Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs Amanza Walton-Desir on Tuesday questioned the lack of sustained effort by the government to keep Venezuela’s illegal claim to Essequibo in the forefront of all international interactions and suggested the establishment of a Foreign Relations Council.
She was speaking in Parliament during the debate on the 2024 budget.
“The maintenance and preservation of Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is the foremost national interest and must be the number one objective of our foreign policy. I am not convinced that the Government is persuaded of this fact… because if they were Mr. Speaker, from 2020, and concurrently with the ICJ (International Court of Justice) proceedings, there would have been a sustained effort to keep the matter of Venezuela’s spurious claim in the forefront of all of our interactions, it would have pervaded the speeches and statements made by Guyana at every international forum at which we were given the opportunity to speak and we would be actively building alliances with groupings and States that could lend support in the international legal order. Instead, what we have seen is a `just in time’, `for the moment attitude’ that has come to characterise our foreign policy interactions. This must end!” the Member of Parliament (MP) declared.