Governing a nation which has become an oil economy with lightning speed is a complex business. It becomes a particular challenge when its governance structures are weak, there is a serious deficiency of human resources and it lacks the autonomous institutions necessary for managing the new development. Plodding along as a primary producer of agricultural commodities is one thing, but then in the course of a mere seven years to be plunged into the alien world of oil is quite another.
And the Americans have been speaking on this subject. Again. This time US Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch gave her views in a recent interview with Plaza Central host Benjamin Gedan of the Wilson Center in Washington DC. The topic was ‘Guyana’s Oil Rush’ which while offering the possibility of providing a historic transformation for the people, she said, would require strong systems to make that possible and so avoid the resource curse. Two of the key challenges, as she saw it, were “inclusion and the potential for corruption”. It might be noted that this was not the first time that the topics of inclusion and corruption had come up.
On this occasion Ambassador Lynch was quoted as saying, “It is an ethnically divided society, and so they will need to focus on inclusion. And they’ve been [making] many efforts to do so [thus] far, but they will need to continue to do that and at an increased pace.” While she acknowledged that the government had provided “lots of growth grants” to marginalised groups affected by Covid, flooding and the downswing in the economy worldwide, these did not mean “long term sustainability”.
What she was urging was a focus on efforts to create sustainable growth for the entire country, “no matter ethnicity, no matter race, no matter gender, and no matter geography.” Where the last-mentioned was concerned, the Ambassador made clear that this was intended to convey that Indigenous communities in the hinterland should also benefit, and that inclusion encompassed them too. In other words in ethnic terms it was not just an Indian-African issue.
Insofar as the Indigenous nations represent a voting bloc for the government it does not lack interest in them, but leaving aside the various political machinations in which the administration is engaged in the interior, it is deaf when it comes to Indigenous pleas in relation to mining. Where the two interests are in conflict, it is the miners, not the Indigenous people who are backed by the central government, either tacitly or actively.
Nowhere has the lack of inclusion in relation to the Indigenous population been more in evidence than in the case of Chinese Landing, in Region One, which holds land title for its village lands. Yet there was the Toshao yet again appealing to the government recently and complaining that nothing had changed in the community for years where a miner with a permit but without Village Council approval had around 500 miners on their lands. Villagers derived no benefit from this, and were threatened and intimidated by the workers.
Exactly why the government refuses to intervene has never been explained, but since Chinese Landing is not the only Indigenous community with problems in relation to miners, although it is the most egregious case, it is reasonable to suppose, as suggested above, that where the ruling party is concerned miners take precedence over Indigenous villagers. In other words, inclusion is a matter of convenience where the government is concerned.
Much has been written by commentators about inclusion as it relates to Africans. The PPP/C has interpreted this to mean that it should go over the heads of any existing political structures and deal directly with the African population. Even those parliamentary and constitutional provisions which exist for discussion and ideally consensus between government and opposition have been bypassed, as have opposition local authorities when campaigns or projects in connection with their areas are being carried out.
But this is a representative democracy, not a direct one, and if in an ethnic-political environment like this the governing party refuses to deal with opposition representatives, how can it claim to function in an inclusionary mode, no matter what label it gives it – ‘One Guyana’ or whatever else? Perhaps it believes that the opposition party is so weak and ineffectual that it can afford to ignore it. Maybe that is the case now, but it will not necessarily always be the case.
The PPP/C’s real mindset in relation to inclusion is perhaps revealed in relation to non-political critics, of whom there are far more than there ever used to be, and whom it subjects to unmitigated vitriol. It does not yet appear to have absorbed the fact that it is impossible to get a society, particularly a complicated society such as this one, to accept a government vision on everything, unless its name is North Korea. What one wants are structured arrangements for the expression of a variety of views and for sensible discussion so there can be some official avenues for the possible achieving of consensus on a given topic.
No US Ambassador is going to express themselves in detail, but the fact that the term ‘inclusion’ is something which recurs with some regularity, suggests that Washington is not altogether satisfied that enough has been done. The thing about it is that the government pays more attention to what Washington or its representatives have to say, than local voices. It remains to be seen whether it will pay more attention this time.
