Dealing with… immigrant exploitation

Your Eyewitness invokes the old Guyanese saying “All skin-teeth na laff!!” in referring to his satirical take earlier in the week on the horrific story of the 38 imported Indian workers!! They’d been taken to a quarry – in the interior, of course! – by an employer from their own country who treated them worse than dirt!! Your Eyewitness snickered that we’d now joined the ranks of Dubai – where exploitation of their imported workforce is beyond rife!! The sad reality is that for a host of reasons, development ain’t uniform across the world. And just as some countries need foreign direct investments – capital – they also need live bodies to provide labour – mental and physical – for the actual nuts and bolts that provide the scaffolding for the said “development”!
It’s always been like that – even when the Egyptians were building those pyramids!! Remember Jews like Moses and other furriners doing the heavy lifting – pun intended?! We had our own experience with the Dutch and Brits dragging us as enslaved and indentured labourers – providing the ultimate CHEAP manpower!! But since those practices were abolished, one would assume employers would now do right by their workers – no matter where they came from. But we’ve seen the world don’t work like that, does it?? It’s probably the way we’re hard-wired!!
The problem was that while even developed countries have no barriers for money pouring into their countries, they take great exception to poor people immigrating across their borders to try and make a living!! The irony, of course, was THEIR “good living” was built on the exploitation of countries from where the immigrants originated!! And the further irony is that when the immigrants do cross their borders – legally or illegally – they’re ALWAYS exploited and therefore continue to help them keep living high on the hog!! And the furthest irony is that in most cases the immigrants know what they’re getting into – but go along willingly because the conditions in their countries are even more dire!! They’re caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea!!
Some countries need workers because while they got money for development projects their population is comparatively small and can’t supply the necessary manpower or brainpower. They accept foreign workers – and them being squeezed by local employers. A recent Human Rights Watch report, for example, stated that “in Saudi Arabia there are 13.4 million migrant workers – 42 per cent of the population – who’re subjected to dangerous working conditions, including extreme heat, lack of breaks, and underpayment or non-payment. Workers have reported serious health issues from prolonged heat exposure, job-related injuries, and unexplained deaths, with families left without proper investigations or compensation.”
Expect more exploitation of migrants in ole Mudland!!

…flooding
Now that the REAL May-June rains are here – we know flooding’s gonna be endemic and might possibly cause epidemics like Lepto and Chikungunya – apart from Georgetown and its environs looking like cheap and tawdry imitations of Venice!! So, your Eyewitness was completely gobsmacked to read we’d shipped two heavy-duty, high-volume pumps – working at 31,000 gallons per minute each!! – Over to Suriname, because they got floods there also!!
It seems when Pressie recently spoke to their President virtually – supposedly about bilateral issues including the Corentyne River Bridge, fisheries, trade, energy, and agriculture – she gave him some sob story of their travails with floods, due to the same weather pattern we’re experiencing!! Now, your Eyewitness doesn’t mind being a good neighbour and all – but two things stuck in his craw. Ain’t charity supposed to be at home?? And in that vein, aren’t we Mudlanders also being flooded??
Then since when has Suriname ever flexed with us?? Still no fishing licenses – and now fees for Corentyne River use!!

…bed sheet rigging
Ever since Guyanese learnt Mingo used a soiled bed sheet to project his personally tabulated SOPs, they wanted to know where he sourced the bed sheet and more pertinently, how’d it become stained!!
After the Court’s visit, were these pressing questions answered??