OPINION: Guyana’s ongoing subservience to the US, Jagdeo’s really

Last Updated on Monday, 28 July 2025, 18:35 by Writer

By GHK Lall

It constantly amazes the lengths that Vice President Jagdeo goes to impress himself that he has things under control, and that he comes across as the man with all the solutions to get out of tight corners. The latest came from Demerara Waves on July 26, 2025: “Jagdeo hints that US likely wants Azruddin Mohamed”. Jagdeo is free to hint as much as he wants, but whose hint is he the messenger for, whose baggage is he fetching? If the US wants the OFAC-sanctioned Guyanese, then all it has to do is file a request to that effect. The government is ready and willing; the judiciary is waiting and drooling. Treaty or no treaty. In fact, as part of the psychological vise being tightened by the wily PPP Government on Mohamed, I noticed the Attorney General of Guyana meeting with US officials and sharing love letters on extradition in a general sense (SN, July 26, 2025). AG Nandlall is the best man for that kind of action, his timing impeccable. No sooner had the US Ambassador broke her yearlong silence with “concerns”, than Guyana’s Attorney General bustled into action, like some jack-in-the-box, as though he had nothing else to do. He doesn’t.

Now Dr. Jagdeo wouldn’t like nothing better than to toss the live political grenade that is Mr. Mohamed into the lap of the US. Like Pontius Pilate, Jagdeo seeks to wash his hands of a threatening set of circumstances. Like Pilate, Jagdeo wants to move from small-time governor to prime time emperor. Don’t worry about US hint, hand the man over to the US and the road to September 1st is as clear as a grassland on a dew drenched morning. My concern is centered on this: what’s all the hurry, buddy? Forget about hint. Let the US announce “Help Wanted.” Or “Wanted: Azruddin Mohamed”, and get Anil Nandlall to prove his worth. I left out that ugly part about ‘Dead or Alive’ and all this inconvenient stuff about due process and rights, and such. Why waste time and stretch nerves in the PPP over nuisances?

Having said the above, how much does this say about where Guyana under the PPP Government is today? What does it indicate of a former president of this Republic, and the sorry light in which he reveals himself? It is anything for Uncle Sam. And everything to be rid of a real political pain in the pass to deep in the knee. In focusing so much, and highlighting so much, US interests, US anxieties, and what the US may want with regard to Azruddin Mohamed, what about Guyana? Does Guyana not have any interest in, any claim on, this citizen? Does Guyana not have any concern that he pays his dues to this society for pending matters, as alleged? Does Guyana not want him to remain in this jurisdiction so that he can be given an opportunity to answer to the rollcall attached to his name, his day in court to speak? Why abandon a Guyanese so enthusiastically to the wolves in the US Justice system? By the way, it should be understood that when I say “does Guyana want this, does Guyana not have such and such? What I really did is substitute Guyana in place of Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana’s chief magistrate, chief ethics master, and chief influencer of issues such as WIN’s Mohamed with the US. Jagdeo is Guyana, and Guyana is Jagdeo.

In reflecting upon matters as heavy as these (hinting at what the US wants…), recollection surges. I recall that when a suspected fugitive from the law in the US takes up residence in one of the other states, and commits a crime there, the standard is for the one on the lam to face the bar in the place where he is caught, if a crime has been committed there. Only until after that process has been completed, talk begins about who wants a piece of the individual and who gets first dibs. Am I to take it that given the learned and acutely politically sensitive vice presidential hint, all of this amounts to mere humbug, and Guyana’s interests (the PPP’s and Jagdeo’s, really) are best fulfilled in this haphazard and rather cavalier manner? Specifically, again, that local charges slapped against Mohamed take a back seat, count for naught, in the America-Guyana hierarchy?

For the record, I make no defense, take no stand, for any Guyanese that is on a US Wanted List. My motto is that Uncle Sam knows best, even in his current ramshackle state, with an eye on the FBI and what now stands as the benchmarks for US fair play. Nonetheless, there is unseemly energy to be rid of Mohamed, even when Guyana’s matters hang on his head. Guyana is that subservient to America. Jagdeo sees to that servility.