North Koreans don’t need visas to visit Guyana. So on paper Indians are ranked lower than even North Koreans by the Guyanese. If Dr Jaishankar’s visit does not change this scenario, it would be disappointing for India-Guyana relations.
INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY
Guyana, once among the poorest nations, is now into much wealth with the discovery of 11 billion barrels of oil reserves. The country is situated on the northeastern coast of the South American continent, bordered by Venezuela (west), Suriname (east) and Brazil (south). It is the sole English speaking country in South America, and functions as part of the Caribbean, with the headquarters of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) being situated in Georgetown, Guyana. It is also the only nation in the Western Hemisphere with the single-largest ethnic group (40%) being of Indian origin, and the second-largest ethnic group being descendants of African slaves (30%). Mixed-races, and people of Chinese and Portuguese origin comprise about 20%; the remainder (about 10%) are nine indigenous native American groups that largely inhabit the interior of the country.
Oil extraction has already started at the rate of 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) that will rise soon to 500,000 bpd. The current major companies involved are Exxon and Hess Corporation, both US corporations. Given that many countries have fallen victim to the “resource curse” where well-endowed nations have been correlated not with development and prosperity, but with economic decline, years of conflict, death and destruction, the current People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government led by President Dr Md Irfaan Ali, Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo and Prime Minister Brigadier (R) Mark Phillips is determined to prevent that misfortune from befalling Guyana, and to meaningfully channel those newfound riches into effective development programs for the approximately 800,000 resident Guyanese as well as several hundreds of thousands of non-resident Guyanese, mostly living in the US, but also in Canada, Britain, and other Caribbean countries Those expatriate Guyanese sent back $333 million of remittances. There is an active effort to engage with the Guyanese diaspora and promote their re-migration back to Guyana, an initiative led by Foreign Minister Hugh Todd and Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud.
Guyana, like many countries of the Global South endured slavery, indentured servitude, colonialism and imperialism and was caught in Cold War 1.0 between the erstwhile USSR and the US. Satellite countries of both were active participants in the Cold War that in reality was a series of “hot” wars such as in Angola, Biafra, Korea and Vietnam in which millions died. In those conflicts the USSR and its satellites, especially Cuba, were active combattants, sending large armies into battle to fight surrogates of the US and its allies. In the then still early days of Cold War 1.0, President Kennedy, smarting from the failed Bay of Pigs attack, and having to settle with Cuba’s Castro brothers and the USSR’s Nikita Khrushchev in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Kennedy had to remove US NATO nuclear missiles that were located in Turkey (a fact kept very secret until recently) in exchange for the public withdrawal of Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles from Cuba (Reference 1), Kennedy vowed not to permit “another Castro in the Americas region.” Unfortunately for Guyana, Dr Cheddi Jagan, the founder of the PPP was suspected by the then-White House to be just that sort of person—and President Kennedy (and later President Lyndon Johnson) obsessively sought to block Jagan from coming to power, just as the British had done so previously. Even in 1953, PPP then led by Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham won the general election, but a few months later, Britain sent troops to then-British Guiana citing fears of communism. (Reference 2) Later Forbes Burnham left the PPP and formed the People’s National Congress (PNC) party and led the government of Guyana from 1964 to 1985 when he died. Both Jagan and Burnham were champions of the Global South. Today, the situation is dramatically different, life has come full circle, and protégés of Dr Jagan and his American-born wife Janet are at the helm of affairs, and Guyana is among the closest allies of the US in the region, while continuing to uphold its Global South credentials. Dr Jagan himself was President from 1992 to 1997 and Janet Jagan from 1997 to 1999.
Contrary to popular belief that the Indians of Guyana had it much easier, historically, the reality is that while the original indentured laborers from India (who were brought to Guyana once slavery was abolished), mostly from then-famine stricken villages of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, were supposed to be a category of contract workers in the sugarcane and rice fields, they were in fact treated very similarly to slaves—given the very same huts to live which slaves had previously occupied, and being refused any possibility of return to their villages, again, using a mix of cheating and loan-shark high interest rates. Today, the PPP/C government is taking enlightened steps to reduce the past tensions between the Indian-origin and African-origin people and the rest of the population.
PASSPORTS AND VISAS
In today’s era with the spectacular success of various diasporas, no one is really concerned about what passport the individual holds—the focus is appropriately on their expertise, experience, and access to institutions and financial capital. Diasporas take up whatever passport is convenient to hold at a particular time. It would even be sensible to no longer restrict to a single passport—I remember a high-ranking executive at the World Bank who had multiple passports, German and Brazilian being two of them. That is why it is meaningless for countries of the Global South to insist on visas stamped only for people “from the Global South”. It is an absolute anachronism, as an example, for an Indian prominent businessman like Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Indian multinational automotive manufacturing corporation with $12 billion revenue who holds a Harvard University MBA having to seek a business visa to visit Guyana while a youngster from a small OECD country like New Zealand does not need a visa. Amazingly, North Koreans also don’t need visas to visit Guyana. So on paper Indians are ranked lower than North Koreans by the Guyanese Foreign Ministry, perhaps a historical aberration. A similar problem exists for Guyanese businesspeople who also have to take visas to visit India, even for 30 days. Then where is the special relationship, in practice? If Dr S. Jaishankar’s visit does not change that scenario, it would be disappointing for India-Guyana relations, as rhetoric alone cannot sustain enthusiasm for long. Indeed, every Foreign Ministry ought to do a thorough review of their practices to make them relevant for the current era, when for instance the de-dollarization process is sparking a clear indication of impending multipolarity of nations, and finally after years of promise, the real rise of the Global South with new generations of entrepreneurs and businesspeople. Further, Guyana has very few embassies around the world. Also, with an India-Guyana Air Services Agreement (ASA) being signed, direct flights will start between India and Guyana, further accentuating the needs for smoother logistical arrangements.
