Those of you who read The Indelible Red Stain will recall that in 1963 Dr Jagan was informed that Esso knew of oil deposits off the Guiana coast. In the last decade, this fact has become increasingly known, and, marvel of marvels, who should be making the announcements but Exxon, the post-Esso giant. It is significant that they revealed this in pieces, after their ejection from Venezuela by Chávez, for devaluing the quality of oil finds in the lower Orinoco, thereby cheating Venezuela in two ways: higher cost of production, and lower price to themselves, their best customer, in the classic tradition of US

corporations. This way they profit at every stage of the process, from materials extraction to end products, ensuring that primary producers bear the heaviest cost. Remember that producing mines, farms, fisheries, etc., are owned “independently” by industrialists, and are usually in many sites, world-wide. Some may even exist in name only. Industrialist A establishes Company B in country C which gives the lowest quotes along with appraisals of their high quality; complete with matching photos; these are shown to country X, whose Company Y’s product is the one really wanted. After negotiation, industrialist A gives X an extra percent, and gets what he wanted, for less than its worth. Remember too, that Company Y almost surely is a subsidiary of A, and its costs already highly inflated by payments for production expertise and supplies. It’s the same process that the British imperialists used to impoverish entire colonies. So the prospect of Guyana gaining much from the expanded “discoveries” off-shore – all of which Venezuela has claimed – is small. Venezuela does not need this; it has enough. Its problem is sharing. Venezuela, like the USA, is barely into the moral age. Its majority population gets little from oil, has large enclaves of decrepit barrios not far from rich developments, as in most Latin American cities, or India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Carolina, or any ex-colonial country, still run by those educated by colonialism. Any leader with sensibility or conscience, seeing this, will want to right some wrongs. Hence a Bolivar, Mossadegh, Allende, Castro, Guzman, Rousseff, Chavez, or Maduro.
CIA hand is seen in manner and techniques used by the Venezuelan opposition, led by Freddie Guevara (how Che must be frowning in his grave!); an opposition referendum winning with 98% of votes is classic 1970s Burnham; the advice to Americans, even embassy staff, to leave, is straight CIA theatre, like the street actions, the random shootings, the mysterious helicopter, etc. This is not to absolve Maduro, but to blame the US for hogging the world, while its filthily rich create conditions that scream for “socialists.” Whatever happened to liberty and equality?
The US has never shown any tolerance for socialist governments – except when keeping out an extremist, as in Guyana. But they got bitten instead. Now, in Venezuela, they denied Maduro, from his start, any chance to govern the country. With ex-Exxon chief, Rex Tillerson, as Secretary of State, there is even less sympathy for the socialist, even though Tillerson had worked successfully with Russia. The US has sown seeds of greed throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, has the support of Brazil, CARICOM, Colombia, Guyana – Venezuela’s neighbours – Argentina, Peru and Mexico, all because they depend economically on America, now under an erratic president, who should be helping the domestic poor, which one report illustrates thus: “If you have $10 in your pocket and zero debt you are wealthier than 25% of American citizens.” Trump has issued new threats of sanctions, targetting Russia also, while his government trembles, with his castigation of AG Sessions, and firing his Chief of staff Priebus in favour of John Kelly, while his family helpers wallow in controversy.
America should leave Venezuela to solve its problems; encourage dialogue between the parties as Maduro has asked. Mercosur leaders, meeting in Mendoza, Argentina, have offered to mediate; stop creating schisms and stop meddling in others’ business. Look at yourself; how elaborate your domestic efforts to assure security and prevent foreign interference. Have the good manners to do unto others as you would have them do to you. Think of the 25% of your indebted and penniless population! Is it possible that America would heed this?
Venezuela is being pilloried for detention of >1000 anarchists. Bush would have put them in Guantanamo Bay and tortured them. The British Raj would have killed a thousand or more (Jallianwallah Bagh), or imprisoned 60,000 at a time!

