Dear Editor,
It has become necessary for me to make this statement listening a few weeks ago to a reading of remarks made in Guyana by the Environmentalist attorney at law Ms. Melinda Janki and then by Dr. Vincent Adams, a former head of the EPA concerned with oil mining in Guyana. Coming from different perspectives and looking at the same developments, they both left the impression that ExxonMobil in Guyana may be repeating what has been alleged about it in many other countries. In short, the guarantees which the outgoing government and the present government understood to be implied in understandings reached with ExxonMobil are frail, dubious, and so flimsy that the company feels free to treat them as non-existent. Attorney Janki called on the authorities to shut down the operations in question. Environmentalist Adams agonized over the failure of the company to deliver to expectations, and especially its persistent failure to repair damaged malfunctioning equipment that can lead to ecological disaster. Both experts seemed to agree that the safety of the Guyanese population and its patrimony were endangered.
My own interest in environmental issues began with concerns about transnational corporations, learning with Green-peace, a celebrated pioneer in this field. My other mentors were several of the women in Red Thread, including Ms. Jocelyn Dow, who founded a factory making furniture for home and office out of liana vines, partly to demonstrate not only her business acumen, but to show how the trees of the rainforest could be protected and left virtually untouched. For her part Ms Dow was for many years a first responder to urban and rural families in distress, including our small household. When her tenure at the Forest Commission was first questioned she responded by referring to the auditor’s report as evidence of its transparency. I am wondering whether the reference to the Forestry commission under her watch by the Minister of Finance on Friday is a reference to irregularity or to a difference of policy in environmental management.
My other mentors included in order of time Dr. Joshua Ramsammy and Dr. Omawale of the University of Guyana, my wife Tchaiko, our offspring, and Kwesi Nkofi and Troy Campbell, young villagers of Buxton-Friendship, Jean La Rose and the Amerindian Peoples Association, and Vanda Radzik and Iwokrama. Above all I was a keen supporter of a young doctor, Gustav Jackson of Victoria, a geologist who fatally fractured his life in his practical support of and engagement with indigenous communities in Guyana, the USA, and the African continent against environmental injury. He had returned to Guyana to study the Omai crisis of gold mining and the communities affected. His funeral service in Washington, DC resounded with tributes from scores of admirers including me and some Guyanese indigenous women who had traveled from England to be present at the event.
When the new government of Guyana was sworn in on Aug 2, 2020, and later unfurled its emergency budget, it spoke confidently of beneficial relations with investors including oil. It gave the impression that it would skillfully use oil revenues to develop a green economy. In my own case, I had tried to argue in my development notes, that in order to justify the hazards of the expanding oil mining sector, we should adopt the Clive Thomas formula of direct cash transfers to households from the oil revenues. I added that the national budget should also aim at supporting weaker members of CARICOM which had been subsidized in their energy expenditure by the Bolivarian Republic after the coming of Hugo Chavez.
The recent remarks of these two experienced experts I have quoted above, and the deep concern oozing from these comments, leave me in no doubt or little doubt that ExxonMobil has no intention of reaching any understanding beneficial to the host community through an agreement with the Guyanese government.
Apart from the well-known ravages and degradations imposed by powerful oil companies on countries owning the materials they seek, the despair in the case of Guyana is that the oil companies and others will take, and are taking, advantage of political divisions which unfortunately affect transparency, efficiency, law enforcement, the management of the pandemic and national consensus about long-term development. It was instructive to me, for example, to hear Dr. Brown, a woman environmentalist on Observer Radio (Antigua) propose, in a panel discussion, that the country should have a development board headed by the prime minister with the leader of the opposition as deputy, as a means of ensuring continuity of development programmes vital to the population. The spirit of this recommendation needs to be adopted in various forms and places in our Caribbean region.
The warning present in the statements of the two environmental authorities, Attorney Janki and Dr. Adams, apparently without previous consultation, means that neither the government nor the opposition, has been able to impress the oil company with its capacity for self-determination. It is clear that trying to pat the head of the oil tigers in order to tame them and change their typical behaviour will not work. Unfortunately, Guyana is not yet ready for an open discussion, free from the fears and insecurities that have haunted us for over half a century, that is discussion about the way towards peace, security, and a reasonable livelihood for every Guyanese.
I must remind those who will see this as a new proposal, that in 1987, as WPA’s Member of Parliament, sent there to represent “the unrepresented,” it was my privilege to move a motion in the National Assembly for “a national dialogue of all social forces,” and to have this motion unanimously approved. Today, although distributed on a very partisan basis, the media tools and agencies are far more abundant than they were when the National Assembly adopted the WPA’s motion for dialogue. Part of the dialogue should be about whether the contract with ExxonMobil is consistent with the pre-existent laws, safety, and aspirations of the Guyanese community, and whether in practice ExxonMobil is fulfilling its obligations to prevent ecological disaster.
Yours sincerely,
Eusi Kwayana
