Venezuela arms build-up must be carefully monitored

Dear Editor,
In the Guyana Chronicle of October 6, 2008 a letter captioned `PNCR statements totally irrelevant’ and penned by one T King was published.

It is absolutely prime material for the trash can and I wish T King to understand that his penned views, assumptions and concepts are not held by all Guyanese.

First, I want to make my position clear, I am not a supporter of the PNCR or the PPP/C or any political party in Guyana. Once I am clear on this, I hope T King will understand that I am a Guyanese with an independent view.

Venezuela’s arms build-up, no matter how innocent it may appear has to be carefully monitored and evaluated. This is not a time to sit back and blindly accept promises of “everything is alright” while moves to arm are moving apace. This has absolutely nothing to do with the ability of the Guyana Defence Force.

Sure enough President Chavez is not dumb because he has the ability to influence lots of T Kings. Make no mistake, Venezuela still has its eyes on our Essequibo.

I don’t have time to talk about party members still being in the GPF and GDF, these are institutions designed for the Guyanese public and T King or his aides cannot stop the public from becoming members. T King seemingly does not even realize that GDF, GPF and other forces serve him with pride and honour.

One question, have you ever heard of Sir S Ramphal, Rashleigh Jackson or Fred Wills? These are just a few, but politicians changed the border confrontations through diplomacy. It was never Guyana’s strategy to invade or claim part of Venezuela, our army was designed to be small and efficient and it has delivered on its role of protecting Guyana’s borders.
Yours faithfully,
Ashton Simon