…International Law
As your Eyewitness had telegraphed, Pressie got his 15 minutes of attention at the UNGA on Wednesday.
Leaders can speak for as long as they want; Fidel holds the record in this regard at 269 minutes (4 and a half hours!) in 1960; but most try to get their licks in quicker, so as not to pi55 of their peers, who’ve gotta sit through their performance. Maybe the US never forgave Fidel for his record harangue?!? Or was it because he visited Harlem and embarrassed them with the poverty the press was forced to report on?? Our Pressie visited Brooklyn to press the flesh in some African Guyanese/WI neighbourhoods, but only pi55ed off the resident PNC troglodytes!!
Anyhow, as predicted, Pressie took the opportunity to inform the 87 Heads of States, 2 Vice Presidents, 1 Crown Prince, 28 Heads of Government, 3 Deputy Prime Ministers, and 13 Ministers who showed up at the UNGA about the existential threat to our territorial integrity from Venezuela. He emphasised our country’s faith in the value of multilateralism – as epitomised by the UN itself – and implicitly asked all those leaders who were there if they wouldn’t stand up for the principles of multilateralism if they should ever see those principles being trampled by bullies like Mad Maduro; or would they merely twiddle their fingers?
Said Pressie: “International law and its strict application have been our armour and our shield in our determination to protect ourselves from this aggression. We remind this august assembly that the border between Guyana and Venezuela was fully, finally, and perfectly settled in an 1899 award by an International Tribunal.”
He then gave a very succinct but comprehensive summary of the Venezuelan Border Controversy – which was referred to the UN Secty General, who placed it before the ICJ for a judicial resolution. He highlighted Mad Maduro’s cynical and opportunistic approach to rejecting the UN and ICJ’s jurisdiction, but yet submitted a memorial to the ICJ. Meaning, if he gets a favourable judgement, he accepts; if not, he rejects!!
As you, dear readers, would know by now, at this point in time, your Eyewitness doesn’t have much confidence in multilateral institutions like the UN. They’ve all become toothless poodles; and, as we know, poodles never had much bite, to begin with!! He’s reminded of a meeting in Tehran during WWII, wherein Winston Churchill suggested to Stalin the possibility of the Pope being associated with some of the decisions taken on the eventual peace. “The Pope?” asked Stalin thoughtfully. “How many divisions does he have?” And that’s the nub of the problem with these multilateral bodies, innit?? They’ve got no independent sources of power – save moral, like the Pope – to enforce their decisions.
It ain’t coincidental that when the UN was formed in 1945, the WWII victors all conferred veto power on themselves!!
…historical revisionism
…on Buxton bandits
The way David Granger’s carrying on in his weekly broadcast, you’d never think “the troubles” – as he’s dubbed the killing fields between 1998 and 2008 – had anything even remotely connected to “African Freedom Fighters” launching a frontal attack on the state!! Nah!! It was the dictatorial and nasty PPP who – without any rhyme or reason – sent out Phantom Squads along with members of the Disciplined Forces to kill young African Guyanese men.
So, what about poor Mr Eusi Kwayana and the late Andaiye, who denounced the gunmen’s attacks on Indian Guyanese on behalf of African Guyanese in a letter captioned “Not in my name”?? No mention in this revisionist account!! And what about Mr Kwayana being forced to flee the village – and eventually the country – in his old age by the gunmen and their handlers, whom Mr Kwayana mocked sarcastically as “political sophisticates”? Revised out of history!!
And that’s the problem with revisionism. Once you start playing fast and loose with facts, you distort even your own history!!
…colonial sins
The newly-elected President of Mexico “disinvited” the King of Spain from her inauguration, because he’d refused to apologise for the abuses the Spanish state had committed to conquer and exterminate the native Mexicans!! Bravo!!
