Dear Editor,
Today I share a development from Guyana’s early oil wars. Because it is happening in proximity to residential D’Aguiar Park, I cannot say that this dispatch is from the trenches. But, this real-life story, and related underlying ones, confirms happenings in young oil Guyana. Now, if it can happen around D’Aguiar Park, then it can happen anywhere with impunity.
The community indicated that a John Fernandes Group subsidiary operates a facility close to the quiet, well-kept D’Aguiar Park neighbourhood. The facility is involved in oil and gas support services. To the consternation and alarm of residents, the negative impacts of this facility are being experienced on a number of fronts, and all are unfavourable and unwelcome. First, the facility is in operation nonstop, with accompanying noise levels intolerable, and best left to the imagination. It is not the usual noise pollution of chutney or dance hall, but an altogether different kind of raucous torture associated with fearsome industrial noise pollution. Second, dust is now a constant menace, and at all hours without letup. Third, and as part of the extended correlation, there have been health fallouts. One besieged family has noted the intensifying of illnesses, mostly respiratory, and the need for constant professional attention and medication. Similarly, and also physical, but more architectural, a homeowner has had to paint the home three times; it would not be the last, given what is going on. Motor vehicles parked in the yards of this gated community are a mess, and reminiscent of lengthy, dusty, and damaging visits to the deep interiors of Guyana. Guyanese should know what vehicles making such a haul look like upon their return to the city.
That is the lay of the land in D’Aguiar Park for some time now. But here is the kicker, and it is a stinker. The EPA visited with some purpose in mind. Despite my publicly articulated misgivings of the state, interests, and capability of the EPA to engage in what is about the welfare of Guyanese, and fulfilling expertly and authoritatively its mandate, I may have given the benefit of constructive objectives for its visit. But not with what happened. When the agents of the EPA turned up at the John Fernandes Group facility to do whatever they had in mind, the residents had a sharp surprise, one immediately leading to dark suspicions. The 24-hour operational facility was as silent as a graveyard at midnight. It was so silent as to foster the deafeningly speculative.
It is unsurprising for this is the kind of EPA that the oil colonizers, their local political collaborators, and commercial partners desire. Guyana has it, and the residents of D’Aguiar Park got it right in the kisser. If this can happen in educated and professional D’Aguiar Park, then God help the poorer neighbourhoods, the smaller people.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
