The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
COMMENT | MAJ GEN (Rtd) AUBREY RETEMYER | On October 22, this year, a friend was stopped from boarding a Kenya Airways flight to East Africa. He was told by the agents that unlike before, in order for a Guyanese passport holder to travel to the EAC, there were other minimum requirements apart from a valid visa. One had to have a police clearance and proof of accommodation/ invitation letter.
It was surprising because my friend had traveled to the region without necessarily having to obtain all these requirements. In fact, the visa was obtainable on arrival. A discussion was held with an embassy official in New York who explained that in international relations, there is a principle called reciprocity. In other words, if country’ A” imposes conditions on country” B”, country B” will respond by doing the same to country’ “A”. In other words, if you do not scratch my back, I will not scratch yours.
This made a lot of sense. In 2020, immediately after assuming the reins of power, the PPP/C Government embarked on several policy initiatives aimed at curtailing travel and contact between Guyana and persons of African descent, while creating favorable systems that have facilitated the flooding of the country by persons from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Venezuela. In 2022, I was told of a French couple with connections to the Government who were granted Guyanese citizenship after staying in Guyana for less than a year, far less than the constitutionally prescribed period of five years for persons from Commonwealth countries.
Guyana is the only Commonwealth Caribbean country that requires a visa for travelers from Commonwealth Africa. It even gets worse. Haiti is a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member state. The revised treaty of Chaguaramas removes visa requirements for a CARICOM citizen visiting another member state. Further, no sane person in the region can deny the heavy price paid by Haiti and her contribution towards the liberation of the Caribbean region.
In December 2020, the Guyana government arrested 26 Haitians and confined them in deplorable conditions for entering the country. Paid PPP apologists in the region shamelessly defended the Government’s actions. The government would go even further to impose travel restrictions on the Haitians. The only explainable reason for this inhumane treatment meted to the Haitians and travelers from the African continent is ethnicity and skin color.
The PPP/C party seem to lack patriotism and for them, power is only a means of self-enrichment. While they have made it extremely difficult for Africans from the motherland and the Haitians who are CARICOM members and pose no border threat to Guyana, they have allowed Venezuelans to flock into the country en-mass.
Ironically, Guyana has serious border problems with Venezuela in the Essequibo region. Venezuela is planning a referendum on December 03rd where the Government of Nicolas Maduro is seeking support from the citizenry to annex the oil and gold rich Essequibo region, similar to how Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea. It is estimated that there are over 102,000 Venezuelans in the country, representing 13.6% of the entire population of Guyana. Within the border-disputed area of a particular region, the number of Venezuelans that the government has allowed to come in is in the vicinity of 21,000. The entire population of that region is 24,000. Because the ruling cabal has been blinded by their hatred and racism against black people, also, they think that allowing many Venezuelans and Asians to come to Guyana will reduce the black African population of Guyana. They are however failing at the same time to realize that by allowing a large number of Venezuelan migrants to stay in the disputed border area, the annexation of the Essequibo region by Venezuela becomes even easier.
In September, all Police Vehicles were inscribed with the word ‘Policia’. The authorities said this was done to help Spanish speakers. Most of these Spanish speakers are from Venezuela. I am not against immigrants coming to Guyana. I am against discrimination. I am also against the myopic decisions being taken that could lead to the annexure of two-thirds of our territory. During our time in Government, we put systems in place to help our Venezuelan neighbors to live comfortably as refugees, not as owners of the country.
Although he was the brain behind the creation of CARICOM, the world’s oldest bloc, by 1983, President Forbes Burnham, the founding leader of the People’s National Congress was contemplating removing Guyana from the regional grouping, CARICOM. This was after several CARICOM countries reneged on the regional stance and supported foreign troops that overthrew the young visionary revolutionary, Maurice Bishop of Grenada.
Black people are the only race on this earth who will support and even enable another race to oppress and subjugate their own. This continues to be the trend in the Caribbean.
There are leaders in the region who are willing to ignore the plight of the African people in Guyana because they fear offending the ruling cabal. One regional leader pushed hard for Guyana to host the second Afri-Caribbean Investment Forum in October. The objective of this forum was apparently to facilitate trade between Africa and the Caribbean. But, how can Guyana, a country that has placed several travel restrictions on Africans facilitate trade from Africa?
Of course, this is another ‘puppet show’ being facilitated by a black leader, to prop-up a regime oppressive to black people. This is not news to us.
For example, after blocking Haitians from coming to Guyana, Guyana’s president has been talking at international forums about how his Government is concerned with the plight of the Haitians. CARICOM has failed black people in Guyana and Haiti. Like Haitians, however, Africans in Guyana too need support from the motherland. We need Africa’s support in demanding for equitable distribution of national resources.
We also need Africa’s support in demanding a clean voters’ list. Guyana has a population of 741,000 people. The Official List of Electors (OLE) has 661,378 eligible voters. In other words, 89.2% of Guyanese are eligible voters. The truth is, the list has been padded by foreign nationals. CARICOM knows this but some leaders in the region are working with the regime to destroy our democracy.
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Aubrey Retemyer is a retired Major of the Guyana Defence Forces and is currently Cordinator at the People’s National Congress.
