Last Updated on Sunday, 20 September 2026, 20:41 by Writer
by GHK Lall
Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” (John 20:23)
This is the secular world. Not the space of the spiritual. It’s a world of sometimes subtle, other times, astonishing changes. The areas covered are endless. Filled with the contradictory. Where crimes are covered over (transgressions overlooked). Pursued for the Holy Grails of truth and justice, standards and models that brook neither disagreement nor pushback. Or, for dishonest and ultimately damaging objectives. Those are the first questions.
One of the changes referred to has to do with visas. Coveted American visas. Almost, if not, better than a birth certificate; as good as a president’s or pontiff’s seal of approval. Maybe held a step higher in many minds. The Judge Gino Persaud “visa review” development pushed me to that unpardonable place. Thinking. How what is covered reveals the irony of contradictions. The changes and reversals that expose those who wear the crowns of presidents and untouchables. Follow.
It was just a few moons back. Men and women in high Guyanese offices feared U.S. airports. For good reason: their troubled history, their unchecked baggage, their life in the dark. Times have changed, haven’t they? They now have something better than the immunity granted by diplomatic passports. They have unwritten letters that testify to the granting of presidential immunity. On this side of the Atlantic and the American side, too. The latter is what counts. It hinges on what is wanted here, what is liked about here. And when there’s that pleasure, then crimes are washed away. The records compiled disappear. Of no merit, and no force anymore. I had harbored the misplaced idea that it was only in Guyana that one-man tribunals, one-man COIs, and one-man arbitrators existed. It is clear that, up north, that spirit has taken hold, and expanded in demented exercises of power.
Go next door. For those who seek proof, there it is. A basket marked Delcy Rodrigues and Alejandro Betancourt. Once, they were earmarked for the hammer (like Nicolas Maduro). Now they are on the side of Washington’s angels. It counts to be recognized as a helper to the prosecution, even when that one may be depraved, exemplary as a walking crime wave. The changes in fortunes that come about, when the fortune hunters are allowed to get their way. There are none better than some in the United States. In the current environment, it is more rewarding for the scientist and seeker of deviousness to look to the U.S. and less at Putin and Jinping, if one is interested in how corruptions can inspire changes and corruptions can also cover them up.
Today, the men and women in power in Guyana have undergone transformations that neither steroids nor Botox nor Ozempic (combined) can match for results. Guyana’s powerful are renewed. Their prior darkness and current ones stripped away. Discarded. Don’t matter like before. The pendulum has swung, and it is not toward justice, nor the American Way. The American Way is mirage to be examined later. Today, those who stand against the rampages of the twisted and deformed in Guyana’s power architecture are the ones targeted. Visa review. I am all for it. But when all are included, when no one is excluded. Not even presidents and prime ministers. If they, then ministers and senior public servants, must be part of the American Dragnets. And if there was no such beast as chronic, alarming, destructive levels of corruptions, then there would be no need for Arthur Chung whippings and a leader’s dawn flaying. There’s absolutely nothing in this world that can convince me that American Ambassador, Nicole D. Theriot and her posse of visible and invisible helpers are clueless of what is written here. On the contrary, they know much more than all Guyanese put together will ever know. Alistair Routledge (Mr.) can breathe still easier.
In hand. Under control. Retreat at JFK with scrutiny. Advance on those in Guyana who stand against the dirty tide. Gino Persaud stands. It is not that he is taken down. It is how. A favor among friends sharing a special bond. An opportunity to lash at one who angered. Because he interpreted the law, admitted or blocked material, as seen proper. A secretive jury on a judge now publicly impeached. All that it took were those two tragic words “visa review.” He could emerge the clearest of the clear, but that undesired moment in the sun, I am afraid, has torched him.
I am touched and troubled by how this national patrimony has become a Pandora’s box for Guyanese. A world of ills. An arena of disreputable men and women in Guyana and abroad. A time of crimes covered and new ones arranged. I laugh aloud when I read of oil curse and resource curse. Get out of the bloody textbooks. Next, absorb the biggest curse of all. Accursed men and women, Brown, Black, Bronze, in Guyana. Leaders, they are called. And the curse bigger than even them, once oil is around: The Great White Fathers in Washington.
