Dear Editor,
After reading the article, ‘Britain’s Brexit Military Base Plan in Chaos’ (Stabroek News, 4/3/2019), I decided to visit the online edition of the British newspaper, The Morning Star (25/1/19) to read the first-hand account. Journalist, Phil Miller, reported that “officials from Guyana have refused to comment on a report that Gavin Williamson has plans for Britain to establish a military base in the South American country”. For those Guyanese who do not know Williamson; he is the British Defence Secretary.
Let me say in very plain and straight language, that as a true patriot, nationalist and revolutionary Pan-Africanist, once the breath of life that Almighty God gave to me is with me, that base will have to be built over my dead body and the body of many more true patriots. Not here! It will not happen.
Our peoples did not resist enslavement, indentureship, colonialism – all manifestations of white supremacy, so that the neo-colonial satraps who administer this country can trample on our dignity, sovereignty and independence. We will not allow it.
I am putting the APNU+AFC government and any other government that enters office on notice, they will be in for a rough ride if they attempt such a move. The people will organize and mobilize against this military base in a way that has not been seen for a long time in Guyana. We will resist the establishment of a British or American military base in Guyana in the name of Kofi (Cuffy), Accabre, Atta, Accabre, the Enmore Martyrs, Forbes Burnham, Cheddi Jagan, Walter Rodney and every son and daughter of Guyana who resisted colonialism.
Our brothers and sisters in Ghana, under the leadership of Samia Nkrumah, the daughter of Kwame Nkrumah, first president of Ghana, marched in their hundreds of thousands in opposition to plans for an American military base in their country. As a result of the people’s resistance the plan was thwarted just as it will be here in Guyana.
Instead of trying to establish a military base in Guyana, let the British government acknowledge the trade in captured Africans as a crime against humanity, and then address our demands for reparations.
Yours faithfully,
Gerald A. Perreira
Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP)
