Recolonisation is taking place

Donald Ramotar

Latin America and the Caribbean countries are being recolonised. This time it is not by Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, France and Portugal, but by the US.

At one time, the US had an anti-colonial position and had advocated for the ending of colonialism. That was one of the features of the Monroe Doctrine that has become somewhat obscured since the US became so bellicose.

Today, in a de facto way, it has become a super colonial power. It is imposing its will on regions and countries. Those that stand up for their rights are sanctioned, destabilised and sometimes physically removed.

The fact that it used its military might to kidnap a sitting president, President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, is a clear indication that the US has decided to ignore international law and to get its own way.

Strikingly, only the president of Brazil protested vigorously. Our Caribbean leaders have generally been tight-lipped.

The US has gone even further. They have, using the guise of fighting drugs, established a strong military presence in the region.

They have been murdering hundreds of people travelling in small boats in the Caribbean. Without producing a scintilla of evidence, without attempting to board the boats and get evidence, the US just killed the occupants. We may never know if any were really involved in drug trafficking.

There has been a deafening silence from Latin American and Caribbean leaders to those atrocities. 

As if these events were not enough, many of the governments in the region are, on the request or orders from the US, acting against their countries’ best interests.

The ending of the cooperation in health with Cuba – which was in place for more than 50 years and which benefited millions of the region’s people – is a case in point. That has left a yawning gap in the health sector of the region.

The US has not provided any assistance to help with the dislocation and shortage of technical personnel created by its insistence on removing Cubans.

Instead, it has sent us people that it wants out of its country, and regional governments are accepting those rejects.

Indeed, in order to put up a good spin on that disgraceful action we are told it would be good for us. It is even suggested that by accepting these US rejects, we would be acquiring skills.

However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is very clear on who these people are. In an interview, he said openly: “We are actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries… We are working with other countries to say we want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries, would you do that as a favour to us? And the further away from America the better so they can’t come back across the border. I’m not apologetic about it. The president (Donald Trump) was elected to keep America safe and to get rid of a bunch of perverts, paedophiles and child rapists out of our country…”

So, please spare us the talk that this programme imposed by the US is going to give us skills.

One of the immoralities of this project is that the US will turn around and issue advisories for tourists not to visit our countries because of crime!

The US is now pressing regional governments to stop doing business with China. Many governments are beginning to comply with those orders as we see more big contracts going to US companies. Some of those companies have poor performance records.

If some newspaper stories are to be believed (and they have not been countered), in some cases, Chinese contractors won bids for certain projects. But they were not given the jobs; they went to the US firms.

The US and other Western countries have ignored us and kept us in a state of underdevelopment since independence. Now that we are getting assistance from China to build important and much-needed infrastructure to facilitate socioeconomic progress, we are getting pushback from the US.

It appears that they want to keep us in a state of perpetual underdevelopment and in poverty.

We see the open intention to super-exploit our natural resources and labour for the benefit of US Big Business. They are mainly interested in our natural resources. They do not add value in the region nor establish any type of manufacturing. Those natural resources are reserved for the rich, developed countries.

The recent ‘deal’ with Venezuela is worse than highway robbery. Venezuela has to provide oil and gas to US companies at cost for 100 years. This is barefaced robbery and has demonstrated that Venezuela is now a de facto colony of the US. This will not benefit the poor in the US. It is designed to enrich huge companies.

Venezuela was forced to abandon its long and well-known principle of standing in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine. It is now forced to recognise the fascist, apartheid Israeli regime that continues to bomb defenceless civilians in makeshift camps in Gaza, the West Bank (where ethnic cleansing is taking place) and in East Jerusalem.

Today, the sovereignty of our countries is already severely compromised. If we don’t stand up now, it would be completely lost. – Globetrotter

Donald Ramotar is a former President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (2011-15). 

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