Every Man, Woman and Child in Guyana Must Become Oil-Minded (Part 150)
“African states must unite (for the continent) or sell themselves out to imperialist and colonialist exploiters for a mess of pottage…”: Kwame Nkrumah. Or as our own Cheddi Jagan told the National Assembly in 1983 in a speech following the invasion of Grenada: “Right now Washington is …hoping to get these puppets one by one to sell their souls for a mess of pottage.”
Introduction
As this column reaches its 150th instalment on this Old Year’s Night, one cannot help but imagine Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan turning restlessly in their graves at Seven Ponds and Babu John. Whatever their later differences, policy pursuits, missteps and mistakes, these giants of our independence movement shared an unshakeable commitment to Guyana’s sovereignty and resource nationalism. Today’s betrayal of our oil patrimony, first by the APNU + AFC Coalition and now egregiously by the PPP/C, would have been unthinkable to them.
