…Venezuelan refugees
There’s a heated – to put it mildly!! – debate going on about all these Venezies flocking our shores. There’s been another bout of complaints from the farmers of Ruby, on the East Bank of the Essequibo, who’d opened their arms to them after boatloads had kept landing at the nearby Parika foreshore. Mattie (Venez) told Mattie, and right now there are literally hundreds of shacks thrown up by the Venezies on the sideline dam that controls the flow of water into the Ruby rice fields, which stretch inland for miles. The flow of water is being disrupted, not to mention the canals are becoming polluted.
Now, this has been going on for years – at least since Venezuela’s meltdown following the collapse of their oil industry. This followed Maduro’s privatization of the few foreign oil companies, like Exxon and Chevron, that had remained after 2007, when Chavez upped his Burnham-like populist adventures. Now, whatever else is going on, our concern’s gotta be the impact of all those Venezies in our less-than-800,000 population.
The trickle had really become a torrent by the time the PPP was checkmated by APNU and the AFC in 2011; and by 2019, there was a report of 36,000 of them as refugees here. That easily got to have been doubled by now!! The UN system had gotten involved with humanitarian outreaches to them as they crossed the Cuyuni into our Region 1. After a while, the Govt decided to not allow them beyond Mabaruma – but we never instituted the systems to do so effectively.
Initially, there were three reasons for this: firstly, many were Indigenous Peoples for whom it was an age-old tradition of migratory habits to make a living.
The second reason was that there were Venezuelans who had gravitated past the West Coast onto Georgetown and the East Bank. Many of us felt sorry for these poor wretches – except local women, who saw their husbands being lured into dalliances by the more desperate female refugees! Soon every village between Pomeroon and Rosignol had their Venezuelan posse.
Finally, there were the returning Guyanese – or their children – who’d gone over since the 1970s as our economy and society had imploded under Burnham’s “innovations” – which, ironically, Chavez copied!! These were a whole different kettle of fish. By law, they were Guyanese citizens with all the privileges that implied. And this brings in the crux of the battle of words that’s going on right now between the Govt and the Opposition. The latter accuse the PPP of registering Venezuelans of all stripes with GECOM with an eye on elections in 2025!! Hence their demand for a language test!!
But if the Venezies wanna regularize their status and follow the law governing “naturalization” of citizenship, what’s the PPP to do??
…dangerous citizens
During the Cold War, the Americans had a question for anyone trying to enter their country: “Are you now, or even been a member of a communist party?”. If you were, they wouldn’t let you in!! The reason, of course, is they didn’t want to allow Fifth Columnists into their country – who could be activated some time down the road to subvert the country from within!!
This should be the retort to those who say we should allow any and all Venezuelan “refugees” because they allowed so many Guyanese to enter their country when the shoe was on the other foot. But the two situations aren’t equivalent, are they?? Unlike Venezuela, we’ve never claimed two-thirds of their territory, and could later exploit the sentiments of the “refugees” to call upon their “mother country” to rescue them from persecution or whatever!!
All non-Guyanese persons from Venezuela must be categorized as “refugees”, with the caveat they’ll have to return when Maduro is gone!!
…the pygmy parties
The AFC’s in coalition talks with GAP. Then there’re the tribulations of the “joinder parties”, where ANUG was stiffed by a 244-vote party from their share of the seat. Well, ANUG just elected officers, and the old heads all jumped ship!!
Pique??
