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While some crit­ics have ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port for the Unit­ed States' ac­tions against Venezuela, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad has urged cit­i­zens not to ig­nore the scale of mi­gra­tion from the South Amer­i­can coun­try or the ter­ri­to­r­i­al threats it has made against neigh­bour­ing Guyana.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter a ser­vice at the Mara­bel­la Pres­by­ter­ian Church yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad said cit­i­zens should sup­port ac­tions that seek to lev­el the play­ing field. He said even in a sea­son of good­will, peo­ple must not for­get the plight of the poor and those who have been re­pressed or sub­ju­gat­ed, nor should they en­gage in re­vi­sion­ist his­to­ry. He said there was an in­escapable re­al­i­ty that, with­in the last decade, the re­gion had wit­nessed the largest hemi­spher­ic mi­gra­tion from Venezuela, along­side state­ments that threat­ened Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty.

“There­fore, peo­ple should not pre­tend these things did not hap­pen and sup­port de­ci­sions and ac­tions which may be fo­cused on the lev­el­ling of the play­ing field. Re­mem­ber, mil­lions of peo­ple do not leave their homes be­cause all is well, and it sug­gests some­thing may be awry and there may be the need for re­assess­ment, re­align­ment and read­just­ment,” Seep­er­sad said.