Dear Editor,
Please let me respond to Tony Vieira’s letter (July 10) on proposed joint projects with Brazil. I think we have ‒ justifiably‒developed a sometimes excessive suspicion of our government’s decisions on public funds. No doubt our Cabinet is aware that several of Brazil’s neighbours have lost territory to that superpower in the course of very ordinary activities over the last century. The Federal Government has never renounced the policy of living frontiers, but Guyana should have little to fear if we keep our eyes wide open.
I live in a part of Guyana where it is almost essential to speak and read Portuguese for day-to-day business; where the social life is infused with Brazilian commerce, news and culture; where hundreds of my neighbours have dual citizenship, to maintain which they have to take part in Brazilian elections; and where it’s sometimes hard to distinguish the GuyBraz from the BrazGuy.
I don’t say that this reality is a bad thing for us or for the rest of Guyana. It is for every government to safeguard the national security, geopolitical and territorial, against economic seductions from all suitors. And this government did not take power by force of arms; our executive is in place through elections certified free and fair, under a constitution guaranteeing democratic representation to all Guy-
anese.
We elected a Parliament to protect all our national interests. At the same time as we scrutinize and second-guess decisions taken or deferred in our name, maybe we should remind both government and opposition who they are working for, and which is the highest constitutional authority in our land. Under a functioning Parliament, our government should be able to keep our common interests safe from any new business partners, South or East.
Yours faithfully,
Gordon Forte
