Dear Editor,
I need help and am appealing for a hand in figuring out the ownership of this oil boat, aka oil barge, now an oil battleship for Trinidad and Tobago. Who hired or owns this boat? Whose cargo of HFO (now a full-fledged UFO turned USO). USO stands for unidentified sailing object, number plate and all. It flew until it sailed, then it disappeared. In an oil spill, cocaine washes about. Ah! Now how about that bit. The cows are coming home to find peace and quiet. It has been a broiling day.
My struggles have to do with what is fake news, what is real news, and what is no news. In the instance of the mysterious Tobago oil spill, no news is still big news. It is headline news. We (I) should be focused on the spill, the implications for the people of Tobago, but here the glance is on the boat, on the boat people, and all that is wrapped up in its cargo hold. By wrapped up, please do not start getting images of neatly and tightly bound packages. They still unravel and leak. Neigh-bours are in for it: a two-fisted cross: from the right a spill, from the dark side a high. Forget about mystery and the unsavory. This is one nasty, dutty, sickly story.
Was the HFO destined for this country’s own dearly beloved GPL? Would be helpful if the guvment said something, and not leff de matter to the GPL alone. The trouble is that on each occasion that somebody in this country flaps their gums, an information blackout results. It is a puzzle: official people take a position, and all kinds of different conclusions assail. It is said that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. This Heavy Fuel chain is missing several of them. In the event someone is asking why there is no mention of the ‘O’ in HFO, it is because I don’t know, it doesn’t matter to me, and recall this: I am the one searching for a helping hand.
My distress lingers. How does an oil spill creating problems for next door neighbours’ waters and their citizens snares Guyana in its centrifugal (there I go again) forces? Not a speck of oil has reached here, but a big, broad slick now plasters more than a few places and people in Guyana. This must be said: the more we know about oil, the less we know. There are dollops of curious developments (some would say criminal) around Tobago, and Guyanese live with these scalloped edged relationships that draw some people and places in this society into it. This is high society stuff.
See why I need help unraveling this. From my survey of the territory, the wish at the heights is that this oil spill story will go away and take this HFO and boat business away with it. It is the old 24-hour and 72-hour attention span story coming to life, and then dying a premature death. Something tells me that this one will be around for a little while longer. Anybody knowing more than I do, please respond to this plea for help. On second thoughts, I do not want to know. Things are better that way, more tranquil.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
