OPINION: With a friend like Prime Minister Gonsalves, Guyana wouldn’t have enemies

Last Updated on Sunday, 15 September 2024, 13:38 by Writer

By GHK Lall

St. Vincent and Grenadines Prime Minister, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, is getting a little too intimate with what is good for Guyana. According to PM Gonsalves, Nicolás Maduro Moros at the helm in Venezuela is the best that could be for Guyana (“Maduro, as Venezuela’s President, is in Guyana’s interest – St Vincent’s PM Gonsalves” – Demerara Waves Online News, September 14, 2024). Thanks for nothing, Dr. Gonsalves. Why does the Government of Guyana, the PPP of President Ali, consider this man as a friend. Why any Guyanese politician (or Guyanese) look on the St Vincentian prime minister as a friend, an ally, eludes a simple chap like me. Of course, though talk comes easily to Dr. Gonsalves, it is not cheap. Cheap oil demands cheap propagandizing on behalf of Señor Maduro and his version of free and fair elections. It is a rich bargain in St Vincent’s favor. Was this not the same man who was so solemnly eloquent during Guyana’s own elections in 2020? Using his standard of “free and fair” in Venezuela, then by that same convention, the PNC should have won the last national elections here.

I appreciate that men and women, whether prime ministers or propagandists, in whatever form they take—writers, real warm bodies, ghosts, shills, carnival barkers, and social media activists—must prove themselves, justify their favors received. I humbly suggest that my fellow Guyanese arrive at the same where speakers selling a product (or a party) will do anything, say anything, to keep collecting. In Guyana, it is money from the treasury, a smile from their oily masters. In the St. Vincentian PM’s case, it is oil. Thanks, Señor Nicolás, now what do I have to sell?

The Venezuelan right wing is bad for Guyana. In partnership with the Yankees, they will control Guyana’s oil wealth from Caracas. Therefore, the lesser of two evils is Mr. Maduro. Or the best of a bad lot over there in Venezuela is Nicolás Maduro Moros. Oil made the Americans do all manner of nefarious things in the Middle East. Oil made the PNC government do some stupid things here in Guyana before. Oil makes the PPP government of Drs. Ali and Jagdeo do some unbelievably malignant things nowadays in Guyana. Now there is Dr. Ralph Gonsalves being true to form and flowing in grandiose exuberance about the comparative virtues of Venezuela’s Maduro relative to what is in Guyana’s interest. This is what cheap oil on the barrel makes men do to themselves. I have a favor to ask of President Ali: may I, sir, have a bottle of that same rum, please? I will do without the coin, but I need that rum to help me to deal with this incarnation of a Greek coming from St Vincent with his treacherous gift.

If I were to say half of what the prime minister said, the PPP government goons and hatchet men will be out in force: traitor! A Venezuelan pretending to be a Guyanese. A dangerous wolf in the midst, but one dressed in Guyanese patriotic wool. It baffles me, so I ask this question: why is Guyana, why is the PPP government, still dealing with this man Ralph Gonsalves? It is the same illustrious and glorious Nicolás Maduro Moros, who forced through his decree, and just like that two-thirds to three-quarters of Guyana has been converted to Venezuelan ownership, complete with citizenship for any Guyanese who will take it. I will take that bottle of fine Demerara Rum, and if there is a raw blend distilled in the backwoods of Essequibo (not any damn Essequiba) I will gladly accept that, too. A man, a leader, a so-called “free and fair” election winner, already claimed the greater part of my country and, by some wand waved in the heaven where PM Gonsalves reside, that individual is the genuine article, the better deal for Guyana. No wonder this entire region has been stuck where it has been since many of its countries came to independence.

Like I have made clear repeatedly, there is zero interest in replacing British colonialism with American imperialism. It is what has placed me in the path of the PPP juggernaut, which lies prostrate before American dictates. It is why I have this serious difficulty with St Vincent’s Prime Minister Gonsalves: he has clearly substituted a Venezuelan ring (or a knee) around his neck for the British ones with which his country used to live. He loves his role too much, always pushing the envelope to sell a noble and fraternal Nicolás Maduro to Guyana. Out of courtesy, I neither derogate PM Gonsalves nor denounce him for pushing what is in St Vincent’s interests, while using Guyana as his sacrificial sheep.

There is something as trying too hard, and PM Gonsalves keeps outdoing himself. I respectfully urge him to take a long and hard look at himself. If he is half the man that I think he is, he would not like what he sees. Or how he appears before Guyanese when he is stripped of his costume, and his Venezuelan oil bonanza.