The
recent overture by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to invoke the ghost of
the border dispute with Guyana, which was laid to rest in 1899 with a United
Nations Arbitration Award, where Venezuela was one of the mail pallbearers, is
symptomatic of how far Guyana’s profile in the international sphere has slid
over the past few decades.
Some
elements opposed to this view might argue that this is not the case, but in
international relations, perception is reality. Simply put, governments make decisions
based on perceptions, even if they are proved wrong later. Venezuela took
advantage of the weakness of Guyana’s position as a mere follower in global
initiatives instead of a leader as in the days of the Non-Aligned Movement and
the early days of CARICOM.
While
on the surface it might seem that President Maduro’s dangerous gamble is just
intended to rejuvenate the disgruntled masses in Venezuela for political gain,
a clear message must be sent to the neighbouring republic, that Guyanese will
solicit international, but more particularly, western military might to ensure
that every drop of Exxon-extracted oil off-shore Guyana, remains in Guyana’s
hands.
There
can be no doubt that Venezuela’s recent decree extending its territorial claim
to effectively make Guyana landlocked, was done in the context of testing the
military psychology of President David Granger because of his military
background. Venezuela now sees an opportunity to draw international attention
by playing chicken with Brigadier Granger. No matter how it goes down, Guyana
should not blink first.
As
a matter of national priority, Guyana should, without delay, launch a global
diplomatic offence with President Granger; Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and
Foreign Minister Carl Greenidge, meeting the international media overseas and
trying to build global awareness of Venezuela’s threat to Guyana’s territorial
integrity. The time is opportune to establish a coalition of nations prepared
to sign a multilateral treaty with Guyana guaranteeing its protection, just
like the arrangement between the United States and Israel.
Re-establishing
Guyana’s lost influence in the international sphere can only be achieved with
the complete restructuring and refocusing of Guyana’s foreign policy in keeping
with 2015 realities, and an increasingly globalized world. The first order of
business must be to identify and determine what Guyana’s foreign policy is;
what the foreign policy objectives are and how these can be achieved. In my
mind, any strategic foreign policy has to be based on common interest and not automatic
alignment.
It
is time to re-open Guyana’s foreign missions that were closed post-1992 if,
after careful analysis, the current realities dictate that that course of action
be taken. Additionally, the culture of appointing party comrades as Heads of
Missions must cease, despite which party comes to power. Guyana needs to rebuild
its Foreign Service and identify a pool of front-line ambassadors who can head
missions because they are career public servants and skilled negotiators.
While
the focus of Guyana’s overseas missions should be to represent the interests of
Guyanese living abroad, its other main function is that of facilitating visits of
foreign investors who are interested in participating in Guyana’s huge economic
potential. As a consequence of the aforementioned, all missions should have
vibrant and well-funded economic and public affairs divisions, not to act as
reactive diplomats, but to proactively promote investment opportunities in
Guyana. The duties of the economic and public affairs corps would be to
organize major foreign direct investment conferences in places like Toronto,
New York, Berlin, Belgium, London and other major cities around the world, to
introduce the holders of investment capital to a sleeping giant in South America.
On
the local scene, with the country’s vast landmass and natural resources,
opportunities also exist for Guyana to play a leading role in education, while
reaping substantial revenues in the process. A major initiative, if implemented
properly, would be to partner with North American universities for students pursuing
certain programs, to complete their first two years at the University of Guyana.
With Guyana’s rich flora and fauna and untapped natural habitats, forestry, environmental
studies and agricultural sciences students would be in a much better position to
conduct lab work in a real environment and test their experiments in real time.
This
education diplomacy suggestion not might seem practical at this point in time
because of the University of Guyana’s own dire need of major restructuring and massive
injections of infrastructure and human resources, but it will be cheaper for
some foreign students to live and study in Guyana, just as Grenada and some
other Caribbean nations have been successfully doing for years.
Meanwhile,
across the border, it is only when Guyana rapidly expands its international influence
and raises its global and regional profile, that Venezuela will take a more
guarded approach to its spate of aggressions against Guyana.
1 comment:
Very informative blog. keep up the good work.
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