Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 04, 2021 Editorial
Kaieteur News – We greet the release of our Guyanese fishermen and their vessels with delight. We bid them welcome back home, and to the joys of catching up and spending some quality time with their families, friends, and neighbours. We are certain that there is a lot to share, and of which the media and public will get more than their fair share in due course.
With regards to our Venezuelan neighbours, we will not pretend at friendliness and sereneness, though those are what we are at our core: a quiet and peaceful people, minding our own business, tending to our own affairs, and doing our part to maintain tranquil relations with our neighbours. We do not covet other people’s property. We are not greedy people, but insist on the sacred rights that belong to us, with our land and what is below it, on it, over it, and around it. It is the right of all nations, but only for those components that are rightly theirs. This is our stance at this paper (and we believe largely that of this country), one of which we are proud of, in its simplicity and sincerity.
Now whether our Venezuelan neighbour was determined to flex its considerable muscles and send us a signal, in the apprehension and detention of those simple fishermen plying an honest trade in their own national backyard, only its leaders know, and they alone can say. But however, those separate actions are looked at; a clear warning shot across the bow of this country’s ship of state was sent. Instead of be-labouring in our collective wraths what took place, we think that it is much better to welcome and appreciate the prevailing of sanity and good sense on the part of our neighbour. It needs no enlightenment from us, but clearly – and as based from varied reactions – Venezuelan leaders toyed with and do not wish to risk being deemed a pariah state because of what can only be construed by reasonable people, as its unfriendliness, if not outright belligerency towards a rich, smaller neighbour.
Leaders may not have been desirous of attracting more US pressure, or UN chilliness, or CARICOM objections. Those are sure to have been actual and potential fallouts that our neighbours weighed and found heavily against them.
On the other hand, and domestically, the lessons for Guyanese are obvious. A united society and front against all aggression and menaces is what best protects all of us. Another one is that we must not be drawn into any frontal confrontation. Rather, our sustained posture must be that of diplomacy and judiciary first. Still another reflection has to be that we will not benefit from allowing ourselves to be lured in any direct toe to toe engagement. Better to learn from the North Vietnamese regulars and what was then called ‘irregulars’ as in the Viet Cong. That is what we are faced with, and how we must be: in vision, in thinking and in strategy and on the ground tactics, if it ever comes to that, which we do not wish for, but must not shrink from in the least. Our motto and approach have to be speak softly and less, but carry and deliver a scorpion’s sting.
Our terrain, and our familiarity with it, provides cover and launchpad for many components of any well thought out and well-practiced resistances and thrusts. It starts early and from young. It is vital that we should have certain hard realities, as discomforting as they may be, built into our school curriculum, into the national psyche. This includes geography, sociology, history, and social sciences, among others. Our covetous neighbours have been neither squeamish nor hesitant in making clear their unalterable objectives, and do so by conditioning constantly their citizens.
Guyana must not be slothful or so complacent, that it leads us to be content with being left behind, and playing catch-up when it is too late. This has to start at some time and there is no better time than to start now. Our oil finds and ballooning oil wealth have confirmed the hostility of our grasping neighbours, and emphasized our ongoing vulnerabilities. We, therefore, have to compensate by being wise as to what our limitations are, where the gaps in our armour can be found, and how to make the timely adjustments in our mindsets so as to prepare all citizens of this society as to the existential threat that stands before us, and hangs over the nation’s head. Again, we welcome our returning citizens, and we urge togetherness and confidence in our strengths.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
Mar 29, 2024
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