I ALWAYS tell people that I am a dinosaur in Guyana’s politics. The grey in my hair proves that. I was a PPP polling agent at 17 years, then at that age went to work at the PPP’s bookstore, Michael Forde Bookstore (please name a public spot in Guyana after Forde). Since that time, I have been there, done that.
I know all (yes, all) the political players since my youthful days. If I write a book about my experience, it has to be a three-volume set. I have seen how good men and women follow political leaders in the struggle for freedom and justice, and they ended up badly broken, both physically and mentally.
The organisations’ leaders are never touched but it is the third-tier cadres and the unknown members that are singled out for brutality and imprisonment while the leaders remain untouched. I have seen that since I was 17. There was once a very big, radical figure in the WPA in the 1970s.
When we finished picketing and demonstrating, as dusk cover the afternoon, he is off to socialise with the nation’s bourgeoisie and middle class and they accepted him. But those very societal elites would scorn the third-tier activists who got locked up during the street protests. One positive exception was Eusi Kwayana. He did not forsake the victimised, unknown supporter.
Guyanese who have an interest in politics must always remember the disclosure of former AFC parliamentarian, Trevor Williams about what Cathy Hughes did to him. Mrs Hughes and Mr. Wiliams were executives in the AFC for more than 10 years and sat next to each other for five years in Parliament.
Mr. Williams, then in charge of the D’urban Park project, asked then Minister Cathy Hughes for the cell number of then Minister Volda Lawrence. According to Mr. Williams, Mrs. Hughes told him she cannot give him the cell number of a minister.
That incident most definitely caused people to reject the AFC in the general election last year. Who would have voted for Mrs Hughes after what Mr. Williams said about her? What more graphic evidence the small and unknown activists need to know of how the big ones in political organisations treat them.
Now, for the purpose of this column. I saw six persons picketing the US Embassy over the American military action in Venezuela in which President Maduro was forcefully abducted. Where were these persons when Maduro was on the verge of invading Guyana? Where were these persons when Maduro caused five top GDF military personnel to lose their lives?
How anti-imperialist are these six persons? Many of them in that picket swallowed hook, line and sinker, the pro-imperialist narrative that fossil fuel is harmful to the climate and post-colonial countries must avoid the oil industry. This is a barefaced manifestation of imperialist persistence. They built their post-modern societies on the fossil fuel industry but want poor countries to eschew oil production.
This imperialist persistence does speak to the war in Ukraine in which hundreds of billions are going to the arms industry to keep the war going and that war is harmful to the climate.
The US action in Venezuela was not legally and morally right, but Guyanese should be careful with whom they picket. Three of those persons in the picket line do not need a visa to enter the US.
It is the unknown people with them who will have their faces put on a computer screen and their visas will be denied. This is an old story in Guyana long before independence and one hopes those ordinary picketers realise who they are picketing with.
Picketers Vanda Radzik-Viera and her sister Danuta have been involved in litigations against ExxonMobil in Guyana in which high-priced lawyers were paid. Those millions should have gone to the poor in Guyana.
The two sisters will not be transparent and accountable and tell us how much they spent in legal fees to fight ExxonMobil. For a list of the cases these two sisters have brought against ExxonMobil in Guyana, see pages 82 to 90 of the book: “Oil and Climate Change in Guyana’s Wet Neighbourhood” by Ivelaw Griffith.
Then there is the situation of anti-imperialist hypocrisy. The pro-imperialist newspaper, the Stabroek News, did carry their picketing exercise outside the embassy. But they are not going to picket Stabroek News.
These same picketers outside the US Embassy telling us about imperialism in Venezuela will not tell us that the Stabroek News is the vehicle for imperialist ideological saturation through its Project Syndicate columns and those of Bertrand Ramcharran. Be careful who you picket with lest you head down the road of self-destruction.
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.
