…coming to dinner
So, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is coming to Guyana this Thursday. Imagine that! And here your Eyewitness thought he was living in a benighted backwater that (at best) only attracted diplomats being banished from up north. His daddy had told him that the Queen of England had actually checked us natives out personally back in the day just before Independence…and then again, he dimly remembered she’d also come in 1994. But those don’t really count…do they? Her visits are more or less ceremonial.
So that raises the question as to what brings Secretary Pompeo down in these parts? Surely, we can all agree it’s not “ceremonial”. Mike doesn’t do “ceremonial”. This West Point graduate is a “can-do” man – being a businessman, lawyer (Harvard grad, even!) , a Congressman and most importantly – a Director of the CIA! Succeeding Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State after the latter earned President Trump’s ire, Pompeo’s stint at State has been positively benign compared to the hijinks going on in other areas of the US Government!
And that’s pretty much because he’s a personification of the conservative agenda that Trump adopted – even being a member of the Tea Party at one time! So once again, why is Big Mike moseying down these parts? The question, of course, is actually, “which of the US’s interests are intersecting with Guyana’s at this time that the peripatetic Secty of State must tend to? There’re, of course, our democratic credentials – which Secretary Pompeo played not an inconsiderable role in helping to preserve over the last five months!! Against the machinations of the PNC and its proxies in GECOM to hijack the elections.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that the PNC is having fits over the visit! Raphael Trotman literally was foaming at the mouth and issuing dire threats against the PPP not to pander to Pompeo. This is quite ironic, since it’s been said – without contradiction – that his political career (and Ramjattan’s) received quite a defining boost from George Bush’s Republican Administration back in 2005!! Oh, how the world turns!! But would Pompeo really fly down just to compliment President Ali?? Naah… there’s gotta be more in the mortar than that pestle.
There’s the Exxon desire to get on with Payara, some say with good reason, since Mike’s always been supportive of Big Oil. Kinda like, “what’s good for the energy industry is good for America!” The Government should expect a nudge.
Then, of course, there’s the elephant in the (Southern Caribbean) room – Venezuela. Mike’s been integral in pushing for democracy over there.
So, for sure he’ll ask the Government to give Maduro a nudge!! Democracy lives!!
…now playing catch-up
With one simple statement last week, Volda Lawrence pulled the rug out from under David Granger and his pretentions of being leader of the PNC!! Showing she could beard the (toothless) lion in his chosen arena, Volda left Georgetown and threw down the gauntlet to Granger and his place-holder Harmon at historic Hopetown.
Granger had unleashed the hounds of inter-ethnic violence on West Berbice after the gruesome murder of the Henry cousins. And just when matters were spiralling out of control as the Police’s and Army’s professionalism were stretched, Volda called upon “every single member of the PNC”: “what I have seen along the way, as a leader, I consciously cannot condone. We are hurting each other as a people, we are hurting each other as neighbours and friends and we are turning on each other as though we don’t know each other and as a Leader, we have to call a spade a spade.
“We certainly can display our grief in a different manner,” she concluded.
And forced Granger to do a volte-face!
…possibly coming back
Not that they’ll ever get credit from the likes of Lincoln Lewis and his bauxite union, but the PPP’re doing their darnedest to help Rusal to get back into Guyana.
Even considering dredging the Berbice River.
