In the recent extensive discussions on Guyana’s stand on the Cariforum/EU Economic Partnership Agreement and the subsequent refusal of the other heads of government at a special meeting in Barbados to accept Guyana’s position one factor has been overlooked. Surely once it was clear that Guyana was taking a position that on the face of it was not accepted by the other Caricom member states it could only have helped its case to have dispatched senior envoys to the region to meet at least some of the leading players (Prime Ministers Bruce Golding of Jamaica, Patrick Manning of Trinidad and David Thompson of Barbados) to push Guyana’s case with an appropriate brief and perhaps with the support of some of the distinguished regional academics who had raised important issues about the agreement including our own Dr Clive Thomas. To hope that the issues could be satisfactorily resolved by discussion on the day in question was surely at best optimistic and at worst naïve. In this instance, the diplomatic function was completely ignored.
Another topical issue raises the same question. President Jagdeo’s imaginative proposal to preserve our rainforests subject only to sustainable forestry has so far elicited no response from the British government, though Prince Charles has on an entirely separate initiative urged British businessmen to get involved in working out suitable compensatory mechanisms. As a small player on the international scene, Guyana does not by itself have the weight to get this perfectly legitimate issue of compensation for preserving standing forests on the environmental agenda.
With sustained diplomatic lobbying by Guyana of other developing countries with substantial rainforests the prospects of getting this on the front burner, so to speak, could improve considerably. By contrast, one notes that the Norwegian government has agreed in principle to pay the Brazilian government US$1 billion over a number of years to preserve its rainforests subject to developing satisfactory verification mechanisms. Here again, the diplomatic function appears to have been neglected.
What about our diplomatic representatives overseas? What steps, for example, has our High Commissioner in London taken to pursue the rainforests issue? Has he networked with his diplomatic colleagues there who may have similar interests, and has he sought audience with the British government?
It may be of course that it is not just Guyana which has lost its diplomatic focus; in an interview published in Stabroek Business yesterday, Sir Shridath Ramphal commenting on the EPA observed among other things that, “Our regional diplomatic effort has lost its direction.”
The marginalization of the diplomatic function has been evident in many ways since the new government took office in 1992, including the neglect of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a topic which we expanded on in our editorial yesterday. It is a costly error which has led to many missed opportunities and there have been huge hidden costs. In the final analysis, it must be partly understood as an expression of the political culture.