– McDonald and Nettleford
It was a credit to Guyana and the Caribbean that Guyanese Sir Shridath Ramphal distinguished himself as the longest serving Commonwealth Secretary-General as well as on five world commissions dealing with development and security issues.
This was the view of both Trinidad and Tobago-born Guyanese Ian McDonald and Jamaican Professor Rex Nettleford at the launching of a 206-page publication to honour Sir Shridath on the occasion of his 80th birthday (October 3, 2008) at Le Meridien Pegasus on Thursday evening. There was a standing ovation for the honoree.
The book, Shridath Ramphal – the Commonwealth and the World, edited by Richard Bourne and published by Hansib Publications Limited, is a collection of essays chronicling his life and work as an international civil servant.
‘Sonny’ Ramphal, as he is known, a Queen’s Counsel, served as Commonwealth Secretary-General for 15 years, from 1975 to 1990.
Nettleford said, “It was to our credit that we had a Caribbean person in all of those commissions in Sonny Ramphal.”
The five international commissions on which he served were the Brandt Commission on Develop-ment; Palme Commission on Disarmament; World Com-mission on Environment and Development; Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues; and the South Commission on the major problems facing Third World countries.
Noting the Caribbean presence in the ever-changing wider world, Nettleford said Caribbean life was such that it was able to produce models. Stating that “Guyana must be proud of this man,” he recalled going to the University of the West Indies and being awed by the brilliance of a number of its students, including Ramphal.
And he jokingly said that Jamaican women did not like Guyanese women because Jamaican men married Guyanese women because of their role at home and in the society. The Guyanese education system at the time produced very able people for the Caribbean region and elsewhere. “How [will] we get them back? I don’t know,” he said noting that they led with ideas.
It was against this background – a place of ferment – that Ramphal became a product of the sense and sensitivities, which Nettleford said, was the essence of Caribbean culture that is now celebrated as Carifesta. At the launching and in his essay, he described Ramphal as the Guyanese international statesman who was part European, part Asian, part African, part Native American – but totally Caribbean.
In his remarks, McDonald, who paid tribute to both Ramphal and Nettleford during his introduction, noted that both men had made contributions to the West Indian community, culture, consciousness, nationhood and standing in the world.
McDonald recalled that he worked as an editorial assistant with Ramphal when he chaired the West Indian Commission during the early 1990s, and said that he was in wonder at Ramphal having seen him at work close-up. He was inclined to agree with the view that the non-acceptance of the main recommendations of the West Indian Commission Report – Time for Action – by the Caricom Heads of Government “was a turning point for the worse in the often ill-starred history of the search for West Indian integration and nationhood.”
Nettleford and McDonald as well as the publisher of the book Arif Ali spoke of Ramphal’s tireless efforts to end the apartheid system of rule in South Africa at the time and his friendship with freedom fighter and former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela.
McDonald said as the “best known and most accomplished of Commonwealth Secretaries General his name would forever be inscribed on South Africa’s roll of honour.”
Stating that it was hard to list all Ramphal’s qualities in any order of precedence, McDonald nevertheless listed clarity of mind, firmness of purpose, mastery of the English language, supreme gift for networking, endless patience in negotiating and that “unusual almost magical ability to get consensus and results from a multi-talented, various-minded group without the application of brute force – except, perhaps, once or twice, when absolutely necessary.”
He said further that for Ramphal’s unflagging zeal in the commissions and his work done internationally he should have been the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize and with his skills he should have been appointed as Secretary General of the United Nations.
Ramphal accepted “with considerable humility and pride” the honour bestowed on him. Having noted that the publication covered his years as an international civil servant (he had not been privy to the contents of the book before) he spoke of the decade which gave him the grounding to assume his international duties.
The decade, 1965 to 1975, when he served as Guyana’s Attorney General and then as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he said, had laid the groundwork for the period that followed his career as an international civil servant. That decade, he said, “was absolutely critical to everything which the book speaks of. They were extraordinary years in my life.”
At that time, Guyana was developing its foreign policy which included its rejection of the apartheid policy in South Africa to which the Liberation Monument in the compound of the Umana Yana in Kingston still stands.
Speaking of the achievements during that period, he noted also the breaking of the international diplomatic embargo of Cuba by Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago acting together in a principled show of internationalism. He said it was an act that Cuba has never forgotten.
In that decade too, Sir Shridath contributed to the post-independence constitution and worked with other Caribbean governments to build Carifta and Caricom. He mentioned his work in the international arena with the Non-Aligned Movement and in solidarity with the African National Congress of South Africa and the Council for Namibia and the Frontline States for the liberation of Southern Africa from apartheid.
He noted too his participation on behalf of Guyana at the level of the United Nations, the Commonwealth and the Non-Aligned Movement , and in the negotiations as a leading figure in the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) grouping with the European Union (EU) on the Lomé Convention.
The vision of a Caribbean identity as portrayed by Carifesta and put into motion by then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, he said, was noted nearly three centuries ago in 1722 by Pierre Labat, a French Dominican monk. Labat had written about his travels among the islands of the Caribbean and “invoked a vision of a Caribbean identity and destiny which remains valid.”
Ramphal paid tribute to the many people who in one way or another have made their own mark on Caribbean integration, including McDonald and Nettleford as well as Caricom Secretary General Edwin Carrington, who sat in the audience and whom he applauded for his stamina in continuing to build the institutions of Caricom.
In addition to Burnham’s vision, Sir Shridath mentioned the internationalism of Dr Cheddi Jagan over the decade, and observed that the credo had not changed.
