Dear Editor,
“When a leader loses touch with humanity, forsakes integrity, and forgets the grace of dignity and empathy, a nation is left adrift—searching not for power, but for a statesman.”
President Irfaan Ali’s recent remark on Cuba’s energy crisis lays bare this truth in the starkest terms. Amid blackouts crippling hospitals, water pumps, and food distribution—conditions the United Nations has flagged as a deepening humanitarian emergency—Ali insists Guyana supports aid for Cuba, but “oil cannot be” humanitarian assistance.
This is not statesmanship; it is a crass, technocratic reflex that elevates petroleum’s market sanctity above suffering people. Oil, he argues, is a “strictly regulated economic commodity.” Yet this absolutism crumbles under scrutiny. Commodities—food, medicine, fuel—shift from trade goods to lifelines when crisis demands it. Cuba’s emergency is not abstract: fuel shortages threaten oncology wards, dialysis for the chronically ill, and basic sanitation for millions. To declare oil categorically off-limits for humanitarian relief in this context is not principled; it is profoundly insensitive—a leader parsing legalities while dialysis machines stutter to a halt.
Global practice mocks Ali’s position. Mexico has shipped oil to Cuba on preferential terms for years, framed as solidarity against shortages. Even the United States now permits select Venezuelan oil flows to Cuba, explicitly to avert humanitarian fallout and regional contagion. And let us not forget Petrocaribe—Venezuela’s initiative that supplied Caribbean nations, including Guyana’s neighbors, with oil on soft terms to ease social and fiscal strain, routinely hailed as regional support. Ali’s “cannot be” absolutism reveals institutional amnesia. A CARICOM head should grasp these mechanisms: concessional shipments, sanctions waivers, emergency protocols. Instead, he sounds like a novice oil trader, not a regional statesman—his mind seemingly captured by Guyana’s hydrocarbon windfall, where newfound wealth breeds a defensive sacralization of oil above all else.
This posturing reeks of a deeper malaise: Ali’s pronounced follower mentality, echoing Donald Trump’s brash playbook with eerie precision. Where Trump issued sweeping, uninformed absolutes on trade, borders, and energy—often prioritizing America’s commodity interests over global realities—Ali now mirrors that style, fixating on oil’s “purity” in a crude attempt at aping the U.S. president’s dealmaker bravado.
Gone is independent thinking; in its place, a sycophantic reflex to project power through rigid commodity defenses, blind to Cuba’s human toll. Guyana basks in global attention over Exxon finds and Venezuela’s border gambit, fueling an addiction to this elevated status. But such mimicry exposes profound shortcomings: no original vision, no moral compass, just a leader power-drunk on oil allure, delivering Trumpian gaffes that collapse under basic scrutiny—confident proclamations devoid of regional empathy or historical memory.
What a betrayal of Cheddi Jagan’s towering legacy. Jagan, the humanist statesman who viewed Cuba not through commodity ledgers but as a brother in struggle, wrote in “The Caribbean is Nobody’s Backyard” of Cuba’s revolutionary spirit as inseparable from global solidarity and sacrifice. He embodied internationalism, insisting: “We have to see a biological relationship… solidarity, sacrifice and struggle… while we may have our point of view on politics… we should also see ourselves as part of the humanity that sees the sufferings of others as our own.”
Jagan championed Cuba’s aid to the oppressed worldwide—from Angola to the Caribbean—linking it to “core principles of social justice, equity, and wealth redistribution… particularly in favour of the poor.” Under his vision, Guyana hosted Cuban troop transit to Angola, affirming: “Cuba stood on the side of the oppressed… internationalists… sharing the concerns and the plight not only of our people here, but of the rest of humanity.”
Ali finds convenient only Jagan’s platform—the PPP machinery and diplomatic stature Jagan forged through principled non-alignment and humanism—as a footstool to mount his high seat of power. Where Jagan saw shared suffering demanding solidarity, Ali peddles oil exceptionalism, forsaking the grace that defined his predecessor. This is no heir to Jagan; it is a pretender, commodifying the legacy for personal elevation while Cuba’s lights flicker out.
Contrast this with CARICOM’s collective resolve to deliver aid, a stinging rebuke to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s summit speech—a display of crass intransigence that places her firmly in the doghouse. She branded Cuba’s government a dictatorship, reflexively parroting Washington’s line, questioning regional ties, and subserviently backing U.S.-led security agendas on Haiti and policing—even as U.S. officials concede humanitarian carve-outs for fuel to avert spillover chaos. Her stubborn ideological posturing, deaf to the region’s pivot toward people-first solidarity, smacks of imperial bootlicking: unyielding, tone-deaf, and politically isolating. CARICOM’s humanitarian turn slaps down this subservience, leaving Kamla exposed as the outlier clinging to Cold War relics while the Community reclaims principled independence.
President Ali, reclaim Jagan’s humanism: affirm oil can serve humanitarian ends when it powers hospitals and homes under blockade. Lead as CARICOM—and Cheddi—intend: advocate energy carve-outs for sanctioned states, honoring abolitionist roots over oil myopia. Until then, Guyana drifts, adrift from its soul.
Yours faithfully,
Hemdutt Kumar
