Last Friday’s media release from the President’s “Press and Publicity Unit” was intended to underscore, for the benefit of both domestic and external audiences, the foreign policy dimension to Dr. Irfaan Ali’s presidency, which, one expects, will continue to unfold in the period ahead. The point should be made, immediately, that a country’s foreign policy is, in effect, an extension of its domestic policy. The whole purpose of its pursuit is to have it redound to the national interest.
The aforementioned media release was issued, seemingly, from New York, where the President was attending the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. It sought to provide insights into much of what we should/can expect of the President in the realm of foreign policy in the period ahead, given what it described as “the country’s stature as a fast emerging economy.” Critically, the issuance of the missive in New York appeared to have been impelled by a line of reasoning that had to do with seizing the most propitious moment to maximize the global traction that would have derived from the backdrop of the ensuing UN General Assembly and the gathering of political personages and a broad swathe of global media there.
There was nothing wrong with that line of reasoning. Frankly, there could hardly have been a more opportune moment than what would have been the circumstance of the single largest gathering of world leaders and the international media to issue such a statement. The international community had previously gained some earlier insights into developments in Guyana arising out of the country’s major oil finds and the release was intended to, among other things, cause more external attention to accrue to Guyana, particularly in terms of the growing of pre-existing external investor interest which the country had already been attracting.
The release pointed to the President’s “packed week of activities” while in New York, which it said, had “resulted in him interacting with numerous Heads of Government and leaders of International Organizations.” Those engagements, it added, had been preceded by his attendance at “the three-day Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit” in Mexico and his involvement in “over a dozen fruitful bilateral meetings with leaders from the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Latin America as well as representatives from several international organizations.” It amounted to the typical strategic blowing of the national trumpet on an international stage where countries seeking to gain legitimate external attention indulge at what they believe to be propitious media moments. The President’s ‘handlers’ could hardly be blamed here. This, after all, was the setting of the United Nations General Assembly. The stage could hardly have been bigger.
It will be recalled that beyond the earlier bilateral flurry between President Ali and his Surinamese counterpart, President Santokhi, that had afforded opportunity to seek to determine whether their respective huge oil finds could pave the way for the setting aside of their countries’ long-standing boundary dispute in pursuit of more mutually beneficial bilateral pursuits, President Ali, had previously undertaken no really noteworthy foreign policy assignments. One felt, however, that given the implications of the country’s envisaged ‘oil economy’ for a magnified global interest in Guyana, it would only be a matter of time before he would have to take that ‘plunge.’ After all, Guyana, in the President’s own words, had become “an area of high focus” with the country now “playing on a different stage… getting a different level of attention.” The country, he had also said, was “having a lot of meetings and requests for bilaterals.” Here, President Ali appeared to be insinuating, if not stating directly, that Guyana had arrived at a juncture where the agenda of the Head of State had to be driven, in large measure, by a high-profile and robust foreign policy agenda. That is what his office and the national interest demanded. More than that, future assessments of the overall quality of his leadership are bound to be evaluated, overwhelmingly, against the backdrop of what that leadership would have lent to the nation’s hugely anticipated oil-driven national socio-economic transformation. What this means is that his presidency must be ‘programmed,’ to acknowledge and respond to the agenda of what are, in fact, inescapable foreign policy obligations.
The fact of the matter is that the extant circumstances dictate that President Ali has little choice but to be a ‘Foreign Policy President,’ since there has not ever been, previously, a period in the country’s history where domestic fortunes have been so inextricably linked to the success of its foreign policy pursuits, specifically the economic ones. It is the from the country’s new-found ‘oil wealth’ that would have to be the main driver behind President Ali’s foreign policy during his tenure in office. Accordingly, It is the timing of his occupancy of office rather than any optional choice that he has made that ‘saddles’ President Ali with the responsibility of being a Foreign Policy President.”
There are other issues to be considered here. It will be recalled that, previously, one of the highest points of Guyana’s international profile had to do with the period of the seventies and eighties when issues like Non Alignment, a New International Economic Order and the liberation struggle in South Africa dominated the global agenda. During those periods Guyana’s high foreign policy profile derived particularly from the stridency of its positions and the robustness of its contributions to the various high-profile contemplations on the international stage; and even if the end objectives of some of those pursuits remain unrealized Guyana, nonetheless, emerged with a global ‘badge of honour’ insofar as its positions as well as the stridency of its advocacy on issues related to the balance of power between rich and poor countries and the many other injustices and inequalities of the times.
What should be noted, here is that those halcyon days of Guyana’s high profile on the international stage coincided with what analysts have contended were the ‘better days’ of the country’s Foreign Ser-vice, a period during which our foreign policy agenda was matched by the requisite competencies in the Foreign Ministry/Foreign Service. These, it was argued, served to position the country to do justice to its foreign policy agenda.
Given that there can now be no question than that the quality of President Ali’s tenure will be assessed largely on the basis of the accomplishments of his foreign policy ‘returns,’ there is justifiable concern over what still appears to be a decided sketchiness in both the conceptualization and application of the economic diplomacy framework and its attendant agenda. That apart, legitimate and still largely unresolved issues persist in the matter of whether the substantive Foreign Service and the Foreign Ministry itself have benefitted from the requisite resource adjustments to fit the prevailing priorities of what is, these days, a considerably altered foreign policy agenda.
One makes this point acutely aware of the fact that it will be, at the end of the day, the ability of the Foreign Service to create the conditions that will enable the effective execution of the President’s foreign policy agenda, that will be key to the eventual outcomes.
Given the widespread oil and gas-related external attention which Guyana is receiving at this time the choice as to whether or not his presidency places great weight on a clearly sculpted foreign policy agenda, or otherwise, is not in the President’s hands. It is simply of what the timing and the circumstances of his occupancy of office has dictated. That said, there can be no question that overall evaluation of his tenure will be undertaken against the backdrop of his accomplishments of the foreign policy front. The two are inextricably linked.
