OPINION: Ambassador Lynch’s healing overture flatly rebuffed by President Ali

Last Updated on Monday, 4 September 2023, 16:03 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

No!  Why is it that senior Americans fail to understand that the PPP does not need America anymore?  There was a time that America and its swarming presence had its uses.  Well, apparently not anymore, and this is regardless of how one looks at the rather crude and rather rude dismissal by His Excellency Ali of US Ambassador Lynch’s last gasp appeal that she put on the table for bringing the hostile PPP and PNC together.  Since Excellency Ali was crude, I will take some liberties with that one also.  (Relative to the rude on his part, that is his call, his calling card, and his call to arms and possibly some ambitions to fame dancing in his, ah, er, let me put it this way, well used head).

I repeat something that I have said countless times: we must fix our political problems, which means making some genuine effort at approaching our race problems.  Thus, it was with relief that I learned of outgoing Ambassador Lynch’s last-ditch effort to serve as a bridge between the leaders of the PPP and PNC, so as to get them in the same room.  Guyana needs a way out of the political and racial quick sands, and Ambassador Lynch has been a tireless advocate of communication and inclusion.  For in just about everything here, there is no one and nothing who is trusted enough to bring our crazed political leaders (pretending at mad dogs) in the same place at the same time to speak on the same mutually helpful issue: politics and race.  In this Demerara democracy, only an outsider would do, and then it has to be a white one to be universally accepted.  I tender that Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch of America qualifies on every account.  Local standing and prestige -check.  Local reach and clout -right again.  But Sarah of America was impatiently rebuffed, with a jug of cold water (or something else) directed her way for good measure.

Isn’t there a plane that has to be caught?  Is there no understanding that utility (America’s) here is done?  Isn’t there any appreciation that the PPP is in charge, and what that means?  America needs the PPP.  The PPP does not need America.  In fact, the PPP no longer needs anybody (not even the divine).  Ah, hubris!  How about the arrogance of power!  I like Lord Acton’s (or whoever) sweet little ditty: power corrupts.  But best of all, there is this personal translation: get out of the PPP face!

What a difference a day makes….  For there was a time, that span of nineteen unending months, when Guyanese had the greatest difficulty detecting where the bottom of the Ambassador Lynch’s shoe ended and where the suction cup lips of some of the same PPP bigshot leaders now kicking up a stink over all and sundry began.  If the world that had gathered in Guyana during the wizardries of the PNC’s Three Musketeers (Mingo and his band of brethren) had fooled itself that it had seen the best of brownnosing in other places, that came in second when PPP lead vocalists and operators clustered around the same Ambassador Lynch now given the coldest of cold shoulders.

From immaculate Guyanese brownnosers of America’s anatomy and the most complete Guyanese bootlickers of the likes of Lynch, Pompeo and some banna with one of those unpronounceable Polish names but with hemispheric oversight, PPP big, bad, dogs are today flexing their muscles.  And raising their voices.  And kicking people around.  The shoe is on the other foot, and it is a biker studded jackboot.

Now, the missionary side of me goes into full takeover mode.  Comrades in the PPP, please hear me.  PPP brothers, try giving a listening.  Any PPP leader, any believed PPP strongman, PPP badman, or PPP madman who harbors the thought of their party surviving by being on the wrong side of America, do this right away: get rid of the thought.  All of them.  Exxon’s Blackwater people are not enough, and so also would be any Chinese agents; or homegrown PPP terrorists.  In other words: don’t mess with America.  Don’t bite the hand that was good to the party’s and leadership interests.  Don’t be a fair-weather friend.  More crudely (and to whom it may concern): don’t get too big for britches, busta!

What a set of sorcerers playing at being standout and standup men and women.  Thinking of all this, something becomes obvious: these are just a bunch of amateurs and bush leaguers (teenagers) who believe that they are now big men, and can throw their weight around, and speak anyhow to anyone, as they please.  Clearly, something is happening inside the heads of top PPP men and women.  It is nothing wholesome, nor even psychiatrically what is on the level.  I have always said that outside of ideology and propaganda (and helping themselves to the people’s belongings), the PPP is good for little else.  Look how I was proven right, and the manner that it was unequivocally done.  Have a pleasant trip, Madame Ambassador.  Oh, and one more thing, as from one American to another: thanks for trying.