Growing up back home meant occasionally crossing paths with the equivalent of the village messenger, someone who had taken up the self-appointed task of walking from village to village, street to street, house to house, and even from a cow pen to chicken coop, delivering news that did not make the front page of the newspaper that morning. The messenger reported facts, such as the sad news of the death of a villager, such funereal information delivered with an accompanying shake of the head, taking short, satisfied sips of water from an enamel cup dipped into a nearby rain barrel, while the recipient of the bad

news carefully wiped the tear-filled corner of eyes with the wide hem of a skirt. Other times one crossed paths with the equivalent of the village rumour-monger, who lurking in the shadows, was always a step behind the messenger. The rumour-monger was less factual, and with a more imaginative gaze that could look into the smallest eye of a needle, thread it with the tiniest detail, and then seamlessly stitch together the widest, thickest tale capable of covering a king size bed, with enough of an edge left for frills hanging over the sides.
So it came to that time when my deathly-ill auntie was finally taken to the town to visit the doctor, all it took was one look at her suffering face, a failed attempt for her to stand on one leg and remain motionless like a flamingo, there to be diagnosed on the spot with appendicitis, and sent off to the public hospital with an official, medical recommendation costing a hefty fee.
My uncle was annoyed at so short a visit and so long a fee, and could hardly contain his resentment over the contents of the cash-pan draining away so dramatically following a diagnosis that took less than half a minute. Since he could not take it out on the doctor, who left the room right away, my uncle frowning when the nurse reached out to him, not with sympathy, but with an upraised palm and four fingers beckoning for the doctor’s fee, instead turned the darkening resentment onto the bigger, unfeeling institution of the hospital, “So he sending her to the hospital – nobody gets healed there. Why didn’t he send us all to the undertakers instead? It would have saved a trip to the morgue.”
So black was his mood at the short shrift from the doctor, who did not offer the miracle cure we were all expecting, my uncle muttering to the driver who offered no comment, pretending to be solidly attentive with eyes glued on the empty road ahead, “He didn’t even sound her! He could at least take her pulse. Or look inside her eyes, or at least shine a torch-light inside her ears! And to think he charge so much!”
This off-loading made the driver of the hired car step down even harder on the gas, his intention to get to the hospital as if he was driving an ambulance, having had a glimpse into how parsimonious my uncle was, and perhaps even worried there would be an argument, and he would at the end refuse to pay the agreed fee for hiring the car.
It seemed everything we did to get my auntie any kind of medical attention amplified her pain. Examination by the business-like doctor had made her a picture of docility, he asking her leading questions which she answered with an affirmative, other-worldly shake of the head. However, back in the car, she resumed moaning and writhing the moment it took off for the hospital. So palpable was my uncle’s annoyance that it pressed us all into a muted space, the only sound in the car coming from the grating of shifting gears, with my auntie bawling out, “Oh God! Oh Lord, Father in Heaven! I going to dead in the hospital! They carrying me there to meet my Maker!” each time the driver put his foot on the clutch, or whenever the car hit a bump on the road as it careened around corners, our shoulders heaving into each other.
Finally, we saw the hospital in the distance, a low concrete building with walls whitewashed with antiseptic lime, its Demerara windows opened upwards and propped with sticks, the short palm trees outside, half its trunks similarly whitewashed, with leaves mildly agitated by a gentle breeze. It was a picture of tranquillity that disappeared once we stepped inside, there to be greeted by the disconcerting sight of chairs with legs broken, violently stopped dead in their tracks while running away, wheel-chairs with parts strewn on the floor as from surgery gone awry, and gurneys with misaligned, wobbly wheels, leaning with resignation against the walls, awaiting the fate of the doomed.
We left my auntie after she disappeared down a dark corridor, my grandmother spending the night on a broken chair among the dying gurneys, returning to the village to discover we had been preceded by the rumour-monger, the village already in mourning, the women wiping eyes with the corners of skirts.

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