Playin’ …politics at Mocha

Nowadays, when most people aross the world hear the word “mocha”, they think about that delectable coffee (espresso) and chocolate concoction served in the fashionable coffee-houses and restaurants – here, springing up everywhere in our Georgetown-on-Venice!! But in PNC circles it brings up a Maginot Line they’re fortifying on the East Bank of Demerara after it was breached a few months ago by President Ali!! In Guyana, like in Jamaica, politics is taken VERY seriously and the vocabulary of war extends into our geography.
In Jamaica the two major parties have “garrisons” – yes garrisons!! – in various locales, which they control EXCLUSIVELY – and woe be unto a party member straying into “enemy territory”. It’s worse than the Bloods and Cripps of the Los Angeles gang scene!! While WE haven’t become as advanced as the Jamaicans – they’re so Avant Gard, aren’t they??! –  we’ve been territorial political-wise ever since the segregation of the 1960’s!! Enmore was recognized as PPP and Linden as PNC, no??
In that vein, it was always assumed that Mocha on the EBD was PNC. So when Pres Ali waltzed in one fine day bearing gifts – and the residents booed the PNC’s NDC Chair – it was like the world was turned upside down!! Heck, didn’t the Mochaians (??) understand the protocols?? As the President continued his forays into other “PNC villages”, the PNC and its allies saw this as a declaration of war!! How dare the conventions of half a century be violated just like that?!!
And so they decided a line would be drawn at Mocha!  The government had announced a year ago that some SQUATTERS near the village would have to move to facilitate a new Eccles to Great Diamond Four-lane Highway. Now to the PPP this was “development”: better road connections move people and goods faster and money and jobs are created!! So they gave notice to the 35 squatters who’d built houses and businesses etc over two decades.
As is normal across the world in such circumstances – even when the folks in the path of highways aren’t squatters – compensation and alternative housing areas were identified. Twenty-nine were processed and compensated and right now TWENTY-EIGHT of then have already moved into their new homes in nearby Farm and Herstelling!! But seven of them refused to move and were encouraged to do so by Opposition Leader Norton!!
And we now see the beginning of the Garrisionising of Guyana’s political enclaves!! When the Govt workers arrived to demolish the last structures, one PNC MP and seven holdouts threw their bodies into the fray – and onto the ground –  to block their equipment!!
So where do we go from here?? Downwards, that’s where!! Sooner rather than later guns gonna be pulled!!

…the Caribbean Man
Well, on the way back from Lula’s inauguration St Vincent’s PM Ralph Gonsalves dropped by. And in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Region, Pres Ali conferred on him Guyana’s second highest national award, the Order of Roraima!! We don’t have to go down memory land to know of Ralph’s credentials – Ali said it all when he called him a “Caribbean Man”!!
Now this was quite interesting since when Ralph was a bright eyed and bushy tailed young radical, Black Stalin – who just passed – had belted out his calypso “Caribbean Man” earning him his first Calypso Monarch Crown!! But your Eyewitness is sure Ralph would’ve raised the same objections now, as was done then. Having his ancestors come from Madeira – and so many from India and China etc –  everyone in the Caribbean didn’t come “in the same boat”!!
But today Ralph’s the real Caribbean Man because he knows that we all in the same boat NOW!! And we can’t afford to be a rigging state!!

…both ends
Well after Biden’s sanctions’ waiver, and Chevron getting its license to return to Venezuela, they’ve now shipped the first 800,000 boe!! With the Venezuelan very heavy crude joining our very light Brent Crude, the US is sitting pretty!!