Well…Sara-Ann’s gone, and we got a new Sheriff – oops, US Ambassador!! – in town!! And her name is Nicole D. Theriot. While Sara-Ann’s name sounded Southern, she was actually a Yankee from up north – unlike Nicole, who’s a real Southerner from down New Orleans way!! Do we hear “Blue Bayou” in the French name “Theriot”?? Maybe she’ll introduce some Cajun spices to that staid Embassy finger food when your Eyewitness comes knocking glasses!!
All your Eyewitness knows is that Nicole has some large shoes to fill…and that’s meant as a compliment to Sara-Ann. There’s that first name by which she was universally known across our not-so-fair Mudland – for very good reasons! She’d come into her posting from USAid just a year before Granger scheduled elections in 2020. She’d witnessed his trampling of the Constitution when he refused to demit office following the PPP’s successful no-confidence motion. And from then onwards, she was onto the PNC and their rigging ways like a cheap suit!! She truly saved us from another two decades of PNC dictatorial rule.
Wasn’t there supposed to be a statue erected in her honour in that little park at the front of Ashmins and to the side of Parliament?? She could be depicted waving to Critchlow!!
Anyhow, back to Ms Theriot. Based on her postings, she’s been around the Third World block – and then some!! Ten countries on four continents!! What with serving in Morocco, Germany, Iraq, France, Nigeria, Canada and Barbados, as well as being the Consul General in Pakistan and previously the Deputy Chief of Mission in Haiti, she’s been in enough hot spots to be able to spot them from a mile away!! And for us, she’s gonna be smack in the middle of the action in Georgetown, where she doesn’t even need all those listening posts on the roof of her Embassy!!
Your Eyewitness notes that it took almost a year for the Senate to ratify her appointment – giving Sara-Ann some extra time to try sorting out the rough edges of our local politics. Ms Theriot’s coming – as the Chinese would say – at an “interesting time” in our history. Once again, after sixty years, Guyana’s on the American radar – even as such cataclysmic events like the Ukraine-Russian war in Europe and the Israel-Palestine War in the Middle East have transfixed everyone!!
But those two hotspots kinda make her job a bit easier at this point, since our posture towards them will signal to her local analysts – and bosses at State – our tendencies arising out of our strategic cultures!! Remember THAT new US mode of analysis for US strategists? It was one of the recommendations in 2011 by Ivelaw Griffith and a PNC team that led to regime change then – three years before the Feral Blast that merely sealed the PPP’s fate!!
In her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ms Theriot promised to “support the Guyanese Government and people to build upon their gains in democratic governance and rule of law. I will help them to continue addressing humanely the influx of Venezuelans and other migrants, all while respecting Guyana’s sovereignty. I will work to identify immediate opportunities to support Guyana’s efforts to strengthen democratic institutions across every sector, including being a central partner on regional security.”
Welcome, Sherriff!!
…wind on Mid-East?
The mass demonstrations in Western capitals and cities supporting the Palestinians have taken many by surprise. Your Eyewitness doesn’t see why!! After all, the Muslim populations in these capitals have been growing inexorably since WWII – and have actually accelerated during the last decade. This has been due to a deliberate policy of having larger families and immigration through sponsorship from the “old country”.
While the increased visibility and expressions of cultural pride through dress and other practices have caused some Western governments to crack down on them, they’ve used their laws to expose the implicit double standards.
And youthful idealists are coming out to support them!
