Challenging Misguided Views; A Response to Robin Singh’s Call to Discredit the Geneva Agreement

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Editor, kindly permit me the space to respond to a dangerous, yet not surprising letter that appeared under the handle of one Robin Singh in the letter section of Stabroek News 11/17, “Our government should undertake research to legally discredit the Geneva Agreement.”  Singh is noted on social media for providing entertainment and garnering supporters in his covert role as a public relations representative of the Vice President, however, his intervention on this weighty issue is clearly about sowing disunity as he traffics in manufacturing a popular ‘GT “strawman.

   Firstly, Singh restates certain well-documented US declassified cables where discussions and details list various forms of financial and material support given to the Forbes Burnham-led PNC opposition party and government in the 1960s in efforts to build the PNC party in Guyana.  According to Singh, those payments to the PNC made Forbes Burnham an agent of the USA rather than a nationalist leader shepherding Guyanese towards an independent, and self-determined path to development.   It is this unique logic Singh applies to seek to discredit and abandon the powerful shield that is the well-documented ‘Geneva Accord.’  Editor, with that reasoning, Singh is now engaged in a grave and almost treasonous misadventure that certainly makes Maduro and Venezuela proud. Apart from its dubious claims that the 1899 Tribunal Award was null and void, its December 3rd referendum, and its attendant consequences, ‘Miraflores ‘ now has Robin Singh as its battalion leader providing dangerous air cover as Caracas beats the drums of war at home in pursuit of its claim to the Essequibo.

    If one were to take Singh seriously, a rather onerous undertaking, and, for a moment entertain his illogic, one is confronted with a myriad of documents, evidence, and meetings from 1965 to the present that will lay bare his deliberate mischief at a time when every Guyanese at home and abroad are unified and resolute that the Essequibo is ours, and the 1899 award was just and final.

   Editor, in his excursion to invalidate Burnham and the ‘Geneva Accord,’ Singh must explain to the public why Burnham and Guyana’s position was that there was no validity to the Venezuela 1962 claim. Singh and his handlers must explain why during the ‘Mixed Commission’ process Guyana and Burnham rejected Venezuela’s proposal for the joint development of Essequibo, an amended proposal by Venezuela for a claim to half of Essequibo which were all rejected by Forbes Burnham, and the government of Guyana. Were those policies and inflexible positions the designs of a leader under the pay of foreign masters and handlers? Singh’s illogic is further exposed when one examines the position of the government of Guyana and Forbes Burnham at the bilateral and multilateral process. 

  Finally, and, the most dangerous element in Singh’s letter is that of his request that the government of Guyana invalidate the ‘Geneva Accord.’ Does it dawn on Singh and his pathetic assorted ilk that to invalidate ‘Geneva,’ Guyana will in essence invalidate the current ICJ process? Where would such a position leave Guyana? In the suggested bilateral process which bore no fruitful outcome from 1966 to present? Singh wants us to abandon a process that shielded us from Venezuela’s aggression and claims. Singh and his handlers in their desperate effort to provide cover for the VP’s claim of providing a “corridor” to Venezuela,  suggest we talk to Venezuela, and, in the process abandon our rights and obligations as per international Law.  Given the language and tenor of the December 3rd referendum and despite this “Disneyesque”  nonsense from Singh,  then, in my humble view, the ‘ Geneva Accord’ must be reaffirmed.

Leroy Nelson

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