Dear Editor,
Regardless of where you stand on it, the Charrandas Persaud episode is done. There is an elephantine and potentially existential geopolitical problem facing us and the political miscreants from all sides seem blissfully unaware of it. Venezuela militarily expelled two ExxonMobil-contracted vessels from Guyana’s waters the day after the no-confidence vote! That was no mere coincidence. It is meant to signal that Venezuela and its backers are fully aware of the political bickering in Georgetown and plans to benefit from it. Since Jagdeo dropped his no-confidence motion, Venezuela has been on a major power projection exercise. Iran conducted joint naval exercises with Venezuela. Maduro visited Russia, Russia landed nuclear bombers in Venezuela and there is talk of a Russian military base there. Turkey’s leader visited and pledged support to Maduro. China is already entrenched in Venezuela due to its financial buttressing of the Maduro regime. Trump and Pompeo were silent on this latest aggression with a low-level deputy spokesman from the State Department making the initial statement. Considering it is ExxonMobil, that bastion of Americana, and this lukewarm response, this is bad news for Guyana. It could mean that under the Trump administration, ExxonMobil is no longer getting the blanket US State Department outrage it usually gets in these situations. To make matters worse, Trump pulled out of Syria one week after Russia boldly backed Venezuela with its nuclear bombers in America’s backyard. The signal to Russia and Iran in that Syria corridor was weakness. So, what happened with Venezuela on the day after the no-confidence vote is not out of the ordinary.
We have a huge problem facing this country and we have political rogues in the PPP and the coalition only concerned with dueling for power. The coalition’s unlawful and unconstitutional refusal to accept the result is only going to further divide and destabilize Guyana, not to mention sink the coalition further vote-wise. Both the PPP and the coalition are playing a selfish game that could be dangerous for the survival of this very country. At a minimum, if sensible heads existed on both sides of the political fence in Guyana, it would have been obvious that a delay of the no-confidence vote was in order to get a good grasp of where these bold moves from Venezuela were leading as well as synchronizing Guyana’s (both opposition and government) position with the US, which is still our strongest buffer to Venezuela. Right now, we are fractured and badly exposed as a country. Let’s not be naïve, now that we have become economically relevant because of oil, there are geopolitical forces who will seek to move into this tension and drama for their own gain. The result is going to be a broken country, even more failed than it currently is.
At this point, we need leadership which is fully aware of the primacy of the survival of the state, first and foremost, against its threats. I don’t see if from the PPP or the coalition. They are wearing the narrow lenses of selfish pursuit of power. The incompetence and unawareness on both sides is staggering. There is a way out and there is still time. The government should talk to the opposition to reconvene the national assembly to pass agreed-upon bills on electoral and constitutional reform before the due elections. Those actions protect democracy, the country and keep investors happy. They are our best geopolitical buffers.
Yours faithfully,
M. Maxwell
