BY now most Guyanese in and out of the land, knows that the current Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana, Mr. Sebastian Segouin wants Guyanese to ask the Guyana Government to accept the findings of the EU Election Observer Team to the 2025 national poll held last September.

My article yesterday (Thursday) was about this topic. After its publication, it occurred to me that I forgot to ask an extremely pertinent question of the High Commissioner. The UN Independent International Commission on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

The inquiry found that the Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts as contained in the 1948 Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. My research indicates that the Canadian Government has not adopted the report. Now is it not logical to of Mr. Segouin why his government has not formally endorsed the UN findings on genocide in Gaza?

Given the political and moral perspectives that compelled Mr. Segouin to appeal to the Guyanese people should he not see he has the moral obligation to ask the Canadian people to beseech their government to accept the UN report? There is more moral compulsion for Mr. Segouin to do so because he is part of the Canadian population and Canadian nationality.

He is a stranger to most Guyanese and is not part of the Guyanese world. So, if he can advocate that Guyanese pressure their government to accept the findings of the EU Observer Election Team why can’t he do the same for his own country with regard to the UN report?

Here is another question for the High Commissioner. I would not know how Canadian ambassadors interact with the nations they are assigned to. I presume Mr. Segouin would since he probably reads the annual report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa which would carry the submissions of each ambassador.

Is Mr. Segouin aware of how the Canadian Ambassador reacts to the apartheid system that the Palestinians live under in Gaza and the West Bank and the perpetuation of genocide since 2023? Has the ambassador in Israel ever saw it fit to appeal to the Israeli people advising them that they should take action on the genocidal acts their government is perpetuating in Gaza?

Let’s quote Mr. Segouin once more (we did so yesterday) because when you examine his address to the Guyanese people then you see how exigent it becomes of the Canadian Ambassador in Israel to directly address the Israeli population. Mr. Segouin wrote: “Democracy belongs to the Guyanese people. So, speak up, call on your elected representatives, on your National Assembly, on your government to take action and make the changes needed so that your electoral process is truly free and fair. It’s your right and your responsibility”.

If Mr. Segouin can go that far in Guyana why can’t his counterpart in Israel do the same? Both men will not comment on Israel and guess why? Israel is seen as special to the Western world while Guyana is way down the pecking order. But why is Israel special to the West? There is at an absolute level, no reason why Israel should be an exceptional country to the Western world.

Israel is one of the world’s most mediocre nations. Its economy rests on the patronage of the US.

Every cigarette smoked, every KFC chicken eaten, every beer drank, every jet fighter that roars in the sky in Israel is dependent on American patronage. You take away American generosity tomorrow and Israel falls into nothingness. Compared to Guyana, Israel is a pauperized country with no resources. Guyana’s agriculture can feed the population of Israel.

Israel is no phenomenal or great country in the international system. It is 8,000 square miles with 8 million people. Any high school boy that studies engineering knows that in modern warfare, 8000 square miles can be flattened within hours.  To compare the firepower of Iran and Israel is to compare Jaspit Bumrah with a one-legged village cricketer.

When Israel attacked Iran this year, and Iran retaliated, the political leadership of Israel felt that the US would have intervened. It did but not in the way Israel felt it would. The US did a sham bombing and claimed it incapacitated Iran’s nuclear programme. No one in the world believes that. The next bombing of Israel by Iran will destroy Israel forever.

To conclude, neither the Canadian Ambassador in Israel nor the Canadian High Commissioner in Guyana will speak about Israel, the way Mr. Seguin spoke about Guyana. This is because of the basic contempt the West has for the Global South.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.