…trade links
Next week we’ll be hosting the second “AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum” (ACTIF). The first, of course, was held last year in Barbados, and, from the attendance and announcements, showed much promise towards developing trade links between these two members of the Global South. As usual, Bajan PM Mia Mottley was her world-class, self-assured and ebullient self as she expatiated on the possibilities for our futures.
Africa, after all, isn’t just a geographical or economic location for most West Indians: more than two-thirds of us were dragged across the Atlantic in chains and enslaved to labour on the plantations established by the European Empires. The latter “underdeveloped” – in the words of Walter Rodney – both Africa and us, so that “independence” didn’t change a thing as far as our development was concerned.
Our early leaders understood all of this; but, sadly, even though they made grandiose plans, such as the “New International Economic Order” (NIEO) and organized themselves at the UN into G-77 so as to gain real control over our natural resources in order to get fairer prices for our raw materials, it was all pretty much for naught.
Like with our first dictator, Forbes Burnham, much of Africa’s independent states were eventually captured by megalomanic dictators, who cruelly exploited their peoples more ferociously that the departed Whites. Not that the latter didn’t pull strings from behind the scenes, as they created institutions like the World Bank and the IMF to do the dirty. And when that failed, they could always count on “native collaborators” like Burnham, who’d turn against their own for their thirty pieces of silver!!
Anyhow, we’ve maintained Caricom since 1973, while Africa had formed the Organization of African Unity (OAU) since 1963, and the African Union (AU) in 2002. As we know from our (bitter) experience, even though we modelled our bodies after the European Economic Community that became the EU, we could never achieve the results they did. Just like we had too many little Caesars in the Caribbean, it was worse in Africa. When Mottley and Rowley echoed Nkrumah last year by emotionally declaring “I was not born in Africa; Africa was born in me” as far as post-independence rulers, Burnham had the greatest claim to making that statement – being so authoritarian in his actions!!
Well, this time around, the AU had launched an Africa Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) since 1993, and that has extended a US$1.5 billion line of credit – to be doubled this year – to facilitate business linkages between the two entities. There’s no need for any more TALKING about the liberating possibilities of South-South linkages – action is what’s needed. For instance, there was supposed to be an Afreximbank branch established by July in Barbados – and it opened its doors last August.
Good portent!!
…patriotism against Venezuela
All Guyanese should commit this Dave Martins’ song to heart: “We are a peaceful people/ Struggle as we struggle/ And we don’t look for trouble/ Just ask around.
But when outside faces/ From foreign places/ Talk about taking over/ We ain’t backing down
(Chorus) We ain’t giving up no mountain/ We ain’t giving up no tree/ We ain’t giving up no river/ That belongs to we/ Not one blue saki/ Not one rice grain/ Not one cuirass/ Not a blade of grass
This land is all I know/ We’re going to make it somehow/ We will bend like a bow/ But never break/ Our fathers came here/ And they lived and died here/ And we ain’t moving nowhere/Make no mistake (chorus)
We love the open country/ Of the Rupununi/ And the Essequibo/ Daytime or night/ Though we may criticize it/ This is our home we love it/ And we need to keep it/ We have that right (Chorus) X 2”
…traitors within
Imagine, we took in all these Venezuelan refugees, and one of them has the audacity to flaunt a food van through the streets of Georgetown with a map of Venezuela that includes our “Essequibo”!! Deport him immediately!
