THREE years ago, the following Guyanese individuals and organisations wrote President Ali demanding Guyana immediately stop oil production because of its destructive climate effect. This letter was sent at the end of 2022 exactly three years ago.
Here are two lines from that letter which is boldly highlighted: “We cannot support government’s policy to produce oil and gas when every ton of greenhouse gas pollution causes loss of life in African countries….” Below are the signatures.
Vanda Radzik
Alissa Trotz
Vidyaratha Kissoon
Karen de Souza
Pauline Melville
Christine Samwaroo
Danuta Radzik
Maya Trotz
Susan Collymore
Joy Marcus
Halima Khan
Vanessa Ross
Wintress White
Gary Girdhari
Nicole Cole
Abbyssinian Carto
Nigel Westmaas
Joan McDonald
Duane de Freitas
Akola Thompson
Joan Cambridge
Immaculata Casimero
Terry Roopnaraine
Colin Klautky
Earl John
Janette Bulkan
Sandy de Freitas
Sherlina Nageer
Jocelyn Dow
Elizabeth Deane-Hughes
Mosa Telford
Suraiya Ismail
Leila Jagdeo
Gerald Perreira
Romario Hastings
Paulette Allicock
Daniel Allicock
Isabelle de Caires
Luke Daniels
Red Thread
Amerindian Peoples Association
South Rupununi District Council
The Breadfruit Collective
Makushi Research Unit
Of those signatures, here is the status of some of them:
1 – Dr. Janet Bulkan serves the University of British Columbia.
2- Dr. Alissa Trotz serves the University of Toronto
3- Dr. Nigel Westmass serves Hamilton College in New York
4- Dr. Maya Trots serves the University of South Florida
5 – Isabelle DeCaires lives in her homeland of the UK where her son plays cricket in the country championship for Middlesex.
6 – Abyssinian Carto is of Rastafari orientation and lives in New York.
7- Dr. Cary Gildarie lives in New York.
8 – Terry Roopnaraine lives in his homeland of the UK.
9 – Pauline Melville moved to the UK since the early 1950s.
10 – Christina Samaroo moved to New York in 2008
11 – Luke Daniels lives in the UK
Two of those signatures are Danuta Radzik Veira of the famous Veira landed bourgeoisie and Sherlina Nageer. Someone recently asked these two persons to explain why only the African race was named in relation to the harmful effects of greenhouse emissions.
These two ladies told the questioner that they can’t recall it. I don’t know what they meant by “it” and the questioner did not explain what “it” meant. So “it” could be either the letter itself or the part where only the African race was mentioned. So, if “it” means the letter it is impossible to believe Nageer and Radzik-Veira.
You cannot recall an important letter you and 43 other signatures penned to the President of your country on the valued industry of oil production. And this was just three years ago. I refuse to believe that. But I cannot accuse them of lying because I don’t know what they meant by “it”
Alternatively, “it” could mean the reference to African people only. Now I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt if they could not remember referring to African people only. But the logical reaction should have been that they would look at the letter to see that part that referenced African people only.
But I doubt that they did that because I believe they knew full well what they wrote to the President. The decent, moral thing to do was to acknowledge it was a mistake to state that greenhouse effects kill African people rather than just simply stating the truth – the effects harm mankind in general.
Now what kind of anti-government critics we have in this country. A simple apology would have done it.
Simply state that the word “African countries” crept into the passage by mistake and it was not intended to name a specific race only. To date, none of the 45 signatures have apologised and simply refuse to apologise.
These are the very people that use their voice and pen in a daily condemnation of the government since the Ali presidency came into being in August 2020. What is worse is that none of their non-political colleagues have published even a paragraph expressing discomfort to their reference to race in their climate change advocacy.
Think of the emotional rant we will see from these same folks if a minister of the government announced that a certain insecticide will be banned from Guyana because it was found out that it was harmful and likely to kill Indian people in Guyana, Bangladesh, India and other countries. The insane outpouring from anti-government critics would have been instant.
You could predict the rhetoric – the PPP/C government is racist because it chose to name countries where Indian people live. The world knows greenhouse emissions harm humans wherever they live. Why not state humans in general? Why mention only African people? The Freudian slip came out.

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.