One day after our erstwhile brothers in Caricom – with the exception of Jamaica and Suriname – betrayed the Caribbean solidarity they’d been giving lip-service to, the US stepped up to the plate and recognized the Opposition leader as winner of the Venezuelan elections!! Announced U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the US and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,”
Mad Maduro, who’d been quickly recognized by his communist besties Ralph Gonsalves, Putin and Xi, snapped back pugnaciously: “The United States needs to keep its nose out of Venezuela!” Never mind that he’s been begging the same US to permit its oil companies to bail out the nationalized Venezuelan oil company PDVSA – which spiraled into a financial Black Hole under his ministrations!! We’ll now have to see how a clearly distracted US administration will proceed.
Biden had placed his VP Kamala Harris in charge of dealing with the refugee crisis out of Latin America and flooding their northern cities. She had the bright idea of relaunching the failed ideas of JFK’s 1960’s Alliance for Progress – and focusing on trying to persuade business relocation in the affected states; create jobs and keep the poor down on the farm!! But it failed then and it failed now!! You can’t just tell businesses to set up shop when the conditions are totally unstable!
In Venezuela, she’d relaxed sanctions imposed by Trump; and launched a prisoner-exchange program that saw Mad Maduro’s henchman AG return to prosecute and persecute political opponents!! Those moves were supposed to end up in free and fair elections – where she expected Mad Maduro to toe the line on an agreement on democracy signed in Barbados – and accept the verdict of the people!! Well, now that Kamala is now the presumptive Presidential candidate, we don’t know whether she’s involved in the latest decision – but your Eyewitness hopes she’s wised up!!
So what next?? With Mad Maduro controlling all branches of the govt, the army, police, armed militia and Justice system, the protests by the opposition supporters gonna be suppressed far bloodier than the 15 who’ve been killed up to now. The US will have to persuade neighbouring leftist presidents Lula of Brazil and Petro of Columbia to follow through with their demand for Mad Maduro to produce the tally sheets (equivalent to our SOPs) from the 30,000 voting machines to show who got what votes.
At the OAS vote on the subject, they didn’t go along with the further proposal to investigate the tally sheets. As for our government…they gotta make it clear to Caricom that there will be consequences to their betrayal!!
…is gone??
Emancipation was one of the critical stages in our centuries-long struggle for justice in our dear land of Guyana. Of all the stages it was the most brutal in every respect – physical, social, mental, cultural, economic and by whatever other metric we can evaluate our lives through. But one of the problems is that some folks think with emancipation, everything’s now copasetic!! Sadly that’s faaaar from reality. In fact, things might be even worse by in some areas since the oppression to which we’re now subjected is more subtle. We’ve all heard about “mental slavery” and over the last few days, we have heard Brother Bob’s “Free yourselves from mental slavery” from every street corner.
But have we actually inculcated its significance?? Why is it we only wear “our” clothes for a few days as we commemorate various cultural occasions?? Don’t most of us think that tying a piece of cloth around our necks makes us superior to others who might tie a piece of cloth over their heads??
…slackens
Now, let’s be honest. Weren’t Emancipation celebrations more widespread this year after the government spread its subventions wider?? Your Eyewitness, however, thinks culture comes out of the lived experience of the people and we shouldn’t depend on government’s support.
