Pres Ali sure knows how to live dangerously. Can you believe he’s flying over to St Vincent to meet Mad Maduro?? From first-hand experience dealing with some folks from the Berbice Mad House, your Eyewitness knows that Pressie’s at a minimum taking his sanity in his hands!! He’ll be trying to talk sense to a man who’s so delusional you’d swear he’s on LSD!! What’d you say to someone who swears he’s “for the people” when 8 million of those people – one quarter of the population! – left all their worldly possessions behind to get to America (home of the Devil!!) through some of the most treacherous jungles in the world!! Watch me and run mad!!
Now, your Eyewitness knows that even during war – and Maduro’s not only declared war against Guyana, but as far as he’s concerned he’s already annexed our Essequibo! – there gotta be lines of communication to the enemy. Just in case, for instance, the enemy wants to end the war they started!! In this case it seems the initiative is from Ralph Gonzalves of St Vincent under the auspices of Caricom and CELAC – of which he happens to be the Pro-Tempore President. Caricom had met earlier and called for Guyana and Venezuela to “dialogue”.
CELAC was launched in Caracas over a decade ago by folks like Chavez and Lula during a period of a rising “leftist tide’ in Latin America. They took a hard-line stance to “reduce American hegemony” in the region. Gonzalves made a point of inviting Lula – who was approved by both the madman and Pres Ali. So what are they gonna be talking about?? Well, first of all – NOT about our boundary, which the Madman just declared – along with a map – is the Essequibo River!! The statement from Pressie made this very clear – and he was supported by Opposition Leader Norton, so this is a unified national position.
So will Mad Maduro be throwing in the towel – snivelling “no mas…no mas”? Your Eyewitness doesn’t think so. He’ll be proposing – as they’ve been doing since 1962 – that they’ll “generously” forego their claim if we give them something like their last request for a “passage to the Atlantic”!! And what should Pres Ali’s response be?? In the inimitable lyrics of Dave Martins , “Not blade of grass; not one spring cuirass!!” Preferably, Pressie should belt it out in tune – and explain that the “blade of grass” refers to our land boundary and the “cuirass” to our marine boundary!!
Now for diplomatic reasons, Pressie’s gonna be scoring some points to show he’s not riding some high horse. But our inflexible position that the World Court will settle the controversy should satisfy the international community.
It’s their court, innit??
…Mad Maduro’s friends
St Vincent’s Ralph Gonzalves and Brazil’s Lula are respectively in charge of one of the smallest and certainly the largest state in the Caribbean and South America. In case you didn’t notice, they’re both of Portuguese ancestry but that’s not why they so sympatico: that comes from the leftist ideology they both wear on their sleeves. And it’s also why your Eyewitness is a bit sceptical of the meet with Mad Maduro – cause he’s convinced them HE’s also leftist!!
And so we hear Gonzalves and Lula calling for “dialogue” to address the controversy – echoing Mad Maduro’s idiocy about the Geneva Agreement. That agreement established a Mixed Commission that jawboned for the required 4 years without any consensus. What next?? Art 4 clearly says “they shall refer the decision as to the means of settlement to an appropriate international organ upon which they both agree or, failing agreement on this point, to the Secretary-General of the UN.”
And it’s the latter who chose the ICJ – after his “good offices” failed after a decade of more dialogue!!
… Venezuelan incursions
Your Eyewitness wonders – whatever happened to those five high-tech drones Ramjattan acquired back in 2019 to keep an eye on goings on in our interior? Venezuelan troop movements?