GLOBAL SOUTH WITH LOGICAL GLOBAL NORTH PARTNERSHIPS
The key difference between Global South collaborations today and the past is that previously low-innovation, basic technologies products were manufactured bilaterally between companies of two countries—for instance, Indian textiles manufacturing in Nigeria. Today, given the growth of expertise and experience, Global South collaborations can have a third arm in the Global North as well. This is particularly because leading companies of the Global North are headed by leaders who were educated and grew up in the Global South. The CEOs of Google, Adobe and Microsoft are examples. The Y2K remediation heralded this form of collaboration in IT between the Global South with the North, because COBOL programmers, who knew the laborious fix for the Y2K problem at the turn of the century, were located in large numbers in India and other countries of the Global South. To give confidence to corporate honchos of the North, however, it took expatriate Indians and others who were functioning as Chief Information Officers in the US and Europe. Information Technology (IT) has flourished in the Global South thereafter, with ever-more complicated projects being located all over the world, the latest being Artificial Intelligence-intensive ones and semiconductor design.
In the case of Guyana and India, the US, Japan and Korea are natural allies and so will be economic partners. Oil and gas are good examples as Exxon, India’s ONGC, and Japanese companies Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Itochu had been active on the Russian island of Sakhalin, until Exxon decided to leave Russia following imposition of US sanctions following the Russia-Ukraine war. Japanese and Indian companies have stayed on in Russia making the case that they can ill afford to leave precipitously given their energy needs and their own home countries’ lack of oil and gas reserves. India, Japan and Korea are among the world’s largest oil and gas importers. In a nutshell, Indian and Guyanese firms should seek win-win solutions that can be cited as models of non-exploitative relationships.
DR JAISHANKAR’S GUYANA VISIT, 20-24 APRIL 2023
India’s Minister for External Affairs, Dr S. Jaishankar, is leading a delegation to Guyana on 20-24 April 2023. The team will include a significant number of business people keenly interested in oil and gas exploration, agriculture, financial services, pharmaceuticals, digital economy, defence, healthcare, infrastructure development and other sectors for “the new Dubai or Qatar of the Americas”.
Guyana has already signed a $22 million agreement with Engineers India Ltd (EIL) that won the open tender to provide expert consultancy services for the supervision of the Guyana Integrated Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) Plant and 300 MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) Power Plant that uses both a gas and a steam turbine together to produce up to 50% more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple-cycle plant. The waste heat from the gas turbine is routed to the nearby steam turbine, which generates extra power. The contract is for a period of 4 to 5 years.
Guyana has established a Natural Resources Fund, essentially a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with an independent Board, and it reportedly currently holds over $1 billion even after tranches of withdrawals to support the national budget. In the past it was believed that SWF or reserves could not be used for domestic development or other expenditures without changes in macroeconomic policies. Many large SWFs such as those of Norway were investing most of their funds on global markets. By the year 2027, it is expected that 1.2 million barrels per day of oil will be produced in addition to natural gas, so the Fund will be receiving accelerated inflows. With 1.4 billion people, India needs secure sources of energy into the future and certainly Guyana’s oil exports to India will continue to accelerate.
While major multinationals have budgets for pre-investment feasibility studies and intrapreneurial venture capital, it is essential for becoming a magnet for investment and the new economy for Guyana to also find ways to seed projects especially of the newer entrepreneurs and mid-size companies. At present, there appears to be reticence to dip into the Natural Resources Fund in these respects.
India holds the current rotating Presidency of the G-20, the most important economic grouping in the world, and so has to be able to use its good offices for peace, development and reflect the voice of the Global South, a flame it has always carried. Therefore, the visit of the Dr Jaishankar delegation ought to be very substantive, with significant follow-ups.
References:
(1) Stern, Sheldon: The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths Versus Reality. Stanford University Press. 2012.
(2) Rabe, Stephen: US Intervention in British Guiana, A Cold War Story. University of North Carolina Press. 2005.\
Dr Sunil Chacko holds degrees in medicine (Kerala), public health (Harvard) and an MBA (Columbia). He was Assistant Director of Harvard University’s Intl. Commission on Health Research, served in the Executive Office of the World Bank Group, and has been a faculty member in the US, Canada, Japan and India.