Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett yesterday announced the “upgrade” of several foreign service officers, while denying that the appointments were made to deflect the adverse impact of a statement by Dr Roger Luncheon regarding the lack of capacity of African Guyanese.
Rodrigues-Birkett made the announcements at her first press conference for this year, at the ministry’s boardroom South Road. She also highlighted achievements of the year 2011 and projections of that ministry for this year.
Rodrigues-Birkett said career diplomat Michael Brotherson will soon take up the post of Consul General in Barbados, a portfolio that has been upgraded from honorary consul. Guyana’s last representative in that country, honorary consul, Norman Faria, died almost two years ago. Brotherson’s post seeks to give calm to the many Guyanese living in Barbados who sometimes claim that they do not have enough representation at a government level and would have to return to Guyana to take care of immigration issues affecting them in that island.
Appointing a consul general to Barbados, Rodrigues-Birkett said, helps not only with immigration issues, but the envoy is better able to lobby for trade between the two countries. “We are hoping that the officer who would be placed in Barbados would look at other issues, for example trade matters and so forth,” Rodrigues-Birkett said. “We might then be able to increase our trade with Barbados if we have someone there to provide information at hand, meeting with the business community, so we think it augurs well for us.”
The minister informed that Brotherson had been working in the foreign service since 1991. During this time, she said, he was a member of several regional and international delegations including Cari-com and United Nations Heads of Government meetings.
Around 2009, after he returned from London where he had served as first secretary in the Guyana High Commission, Brotherson worked in the Office of Climate Change at the Office of the President.
Other diplomatic appointments announced include the naming of Director of the Frontiers Division of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Keith George, as Guyana’s Ambassador to Suriname. He replaces Merlin Udho who had replaced Karshanjie Arjun in November 2009.
George was given kudos by the minister for the integral role he played, as Director of Frontiers, in addressing the Guyana-Suriname maritime boundary dispute, the crafting of the Maritime Zones Act and the request by Guyana to the United Nations for the extension of the continental shelf.
“He was very instrumental in the efforts aimed at protecting the territorial integrity of Guyana and ensuring that Guyana enjoys its rights and meets its obligations with respect to its maritime spaces over which Guyana exercises jurisdiction under international law. He played a vanguard role in the drafting and finalization of the maritime zones in 2010 …also led the team in preparation of Guyana’s submission for an extended (continental) shelf,” she said. The submission for the extension, Rodrigues-Birkett stated, was her ministry’s highpoint of 2011.
Government also announced that George Talbot, former Chargé d’Affaires at Guyana’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, has been appointed Guyana’s Perma-nent Representative to the United Nations.
Audrey Jardine Waddell has been appointed Guyana’s Ambassador to the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).
Sattie Sawh, wife of murdered Minister of Agriculture of Satyadeow Sawh, was confirmed as Honorary Consul General to Toronto, a position she had been acting in since 2010. Sattie Sawh has also worked at the Guyana consulate in Toronto since 2006.
Many of the new appointees serve to debunk Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Luncheon’s statement made in open court last year that the absence of African Guyanese as ambassadors of Guyana was not due to racism but to the fact that no Guyanese Africans are qualified to be ambassadors of Guyana. Luncheon had made the statement while testifying in the $10 million libel suit filed by former president Bharrat Jagdeo against Kaieteur News and its columnist Freddie Kissoon.
Questioned as to if the ethnicity of the new appointees had to do with racial balancing given the furore over the statements made by Luncheon, Rodrigues-Birkett replied in the negative. She said the appointments reflected an upgrade process of the diplomats that commenced over two years ago. “Fortunately or unfortunately, I have never looked at it in that way.
Like I said, the officers – all of them in this ministry have served with distinction and I have never separated them by the texture of their hair or the colour of their skin,” she added.
The minister also revealed that Esther Griffith had been appointed Chief of protocol and that the number of honorary consul this year will be increased by ten as Guyana seeks to improve diplomatic relations globally.
