The continuous failures of a President

Jan 25, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Any university freshman whose major is International Relations would know that the Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffy could not be telling the truth if he did say to President Jagdeo that he could not cancel US$41M owed to his country by Guyana because to do that would incite other countries to ask for the same treatment.

If Mr. Gadaffy did proffer that explanation, he is lying. If he did not utter that excuse and it was Mr. Jagdeo’s way of putting it, then Mr. Jagdeo has embarrassed himself. No country’s bilateral relations will ever be determined by what other nations think. Bilateral relations are not made of such childish things.

A country’s friendship with other territories in the global community is based on national interests. Jamaica cannot demand the same aid Trinidad gives to Guyana and Guyana cannot request the same generosity the US extends to Jamaica. Bilateral relations are very personal aspects of foreign policy.

For example, under Eric Williams, Trinidad was very kind to Guyana. Williams allowed President Burnham to borrow incessantly from Caricom’s Multilateral Clearing Facility until it was depleted because Williams and Burnham enjoyed a close relationship.

In 1980, the American Ambassador to Guyana announced that per capita, Guyana was the largest recipient of US aid other than Israel. This was a Cold War decision by the US to help Burnham keep Jagan out.

It is unadulterated nonsense for Gadaffy to tell Mr. Jagdeo that he cannot cancel the debt because Libya’s friends would expect the same concessions. Libya is an oil rich country that helps many poor African nations. Its aid package is large and by that standard US$41 million is an absurdity. In the oil rich states of the Middle East, US$41M is monopoly money.

Libya just paid out billions (yes billions of US dollars) as compensation to the Lockerbie victims as part of its pleas to reestablish relations with the West. Libya has no interests in Guyana and probably that is why Mr. Jagdeo was turned down. Maybe, just maybe, a trade delegation would come (though I doubt it) and that would be just for protocol sake.

The Middle East trip by Mr. Jagdeo was a disaster. Why Libya? Mr. Gadaffy is one of politics misfits. He is a whimsical, fickle fellow who over the decades has not achieved respect in the world, respect that he craves.

One would like to believe that given his penchant for giving away huge sums of oil money over the past thirty-five years, maybe the Guyana Government thought it could have tapped into his capriciousness.
And what about Qatar! What an embarrassment.

How could a foreign leader set out to visit a country and while he is in the vicinity, the nation’s leader asks that he postpones his trip. Greece remains a mystery. This is a heavily indebted country that is reeling from billions of dollars in debt chalked up from the Olympics.

Greece’s Olympics was the most expensive of them all until the one in China last year. Atlanta spent half the amount Greece used up for its game. Would Mr. Jagdeo be kind enough to tell us what he expects from Greece? (Perhaps tons of olive oil in exchange for rum would not be bad. Guyanese need to eat less oily foods and use more olive oil; Greece has much of that and they love to sport so some good El Dorado should work)

Mr. Jagdeo’s balance sheet is becoming convoluted and corrugated with each passing day. One is forced to ask the question of how much Mr. Jagdeo has achieved since 1999. The sugar industry is going to be Mr. Jagdeo’s nemesis if it isn’t that already.

It doesn’t look like 2008 was good in terms of growth rates. The 2009 horizon is already looking lugubrious with a biting global crisis which together with the losses from the January floods may provide the knockout punch.

Blackouts are going to create nightmares from February. The huge numbers of hotels that went up from World Cup Cricket are empty, pointing to the stagnation of the tourist industry. The bright spot is the supersonic construction industry but that too is killing Mr. Jagdeo’s optimism.

Commercial businesses are reproducing like mosquitoes but they are selling the same things. The retail trade has reached saturation point.

Against this massive portrait of collapse, I believe the Jagdeo presidency is going to look for a monumental distraction. I believe I know what it is but I do not think I should express it in public. I think most Guyanese know what it will be. You are seeing all the signs of it by the increasing authoritarian drives of this Government.
A Greek tragedy is about to unfold.