The SN editorial titled, “Renegotiate” (SN January 13-2025) incorporates so much, conveys even more. It is a piercing, revealing writing that should stir from the numb to the comatose to even the dead to some semblance of life with this national inheritance that belongs to every citizen. What is it that Guyana has in the limited info flows that have trickled into the public domain? How much more is there that is unknown, mathematically likely to venture into the realm of the astronomical? And, most importantly, what is Guyana going to do about it, i.e., wisely seek to get its fair share for the jewels that are in her hands, yet not quite subservient to her wishes? Or collapse in a pitiful heap.
President Ali’s hands have displayed multiple tremors whenever the calls for renegotiation have surfaced. They grow more insistent, his tremors more pronounced. To stand against the interests of the people by sheltering under the nationally sacrilegious plank of “sanctity of contract” is more than a leadership abomination. It is of leadership feebleness, hasty retreat, made more obvious by loud sounds and bristling postures. Is the PPP government’s leadership compromised? This is what rolls off the tongue of countless Guyanese, including those of its own faithful. I believe that the PPP government’s leadership has compromised itself. To use SN’s phrase, no unfettered national political leadership group would engage in what “equates to a sellout.” Sellout conjures images of weak men negotiating their own deals behind the scenes to cement their stay. Sellout is the betrayal of the trusting and the hopeful. The electorate didn’t put men into the most powerful local offices for them to surrender to “sanctity of contract.” It is the hole into which some escape and seal the lid to prevent more attention, more pressure, more exposure. I think of weasels, rabbits.
Gut check. The numbers have changed, and in the execution of the contract, a rapacious, capitalistically ruthless Exxon twisted the harpoon. Guyanese have shed blood since, that first PNC frailty, a sellout of considerable magnitude. The Coalition’s sellout may (may) be said to have been based on the wisdom of fools, maybe much more. What is responsible for the PPP government’s sellout? The barrels multiply, and when the secrets outstrip this puzzling Guyana oil story, then citizens should know that they are being taken for a ride again. Not only by the foreign man this time, but their own local heroes. Not by the plundering white man, but by their own Guyanese Brown and Black man, and a few other strains thrown in to sweeten the blend.
Not to renegotiate has a terrible smell about it. It hangs like a halo, an albatross, around the necks of every politician in Guyana starting with President Ali. He can bluster, he can try to bully, but all he does is make himself look boorish. Pathetically bad. Slavishly weak. The epitome of impotence and a leader whose best recommendations are gloss and dross. The opposition has navigated itself around renegotiation, contented itself that in its plans and visions, there is a blueprint that for all intents and purposes is about renegotiation without the word renegotiation summoned to service. This is the time when there must not be navigating on tiptoe around renegotiation of the Exxon contract. This is the time when there must be fearless walking straight into what Guyanese need more than anything with their oil: a fair deal that comes from straight up, no holds barred renegotiation.
While President Ali pussyfoots, Vice President Jagdeo does his best imitation of Nijinsky (ballet master not racehorse), and the opposition vacillates and obfuscates, Exxon ups the ante offshore and prospers from this country’s oil beyond its financials. The president and the PPP government are not even extending an invitation to Exxon’s Woods and Routledge to face Guyanese and tell them to their faces that ‘Exxon will not renegotiate.’ No Guyanese should be satisfied with, welcoming of, President Ali standing in as a proxy spokesman for Exxon under the profanity of “sanctity of contract.” A man violates my own right to sanctity, annihilates the sanctity of my national roots, mocks the sanctity of my Guyanese fraternity, and I still have the audacity-indeed, the seeming lunacy-to tout his sanctity above mine? What kind of man, what apparition of a leader, is so feckless, so frivolous, so frail as to be the embodiment of what is not just self-degrading, but self-destructive?
My interpretation of the contract execution circumstances is that Exxon did not deal fairly with Guyana then, hasn’t partnered with Guyana cleanly ever since. Are Guyanese the only honorable people in this partnership? I have watched as my own brothers dishonor themselves to grovel before the white man. My soul is afire, my spirit flares. Why, my fellow Guyanese? On what basis, that specious sanctity of contract grounds that is a dog that had no owner, until President Ali and the PPP government decided to adopt it, pretend to cherish it? Presidents and governments should never sellout their people’s dignity, should never bargain with their people’s destiny. Regardless of the tempting prizes attached.
To renegotiate must be the premier elections issue. Guyanese must then decide what and who come first. Their inheritance or their loyalty. Their prosperity, or their poverty.