OPINION: From gunboat and Ping-Pong diplomacy to gangster diplomacy

Last Updated on Tuesday, 1 September 2026, 17:14 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

There was U.S. President James Munroe and his stellar vision: Manifest Destiny.  Then came Presidents Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor, among others.  Men of military acclaim; generals who laid claim to personal heraldry.  Native American Indian tribes chased from their lands, herded down trails of bitter tears, then penned on barren, narrow, confining reservations.  Those accustomed to roaming the ranges, corralled in dark, grim corners.  So that American expansion could continue without human nuisances.  Without inconveniences that slowdown accumulations of rich lands, richer treasures.  American prairie diplomacy at its rawest.  Crisscrossing a continent to link two oceans.

From the roots of prairie diplomacy emerged the branches of gunboat diplomacy.  China’s waters, Barbary Coast shores, then Veracruz in Mexico; last, against suspected drug traffickers in this region’s seas.  Guyana’s contentious border context functioned as the invitation for displays of gunboat diplomacy.  The U.S. was most conspicuous.  The endgame was never in any doubt.  Now it has been concluded; the consummation of long, tedious, aggressive action.  A sitting president wrenched from his seat of power and winched to a helicopter seat.  Then to a seat in a New York jail cell.  Crafts bristling with armaments of war.  The language of belligerence in close proximity.  Softening up resistance.  Fragmenting opposition.  Then there is Senora Delcy Rodriguez.

I should be glad that the Americans have she and her cabal cowed and cornered.  A frail shadow of the warrior who so covets my lands and my treasures; more of Guyanese than an outsider such as I.  But I’m not happy.  For there could come that time when greedy eyes and the guns are turned towards Guyana to covet its property and jewels.  Then what?  In many ways that has already been Guyana’s experience.  First in 2016, then in 2020.  Recall how many raced here, to link arms with Lynch to boost American interests.  Any Guyanese who think democracy and the will of the people risk categorization as knave or fool.  Simply look at Guyana’s leaders since August 2020; the pawns and puppets into which they have been made.

So, what kind of diplomacy now rules between Washington and Caracas?  The gunboats gone to midocean or quietly docked.  Buzzing overhead warplanes recalled to their bases.  What best captures the essence of the diplomacy that originates from DC and registers a compelling footprint in Caracas?  Personally speaking, there is only one two-word classification that fits: Gangster diplomacy.  The Cosa Nostra would have been proud.  Eyeball the territory.  Size up the treasure.  Then move in and seize it.  A quarter today sets the stage for another in the future.  It’s not Ping-Pong diplomacy.  Not when Venezuela has no racket, and America controls the table and rules.  It is gangster capitalism.  It may be a softer, more palatable version of gangster diplomacy, but either fills the bill.

What choice did Senora Rodriguez have?  When a gun nuzzles her head?  When U.S. law enforcement has compiled a thick dossier on her and private citizen Betancourt.  The latter name and activities rang alarm bells inside U.S. police agencies, perked their interests.  Gangster diplomacy works well, since oil diplomacy isn’t up to the job.  Frankly, diplomacy could be done away with, which leaves gangsterism as the sole agency and force in action.  A memory stirs, is traced to the Red Chinese.  It was Mao Zedong who coined the term “imperialist running dog”.  It was refined in 2021 and hurled by Chinese Consul General Li Yang at Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: he who “turned Canada into a running-dog of the U.S.”  In China, a running dog is to degrade to a flunkey.  In Venezuela stands Senora Delcy Rodriguez, leader of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.  From mid gangster diplomacy developments, Bolivarian is now history.  Manifest Destiny writ large.  From James Madison to John Trump.