International community

Sep 18, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Say international community and Third World citizens are impressed.  The international community has whispered and poor people around the world looked upon it as the saviour and helper that could make a difference.  Often times, the international community is worshipped as a neutral presence, that missing and much-needed mediator, to help them find a way out of their controversies and troubles.  But is the international community really that neutral, without its healthy share of self-interest, genuinely about the tormented people in countries that are torn apart by internal strife?

In Guyana, when hostile political groups collide, the international community is rushed to, and settled for, as the solutions which leaders and groups cannot bring themselves to figure out and fix among themselves to the benefit of all the people.  In Guyana, the international community is seen as the be all and end all to any domestic problem, and it is not limited to politics.  In fact, almost anything that takes on a political taint, (just about everything here) finds Guyana hurrying like some damsel in distress for the rescuing arms of the international community.

It could be money withheld from a segment of the population, it could be for forensic assistance for capital crimes that have tense political wranglings embedded, or it could be for urgent assistance on such burning issues as electoral help when this country finds itself hopelessly stuck.

The international community has been only too glad to help.  In a natural resources rich country like Guyana, it is seen as an investment of time and energies that generate much goodwill from the local cliques.  Under the ever-convenient, all-purpose umbrella of democratic standards and democratic norms, the international community has been able to insert itself successfully into local affairs, with helping hands when no local ones are up to the task at hand.  The levels of trust in the domestic environment are so poor to nonexistent that any outsider is seen as heroic, clean, and to be welcomed.

The problem is that the international community does not have clean hands itself, or uninvolved vision, or is lacking in ambitions.  The developments in Niger reinforced this, in the aftermath of the coup d’état by the army in that country.  Almost without fail, with France leading, the Americans and British started making concerned diplomatic sounds about the democratically elected and rule of law, and so forth.  On the surface of things, those international community messages about what is seen as ‘deplorable’ and ‘troubling’ serve as covers for their own interests.  This is what has been at work for decades, for the international community is never without its own vital strategic interests, or geopolitical interests, or economic interests.

In Niger it is France and its need for cheap and plentiful supplies of uranium.  The pretense of concern for the welfare of the people is a charade.  In Nigeria, decades ago, there was a bloody civil war, which had a nuanced British hand in it, and again there were benefits for the British, and not the Nigerians.

In Latin America, where the United States has ruled the roost, governments have been toppled in Chile and Guatemala, and fairly frequently in neighboring Venezuela.  The Americans never talk about rich and pivotal business interests, but have come up with various specious excuses to justify their interventions, or backing of ambitious local groups.  The electoral history of pre- and post-Independence Guyana has its own despicable stories to convey of how this so-called international community has been sinister when its interests are involved.

Guyanese seem to have developed an extraordinary degree of affection for the international community, while pretending to blindness to its predations and ambitions.  Members of the international community know this and milk this for their own benefit.  The people are always held high as the driving force behind developments, but a closer look reveals that oil and gold and uranium feature very highly in the calculations of the international community, be it a country or a consortium of them.  Niger, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Guyana confirm how the tricks of crooked politicians are used by the international community to get its foot in the door, and its own way.  Meanwhile, the people take a backseat, and their sufferings intensify.

• Chile and Guatemala, Guyana, l wranglings, Nigeria, The developments, Third World citizens