…and anti-nationalism
Dear readers, you’d know your Eyewitness holds no brief for this PNC government. In fact, after giving them the benefit of the doubt when they replaced the PPP government, your Eyewitness was forced by their actions to admit this lot was up to no good. He signalled his gradual disillusionment by first referring to them as the APNU/AFC coalition; then the PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition; and now as the PNC government. And we know what the PNC are!!
But what your Eyewitness won’t ever do is confuse the COUNTRY with the GOVERNMENT – nasty as the latter may be. And this is exactly what the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News have done when they published that anti-national half-page ad: “INVESTORS BEWARE, GOINVEST ELSEWHERE”. Now why would they do this? It’s clear they were addressing the 400 or so foreign companies who’re in the country to attend the Guyana International Petroleum Business Summit (GIPEX) – since the ad started to run on the first day of the summit.
Why would they even CONSIDER such an ad? OK…OK…so they have severe problems with the contract Raphael “Nassau” Trotman “re-negotiated” with ExxonMobil, for the oil bonanza they struck under our sea bed. So do all of us! In fact, if we go to the record, your Eyewitness was the first off the block to criticize Trotman’s paltry royalty figure and the income tax waiver. But how in God’s name does the struggle for us to get a better deal for our oil helped by telling investors not to invest here??
Here it is, the Government just fired 5700 sugar workers and made another 2000 jobless in the private farming sector on top of the overall high unemployment rate – especially with youths, where the last survey showed that to be some 40%!!! These are people who’re forced by poverty to make all kinds of compromises to survive. All they’re looking for are opportunities to find jobs, take care of their families, and live with a modicum of dignity. At a minimum, some of those investors at the Summit can provide some jobs.
Maybe not to the sugar workers directly…but with any new jobs created, there are what the economists call “externalities” – spillover effects to the rest of the economy! The ads are most anti-national, and serve to help those who would want us to remain on our knees. Who could they be?? Well, for one, the VENEZUELANS!! Remember when in the 1970s Burnham tried to bring hydro-power to Guyana and the Venezuelans killed the project by blocking the World Bank loan?
Well, they’ve been stymied again with the ICJ now involved, and they’d do anything to seize our patrimony.
Including placing those ads!!
…and sophistry
Chris Ram referred to the anti-national ad accepted and published by the KN and SN and said they’d “crossed a line”. The editor of KN added a note to Ram’s letter claiming the charge raised the question: “Where does someone’s freedom of expression end?” Now this is really being disingenuous, isn’t it? One of the most famous retorts to that question was given by Chief Justice Wendell Holmes of the US. The case asked whether someone had the “freedom of expression” to publish opposition to the draft then in place for WWI.
Justice Holmes gave the answer that established the rule to this day: “You can’t shout “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre.” In the actual case concerning the draft for the army, the expression was “anti-national” and would’ve harmed the interests of the country. Which is exactly the case in publishing an ad scaring away investment from Guyana – when we’re mired in the morass of joblessness and hopelessness.
We echo Chris Ram: a line has been crossed!!
…and jobs
The newspapers, however, didn’t mind taking ads soliciting applicants to work aboard the FPSO that’ll be processing the oil and gas. They don’t mind Guyanese getting the junior cook and bottle washer jobs!!
But they’ll scare away the big-paying jobs!! Go figure!!
