With all the interstate friction being generated in the world today – especially with Mad Maduro flailing around desperately and exploiting his border controversy – what’s a small state like Guyana to do?? Well, there’s always Teddy Roosvelt’s advice: “Talk softly and carry a big stick”!! Having just 800,000 souls – our stick ain’t been big at all. And this is probably the main reason why Mad Maduro’s spewing fire and brimstone at us. Why isn’t he doing the same with his southern neighbour Brazil?? He ain’t THAT mad!!
Well, after realising that Mad Maduro sees his survival as dependent totally on diverting attention from the hell he created in Venezuela by raising the “We wuz robbed of Essequibo by big, bad Britain and their proxy Guyana” bogeyman – our Government recently announced measures to increase the potency of our (albeit still) small stick. But with advances in warfare technology – like with drones and cyber security – size nowadays ain’t all it was trumpeted to be. We can prepare our forces to inflict enough damage on Mad Maduro’s forces to make him think twice before actually attacking us.
But with a madman, you can never know for sure whether he’ll calculate his odds rationally. So, we can’t ignore the “talk softly” part of Roosevelt’s advice – which is where diplomacy comes in. We gotta cultivate friends who’ll come to our aid – knowing that sooner or later Mad Maduro will play schupid and cross our Essequibo Rubicon!! Now, your Eyewitness has always pointed out, when it comes to the state system, countries have no permanent friends or permanent enemies: only permanent interests. And it’s these that we gotta identify in countries that can help us.
Right off the bat, there’s the US, which has massive interests in Venezuela – 300 billion barrels of them, to be exact!! And Mad Maduro keeps pi$$ing off the Yanks “like ‘e dead come pan ‘e” – so we simply gotta keep making nice with the US and let them take the wanker out!! But lots of folks think our friends in Caricom must be cultivated. Sure!! After all, they have 14 votes. But with them being pi$$ poor, we gotta watch out for them being bought out – like by Mad Maduro and his Petrocaribe fund.
The strongest alliance, in your Eyewitness’s estimate, is the one that just got a shot in the arm with Brazil’s Lula visiting at the fag end of the Caricom HoG Conference. We crafted an agreement with him and Suriname’s Santokhi to cooperate in Energy development – O&G plus solar and hydro – Infrastructure, crime which includes drugs – and SECURITY for our Guyana Shield.
We can always count on Brazil, since they’ve always resented Venezuela’s pretentions to Latin American leadership!!
…our democracy
Hamilton Green apologised for his exhortation that “IF” the PNC’s accused of rigging, they ought to keep on merrily rigging to remain in power. But he didn’t say anything about his rationale justifying the PNC’s rigging ways – that they should be “pan tap”, because their supporters slaved for this country. Now, since THAT rationale remains embedded in the PNC’s collective psyche, why would they TOLERATE any other party governing?
So, we arrive at the (very generous) offer of some in the Opposition to SHARE power with other parties!!!
Democracy MUST now be defined to ensure they’re always “at the table” sharing the corn!! But knowing that all the waiters and cooks who serve the table are from their support base – who accept they should be “pan tap” – will give them priority, the PPP has more than a sneaking suspicion they’ll be reduced to a “water boy” role. Just like the UF was between 1964-1968 and AFC between 2015-2020!!
We gotta just insist our present democratic arrangements are more transparent!!
…us from genocide
The Gaza killing fields keep producing more dead Palestinian bodies – now past 30,000 mostly women and children. Two days ago, 112 more were killed as they attempted to collect relief. How many more Jah, before Israel will be reined in??
