H@rd Truths By GHK Lall – A short history of treachery, betraying to foreign exploiters

Jun 18, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – Retracing steps through the pages of history, I share something with fellow Guyanese.  All should quickly recognize, considering the extent of what has taken hold here, how the worst enemies are our own people.  In one word, treachery-repeated instances of it-conveys how it is one’s own who betray and sellout, time and again, with great consequences following.

I begin with Leonidas and the Spartans at the fabled Battle of Thermopylae against overwhelming Persians forces.  No quarter was given, until a name since damned into infamy by treachery made its way into the picture.  Ephialtes, a Greek shepherd, sold the details of a secret pass, and Spartan resistance collapsed in no time.  It is how brothers are treacherous to brothers, and dispatch them into slavery, which the victorious Persians did to the Thebans.

GHK Lall

Fast forward two thousand years to 1519, and there was Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortez, in search of gold (the oil of the time) and other treasures in the New World.  Cortez was able to recruit locals Xicotencatl the Younger and mysterious woman identified in history as La Malinche from the native population to aid and abet his conquest of Mexico.  It was the beginning of the end of the Aztec civilization.  The dagger in the hand of a brother had ripped the jugular of civilizations mortally.

Closer to our time, look at how White America broke the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, and who killed Chief Sitting Bull, the one who had resisted their thievery.  It was his own fellow Indians working for the Americans. Think of that and draw the parallel, make the interpretation, and arrive at the inarguable conclusion of what we endure under the PPP and PNC in Guyana.

Think of how Cochise was lured into a trap under a white flag and captured. And what was done to Geronimo by our American friends and partners.  The voracious Caucasians coveted Indian lands and dreamed of gold; so, they tricked them with treaties, which were routinely violated.  Sanctity savaged by glaring hypocrisy.  And think of the Comanches and the Council House Massacre, where the Texans killed the Indians during a peace conference (a peace conference folks).Most frequently, it is the same story of appalling treachery by tribal brothers.  Look at who is doing what in partnership with the greedy and covetous outsiders with our liquid gold in Guyana today.  Then decide for selves, my fellow Guyanese, who is about fidelity to country and patrimony, and who is only about political treachery in the sum of their conspiracies and collaborations.  Last, look at those who are condemned to a wretched borderline existence, not too distant from economic enslavement.  As Exxon has prospered, Guyanese hopes perish.  As Guyanese politicians and their sidekicks turn traitor or ous, look at the local landscape and determine who is shredded and tortured for their own inheritance by their own joining with rapacious exploiters.

Though a touchy issue, Black slaves did fight for the Confederacy during the American Civil War that had as an objective their liberation.  Who is the PPP and PNC fighting for in Guyana?  Who are politicians battling for when oil or other natural resources are involved?  Who do they and their legions battle against, when Exxon is empowered to walk all over Guyanese?

Pukka sahibs scorn Guyanese, but have succeeded in making some locals believe that they are preferred company, that they are cherished for the dirty work they do for exploiters.  The British who had a policy of “butcher and bolt” in the torrid tribal zones of India, almost identical to what the Americans did to the Native Indians. This is what Guyanese politicians, parliamentarians, and private sector condone.  Silence is not simply thunderous; it speaks the barren language of failure. Let me not forget the key supporting roles of some Indian maharajahs to the ravenous British Crown at the expense of their downtrodden and abused own people.

In 1998 when Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, told an audience including Bill Clinton: “African chiefs were the ones waging war on each other and capturing their own people and selling them. If anyone should apologise, it should be the African chiefs. We still have those traitors here even today.”  Yes, Guyana has them too, and by the battalion.

Those words of the Ugandan president have an eerie ring and relevance in Guyana today, don’t they?  Who is holding whom captive here for the Americans and Exxon?  Who is selling their own people for the favor of hobnobbing with the Caucasians, if not the PPP Government, the Private Sector, the Chamber of Commerce, and the churches (all of them)?

Somebody help me identify who are the real lowlifes (check private sector people slur) and the authentic traitors, the betrayers who profane our patrimony, condemn themselves, and corrupt many others.  I have a long list of names that cover a lot of political, commercial, spiritual territory that point to the traitors and their treacheries within those spheres.  History doesn’t repeat itself.  It extends itself at different times with the same types of traitors and tricksters of different colors and castes.  They are abundant in Guyana.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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