WATCH THEM, UNCLE DONALD!

Jul 15, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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It was not Cheddi Jagan who was the architect of the neglect of Guyana’s foreign relations that eventually led to the embarrassment of the past week.
Cheddi Jagan came to power with the treasury operating, relative to the demands on resources, on a show-string Budget. It was only natural given the situation in the country that he would have to cut wasteful expenditure and redirect others to more needy areas.
As such, it was inevitable that the Budget of the foreign ministry would have been seriously cut, since the country at the time could not have afforded such disproportionate spending on the Foreign Service when there were far more pressing needs internally.
Cheddi’s cut of that budget by close to five hundred million dollars may have affected certain functions of the country’s Foreign Service, but it did not amount to a neglect of Guyana’s foreign relations. Guyana continued to use its limited resources to great advantage. It had the distinction of bringing together the donor community in a major initiative to raise funds for the reconstruction of the economy.
A number of measures were also implemented to deal with the shortfall in resources allotted to the foreign ministry. Far smaller delegations went on official trips and the government terminated the contracts – much to the displeasure of the elitist elements within the opposition – of many foreign diplomats who had served under the former regime. These measures allowed for substantial savings without severely affecting the country’s ability to pursue foreign relations.
The neglect of the Foreign Service did not begin with the policies of Cheddi Jagan. The neglect occurred much later, when meritocracy was sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
The decay got worse when the foreign objectives of the country were distorted in attempts to create a personality cult, and in a desperate need later to secure bilateral investments from parts of the world that any intern in the Foreign Service could have advised had no interest in this part of the world.
Today, overseas missions are being lectured in the language of clichés. This is because a substantive, well-thought out and coherent foreign policy cannot be articulated. As such the external missions are being reminded that the country’s foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy.
Foreign policy is indeed an extension of domestic policy; but not every domestic policy should become part of a country’s foreign policy.
During the just concluded Heads of Government Conference of the Caribbean Community, Guyana found out how not true this was. It also discovered how dangerous it is to allow aspects of its domestic policy to become part of its foreign policy.
Domestically, there is a conflict between the local cricketing authorities and the government. The government has unfortunately extended this conflict into its foreign policy by being critical of aspects of the work of the West Indies Cricket Board.
Even before the Heads of Government Conference got underway, at least two ministers of the government had condemned the decision of the West Indies Cricket Board in agreeing to host two matches in the present series between the West Indies and New Zealand, in Florida.
These criticisms formed part of the ongoing conflict involving local cricketing officials and the government. These criticisms were ill-informed, because if those making the criticisms had done their homework they would have understood the strategic position that was being adopted in courting American participation in cricket. If they had been following developments in cricket they would have also known that this very strategy was endorsed by the Patterson Report which was commissioned to make recommendations on the future of cricket.
It was therefore unfortunate that the President of Guyana was placed in such an embarrassing situation, in which on the one hand he was calling for the recommendations of the Patterson Report to be implemented in full, while on the other hand he was condemning the hosting of cricket matches outside of the Caribbean, citing the huge investments that had been made in building stadiums.
If the President’s advisers had done their homework they would have known that the Patterson Report itself had called for an outreach to North America, and therefore, the hosting of matches in Florida were consistent with the Patterson Report.
Our President was made to look ill-advised and this is something that would never have happened had his administration not continued with that misguided decision to interfere in the internal affairs of cricket.
It is precisely because the Donald Ramotar administration failed to de-link itself from this ill-advised course of action that the President ended up in such an embarrassing situation.
Let us hope that he learns his lesson and begins the process of reconstructing the Foreign Service and ensuring that his government is circumspect about the policies it inherited from his predecessor.

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