AS Guyana prepares to welcome a 25-member team of US congressmen and senior military personnel to its shores for a familiarisation tour, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo believes that this can mean well for the country.

He also discredited the notion of some, who labelled the visitation as “a blood-sucking empire descending on Guyana”, by providing an overview of some of the positives and negatives of Guyana-US relations.

Writing in his weekly column ‘My Turn’, the prime minister said the visit coincides with the prospects of first-oil by American giant, ExxonMobil.

“The huge vested interests have not only attracted high-profile, albeit controversial, coverage from the New York Times, but has also raised an enhanced security profile of Guyana, and presented a new geopolitical and strategic reality in the western hemisphere.
“The Government of the United States of America was quick to connect with this reality on the occasion of the 52nd Independence Anniversary of Guyana. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo reinforced ‘strong connections’ with Guyana, and committed the United States to the advancement of our prosperity, by helping Guyana to develop her emerging oil sector ‘in partnership with U.S. business’, ”Nagamootoo stated.

When the visitation was announced last Thursday by Minister of State Joseph Harmon, he too, said that the visit is testimony of the growing confidence in Guyana on the international scene and the strengthening of US-Guyana relations.

Nagamootoo adds that it will be the single largest congressional delegation ever to Guyana.
However, he noted that some of the mistrust afloat can be attributed to several instances in the past whereby Guyana was disadvantaged by the North American nation.

“There have been previous episodic decades that could give justification for this negative nationalism, going back to the late 1950s when the then British colony became a pawn in the Cold War. She was subsequently converted into a laboratory for every conceivable ideological stratagem of American imperialism, which has since been well documented.
“The role of an American company in voter registration for the 1968 elections had spawned a legacy of electoral malpractices, once described by Lord Avesbury, head of a UK Observers’ Mission, as ‘Something to Remember’,” the prime minister said.

He also highlighted the 1978 ‘Jonestown’ mass murder-suicide on Guyana’s soil of 1,000 American citizens by fanatical American Reverend Jim Jones.

WIND OF CHANGE
However, these “episodic decades” gave way to the “wind of change”, Nagamootoo continued, with the involvement of the US nation in facilitating positive change and investment in a number of areas.

“Five American senators petitioned their Government to embrace electoral democracy. Ambassador Fleming Jones and former President Jimmy Carter played key roles in promoting bipartisan cooperation ahead of electoral reforms. Not widely known, is the role of then President George Bush Snr. in supporting ‘free, fair and credible elections’, which assurance was conveyed to me at the State Department by then Assistant Secretary of State, Sally Cowal,” he recounted.

The prime minister also listed Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc’s agreement with Guyana in 1999, for the installation of a US$50 million rocket launch site in the Waini River area and the granting of an oil exploratory concession to ExxonMobil, now proven to be worthwhile.
He also highlighted the support of America in the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy, stating: “With the expected oil bonanza, came renewed but overt diplomatic support for Guyana’s territorial sovereignty against a spurious claim by Venezuela.
“The U.S. Government declared recognition for the entire ‘Land of Many Waters’ from ‘the Corentyne to the Pakaraimas, from the Takutu to the Amakura…’”

OTHER POSITIVES
Apart from these, are some 500,000 Guyanese who live and work in the US, accounting for US$264.6M in remittances in 2016 and the launch in Guyana of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) with start-up members including ExxonMobil and Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Co Limited (GT&T).

The prime minister ranks the latter as one of the biggest successes of US Ambassador Perry Halloway in bridging American-Guyanese business cooperation.
Nagamootoo also pointed out that on the US State Department’s Guyana Page, a Fact Sheet outlines the shifts in political-ideological and trade relations between the two countries.

“Beginning in the late 1980s, Guyana sought to improve relations with the United States as part of a decision to shift toward political nonalignment, moving from state socialism and one-party control to a market economy and greater freedom of the press and assembly. This shift, recent free and fair democratic elections, closer security cooperation, and expanding trade and investment have helped place US-Guyanese relations on excellent footing,” the State Department said.

In concluding his rationale for welcoming the high-level congressmen and senior military personnel to Guyana, Nagamootoo stated: “The Americans, this time around, have every justification to be back, as friends, as partners. Yes! The Americans are coming!”