OPINION: Guyana-Venezuela: trouble pending: Government too low-keyed, Guyanese too disengaged

Last Updated on Saturday, 4 November 2023, 10:40 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

I begin with the good on local developments re Venezuela, as difficult and scarce as such have been.  The government and opposition met.  Good.  Where are the follow-ups: arms-linked, footstep synchronized, full-throated (one voice) movements?  There was a sectoral committee development.  Good.  How about going further immediately?  Parliament, and let the walls reverberate with passion and conviction on this national existential issue.  The President has made pronouncements locally and before the international community.  Good.  And then what?

To my utter regret, I must table what is viewed as not so thoughtful.  President Ali’s choice of military looking garb conveyed artificiality, and the theatricality of showmanship.  And brinksmanship that this country can neither manage nor afford.  Unsound.  By my thinking, the appeal to the ICJ on the Venezuelan Referendum is misplaced, a mistake.  Makes us look desperate.  The December 3rd referendum is a domestic development.  Notwithstanding naked and aggressive territorial underpinnings, it still is an internal vision and expression.  The ICJ update from Guyana was overreach, a bridge too far.

As ironic as this is, Venezuelan developments provide the PPP Government and Excellency Ali with the perfect opportunity, the powerful moment, to make the ‘One Guyana’ construct a reality.  If this crisis cannot do so, then nothing can.  Though one of those basket and duck jobs, President Ali has to rein in the less than profound Vice President Jagdeo.  Bickering, squabbling, and cursing of the Opposition must cease immediately.  It is shocking what spews out of Dr. Jagdeo at a time like this.  Get real, man!  Be a bona fide patriot, national-minded, for once, brother.  I repeat: Venezuela must be seized and used as the catalyst, the binding element, the guiding force towards the ‘One Guyana’ vision.  I am taking it literally, at face value, though that could redound to my disfavor later.  Perish the thought!

To give a sneak preview of something I penned for a Sunday article, President Maduro has created a monster, a genie that he cannot put back in the bottle now, or post December 3rd.  The generals are watching, and so is the opposition.  The Americans are the wildcard currently, given the Maria Corina Machado court development.  Go forward, or go in reverse?  I am looking for a broker, and all I encounter is one provoker after another.  Let us be realistic; and if that is too elusive, then being dogmatic is all that is left.

Further, I understand that power is paramount in all PPP (and PNC) considerations.  This is even when patrimony and sovereignty, and the patriotic integrity that goes along with such, are monumental components under consideration.  Rather astonishingly, the energy and electricity of national elections [as witnessed in 2019-20] are nowhere around in this neighborhood.  What matters most in this country?  Retention of power?  Or accession to it?  Or the dignity of Guyana’s paternity, and the territoriality that is inseparable?  I revisit a few sentences back: the passion and fervor of the 2019-2020 elections season must be superseded today by the challenges that emanate from Caracas.  All things being equal, the Venezuelan leadership has kept up a relentless drumbeat of bellicosity; there was a recent presidential press release that openly mocked President Ali and insulted Guyana.  That country is on a quasi-war footing.  Guyanese leaders can be fumbling around, and Guyanese pointing fingers at each other in the time-honored fashion.  If Guyanese can’t be one now, in harmonized lockstep, then they will never be.  End of story, and that is with a bow to ‘One Guyana’ and whatever and whomever it may encircle.

Separately, there is none better than the mighty PPP in the public relations arena.  It is perplexing as to why its messages are so run of the mill, so muted, in this hour of the agitating and tumultuous emerging from the Western border.  The PPP has used every channel and medium available to disseminate its special brands of truth.  It was the Vice President, Dr. Jagdeo who had openly incited his followers to take to social media to spread the government’s gospels for the widest, full-blooded, and most piercing effects.  Where is the Vice President now, given Venezuelan acrimoniousness?  No group, no citizen, in Guyana is better than the PPP with messaging, which makes its low gravy approach [in this regard] to Venezuela more than bewildering.  It is troubling.  As an aside, the Chinese have huge footprints in our neighbor’s realm, and Dr. Jagdeo has a reciprocally rich relationship with the Chinese.  I am struggling to figure out a connection, to some daylight, in the scheme and murk of things.

Last, I absorb how Venezuela has one-upped the PPP Government and leadership in the propaganda department.  People of peace.  Little Guyana is suddenly, recklessly, a warmonger.  Guyana hasn’t claimed any territory.  Guyana hasn’t infiltrated Venezuela with its criminals, a la that boatlift, compliments of Havana and Castro.  Of course, the PPP and Maduro all share the same training schools, only Maduro took the lead with the trash talking.  I close: the Venezuelans are serious.  Guyanese from top to the last man had better be, too.