Violence and the Guyana Elections

I have been observing the Guyana 2020 electoral process and trying to understand the corrupt acts being perpetrated on the people of Guyana by some of those who have power. I am aware that electoral fraud is not unusual and it generally becomes a case of “who blinks first.” But what is currently happening in Guyana has me disturbed.

It has been very obvious that the US, OAS (the US mouthpiece in Latin America and the Caribbean), the EU and Canada have a vested interest in Guyana and the basis is the huge amount, and high quality of oil that has been discovered offshore. Added to that, these countries need allies in their struggle with our western neighbour Venezuela, and they seem to have found a willing accomplice in the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) which would further justify their strident support for the the PPP. Yesterday, we read that the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission has usurped the functions of the Chief Elections Officer, so it appears that everything will be in line with the agenda of the superpowers. A Caricom team came to do a review of the election results, and on the basis of a review of 18% of the data, concluded that the result reflects the will of the people. But even worse, there have been threats of violence from some Caricom leaders on the current Guyanese President in that they will expel Guyana from Caricom if he does not accept a loss and take “his licks like man”; and similarly atrocious, a former Barbadian diplomat referred to the current President as a “sanctimonious gangster”. The label reminds me of the Barbadian saying: “Give a dog a bad name and then hang it.” These Caricom countries are obviously of the opinion that it would be in their best financial interest to not go against the US and company in the latter’s quest for a PPP government. Consequently, corrupt practices are being pushed down our throats and spurious arguments constructed to bring us around to their way of thinking. In spite of massive fraud by the PPP, Guyanese are being told by these foreign powers that all is well; we must sit back, celebrate and, hopefully, not replicate the violence they are inflicting on us.

What is playing out before us brings back memories of the destruction that has been wrought in recent times by the West to countries such as the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Libya – countries with vast natural resources and who had ambitions that would challenge the Western powers. We can find the ideological justification for their destruction if we go back to the Peloponnesian wars between 431 – 405bce, when the Greeks told the Melians: “For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences…since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

The violence that the powers are inflicting on us is being replicated among ourselves in the society since violence is met with violence in such instances. But these powers do not care as long as their desires are fulfilled; and because of the racial divide, many of us cannot see how we are being forced to destroy ourselves and our country.

In Rachel Maddow’s book “Blowout”, she correctly states that the oil industry is the richest and most destructive industry on earth. Guyana has only now begun to pump oil and we are getting our fair share of the industry’s inherent fundamental violence, which is that human condition better known as “greed.”

My concern is how much of the violence currently being inflicted on us will Guyanese be able to bear, or how we will respond to it? It is a truism that violence breeds violence. I read tonight that a man was found with guns from a private security firm after making threats of violence on social media. Rather unfortunately, common sense tells me there are more violent acts to come for us. The Western powers have been warning their citizens in Guyana to be careful; but the war they have launched against the people of Guyana obviously does not disturb them as long as they get what they want.

The current events remind me of the prophetic words of Prime Minister Rowley of Trinidad and Tobago at the beginning of the electoral fracas in March 2020: “It is not going to end well.” With that assessment, he summarily disappeared from the battlefield. There is a Guyanese saying: “Every balla (a ball made of twine) has an end.” The problem for Guyanese is that we are confronting ‘a big big balla.’

Professor Kean Gibson

The views expressed are entirely the opinion of the writer