On behalf of the National Directorate and members of OVP (Organization for the Victory of the People), I wish to remind the Country Manager of ExxonMobil in Guyana, Alistair Routledge, that we are the descendants of Indigenous peoples; survivors of genocide, the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Captured Africans; survivors of a holocaust, and Indentureship; survivors of brutal exploitation and discrimination.
We are a nation-state of proud peoples. We produced some of the very best leaders and revolutionary intellectuals: George G. M. James, Jan Carew, Ivan Van Sertima, Ras Makonnen, Martin Carter, Forbes Burnham, Cheddi Jagan and Walter Rodney to name a few, who, had any one of them been alive today, would have told you to pack your traps a long time ago.
Please do not threaten us. This is not about APNU+AFC or PPP. This is about our sovereignty, national patrimony and dignity. This land and its resources are the patrimony of we, the Guyanese people. We are sitting on some of the largest oil reserves in the world. A former president of Guyana, Forbes Burnham, never tired of telling foreign investors like yourselves, that if we don’t get a good deal, then best we “leave it in the ground”. In his words, “We have seen in Guyana and other under-developed countries, foreign owned extractive industries prosper while the native population remains poor and destitute…we must now get the large share of the cake; otherwise what is the difference between Guyana and a colony?”
We have survived thus far without oil, gas and, most definitely without ExxonMobil. Our national salvation and destiny is not in your hands. We are well aware of why former President Hugo Chavez, and the Bolivarian Revolution in neighbouring Venezuela, expelled ExxonMobil. You, Mr. Routledge, work for a company that is known all over the world as a strategic player and corporate predator for the US Empire. We may not be the only “star girl” to use your words, in your portfolio, but you are not the “star girl’s” only suitor. When you are sitting on some of the largest oil reserves in the world, there is certainly no shortage of suitors.
Gerald A. Perreira
Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP)