By Nicole Telford- The need for increase in Guyana’s defense assets, strategic planning and patriotism were calls made by former Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defense Force, Rear Admiral Ret’d, Dr. Gary Best. Guyana’s resources, economic viability, sovereignty, and ability to engage its citizens against Venezuelan aggression remain a concern as described in presentations during day two of the Business Session at the Guyana’s Trades Union Congress (GTUC) 5th Triennial Delegates Conference, which was held last Wednesday November 8th to Friday November 10th .
The Former Chief of Staff outlined several instances where Guyana’s social services and security will be under threat. He stated in a motion to be adopted by the trade unions that “taking note of the uncontrolled illegal influx of Venezuelans into Guyana, at a time when the Venezuelan President is threatening to annex five eights of Guyana’s territory and the socio-political impact this could have on the development of specific Guyana borders and other regions, and the possibility that any of these refugees can have a malevolent or bad effect on the peace and stability in Guyana” must be of prime consideration for the government in defence of Guyana’s territorial integrity.
The former Chief of Staff questioned how patriotic the Government is when foreign elements and agent provocateurs could be in that mixture of those migrating. He said, “how more anti-patriotic it can be that the Government of Guyana is not speaking in concerned language that this is not a time to have an influx of uncontrolled migrants into Guyana?”
Dr. Best, an international relations expert further stated that “at a time when Guyana is extending a kind and humanitarian hand to his (Venezuelan President) people, under international law the state of Guyana has a duty, and by extension the government, to ensure that the influx of migrants do not threaten the peace, stability and economic livelihood of the existing population.”
Best affirmed that “there is no international law that says you have to receive migrants beyond what your population can absorb, beyond what your social services can absorb, beyond what your health services can absorb, our health facilities have been prepared for a population of eight hundred thousand. It is almost stupid to think that we can have 1.2 million people here with the same health facilities, so at this time it is necessary for that influx to be controlled.”
The former Chief of Staff, departing from the motion to be adopted, said he wrote an article recommending that the government and opposition agree on an amnesty for approximately 18 months and during that amnesty all Venezuelans entering Guyana within the past period of migration should report to centers across Guyana, in the presence of government and opposition, the International Office on Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and there at those centers if there are legitimate documents linking them to Guyanese then they get Guyanese papers.”
Dr. Best added, “you then look at those persons who fled Venezuela as a result of a fear of persecution and, they become refugees and then we look at the other set and say well ok, you can remain as economic migrants.” This, he noted, is under the conditions of the government and opposition, and by extension, the people of Guyana agree to a definite number of persons our nation can absorb. So, when the calculations are done by economists, etc, and it is determined that we can only absorb 10,000 persons then the first will be those with Guyanese roots.
He added that through this process we would have data and better knowledge of those who are in our country.
Dr. Best further explained that Guyana’s first line of defense is diplomacy. He reminded the gathering that “we had missions going all over the world speaking on this issue, we had friends in CARICOM, friends personal to the then leader (Forbes Burnham), we had friends in Yugoslavia, friends in Russia, friends in Cuba, friends in many parts of the world who when they spoke, Venezuela felt as if they were going to come to our defense, so Venezuela was on the defensive.
Going further he noted that “today, we are not getting that sense, we are not getting that sense of CARICOM nations even CARICOM Heads of Government, no one is coming out individually to say I am there for Guyana, so Guyana has to put Guyana’s interest first.”
Dr. Best said we need to ensure that information flows so that we can have defence assets “active defense diplomacy and active defense assets meaning hardware, actually having hardware that you can put on the border so you can defend.”
To this end he proposed that the GTUC Delegates Conference should” urge the Government to constitute and keep in parliamentary operation the relevant parliamentary committees and other committees to monitor and assess the developments on the border controversy with a view to making recommendations to the Government of Guyana.” In this context, he offered as an example, the establishment of ‘living frontier settlements’ along our borders.
