India’s relations with Guyana have a long history…going back to being part of the British Empire on which “the sun never set”! But there was always the question of scale. With India then having 300+ million teeming masses and inexhaustible wealth to be raped – estimated at US$45 trillion!! – India was “the jewel in the crown” while we were the armpit!!
But even armpits can be exploited – witness the situation in Haiti! Here British sugar planters did the raping and when they needed labourers to undercut the wage demands of the newly-freed Africans, Britain allowed them to ship in 300,000+ Indian indentured. And permanently alter the demography of the colony. So, there was that connection with the descendants of the indentured who maintained nostalgic linkages – even after the last ship in 1955 took back those who desired to do so.
Maybe not so coincidentally, that was also a time of ferment in our local politics with independence – achieved in 1947 by India– on the horizon. After the PPP Government was ousted in 1953 for being “too radical”, it was to India that Jagan and Burnham headed. But while PM Nehru was sympathetic, all he gave them was a firm handshake!! He’d long decided that Indians Overseas were on their own and India was going to march to its own drum.
It wasn’t until Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi was in office that relations became closer on the Non-Aligned Front and India’s oversized role in it. However, while relations were friendly, trade was infinitesimal. But the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme – which was kicked off in 1964 – did provide training in a wide cross-section of our fields of endeavour.
But India was a sleeping giant and finally awakened in the 1990s, when – like us – free market liberalisation of the economy was launched. They’re now the world’s fifth largest economy – having just pipped Britain that used to rule it – and is poised to do the same with Germany!! But with us finally having the wherewithal to develop our own economy, India can offer us plenty of pointers – as a democracy – that can’t use China’s authoritarian measures.
Let’s look at the infrastructure – being emphasised here right now. Since independence, India spent US$4 trillion on infrastructure with 50% of that spent in the LAST NINE YEARS!! They’ll spend another US$7 trillion in the next six years!! For us, they’ve already provided funding for our solitary National Stadium, a ferry for the Northwest and a bypass road from Ogle to Diamond.
After Pres Ali’s visit to India in January to receive the prestigious PBD Samaan Award, a slew of bilateral initiatives has been unfurled. VP Jagdeo’s now solidifying them.
Looks like Guyana’s India connection’s paying off big time!!
…closing the cocaine route??
It’s been more than three decades since we became developed by the Andean South American producers – especially Colombia – as a transshipment route for their cocaine to the US and EU, which forms four-fifths of the market. Now, this is not a nickel-and-dime business, but a multi-billion one rivalling some of the largest corporations in the world. Emanating from Guyana, we’ve had a few shiploads of the drug intercepted that was worth hundreds of US millions. But the smaller shipments for which we are known do add up – and have ensured we remain on the US DEA’s radar.
Just this week we saw the owner of Blue Iguana Night Club in Alberttown busted with some $2.1 million worth of cocaine. This was just two days after CANU arrested a US-Guyanese citizen for cocaine worth $13.3 million at the CJIA on the way to the US. He had 13.4lbs of cocaine in seven Milex milk packages in his luggage.
CANU has to be funded and staffed to excise this cancer.
…to payback?
We all saw Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, didn’t we?? Well, Rock said he watched the slavery drama “Emancipation” just to see Smith “get whopped,” cheering “hit him again” and “you missed a spot”!!
