayed?
Having been mortgaged many times over to drug merchants and money launderers, what is left to undermine? The Guyana that is left no longer belongs to us, but to those cunning folks who are helped by still craftier natives to mark their books and proceeds and nefarious activities.
As before, I challenge anyone to probe. Probe me, and it becomes obvious that I am poorer than before; that I have not benefited in any way from either governmental or professional or personal relationships with any of those mongers who have poisoned this entire country.
Now who is the traitor and who is the quisling? But I would never number Mr. Hinds among such for, like Brutus, he is an honourable man. As an aside, I do hope that the honourable Mr. Hinds did not sink to the unthinkable to mean race traitor…But then again, Brutus did strike low, and he too had the Republic foremost. That was, according to him and him alone.
If this decades-long almost solitary stance miraculously transforms me into “anti-anything PPPC” then so be it. Guilty! If principled objections then (and now undeniable) as to the compromising of the past, present, and future of this country renders me “anti-everything PPPC” then caught in flagrante delicto.
For my part, I refuse to find any fault with Mr. Hinds’ identification with the “progress and development” posture of a former leader, the architect of the Guyana sold for a pottage of dollars (dark money, is the chic new term used by Ram & McRae recently).
Again, Mr. Hinds has a sacred right to give obeisance to whomever and wherever he chooses.
On the other hand, Mr. Hinds manifests a visceral joy through his venomous slings and arrows of my “everything pro-PNCR” conversion. For the honourable men in this country, and all new loud patriots of the Republic, like Brutus of yore, and today’s Mr. Hinds, I offer these facts: I voted for the Coalition (knowing that it is for the PNC); stalwarts in the same PNCR are asking who is this usurper, this anti-christ; the PNCR chair herself must find amusement at Mr. Hinds blanket contention; and some ministers (Greenidge and Felix) have had occasion to disagree publicly with this, “everything pro-PNC” pretender.
I am at a loss to understand how my position on oil is seized to deteriorate into this. And particularly when the contract of the PPPC era did not differ materially from the current one. I truly regret that the honourable Mr. Hinds found it necessary to display such an ugly acidulous streak. How did matters get there? Whew!
Perhaps, I should say something about oil. It is tiring. It is enlightening and disgusting and troubling, too. If this is happening now, then what about when the money gushes out of the ground? Like a dysfunctional family, we are goring each other about patrimony (and he is not dead yet).
In a nutshell, as from the inception, my position is unchanged: the contract is cheap; better could have been had; Guyana had an 800-lb gorilla in the room and a visible Achilles heel on the table; a price was extracted (and paid) in blood. It is as simple and as complex as that; and pricey, too.
Guyana could not even play the oil companies off against one another (remember CGX and those Dutch gunboats?). Guyana is not any of those other countries that are bandied about in comparison. All of this is known. Why? We don’t even have a million people, and nothing by way of a deterrent.
With due respect, a serious multiple car crash causes severe stress at local institutions. So now, think of this: a single F-16 can traverse at will, Guyana’s uncontested airspace with a single ordnance to deliver it to a single spot on the Georgetown Seawall, with the rest left to the imagination. No more, no less.
Other oil contracts (richer, no doubt) can be had with other companies. But in any scenario of hostility, it is tools down and gone.
Sure, we can work our way through the UN and other world bodies. But aside from comforting words and warm feelings, we are on our own and the oil stays in the ground. Forever perhaps, even brother Caricom took a long time deciding where it stood. And still we talk about money and slave contract.
I make no objection to those positions done without malice aforethought. I sharply disagree with all the rest and how it was stated. I regret that the honourable Mr. Hinds felt so at home stooping so low. Best wishes.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
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