The visit of US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Barbara Feinstein, to Guyana, and her wide-ranging discussions, mark an important step in the evolving relations between the US and Guyana. In the past, Guyana was not on the itinerary of high-ranking US officials. Prior to the visit of Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State in 2020, the last visit of a senior official was that of Phillip Habib, US Under Secretary of State, in June 1977, when he said as regards human rights: “This is not, in our view, a problem in Guyana.” The US was then mending a quarrel with the Burnham administration over the terrorist bombing of a Cuban aircraft in October 1976 in which 73 persons, 11 of whom were Guyanese, died. Now expected to play a greater role in Latin America because of the discovery of large petroleum resources, in which US companies are involved, the US interest in Guyana has escalated.
