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Guyana’s foreign policy is in a mess – Aubrey Norton
“You gain the impression that it is a disorganized set of people whose only interest is what they can benefit personally, but not what the society can benefit. And so it is evident that in the area of foreign policy, this Government is lacking.”
Guyana has no coherent foreign policy, with Government seemingly incapable of identifying major interests and developing foreign policy approaches that speak to those interests that would benefit the country.
Aubrey Norton
This is the opinion of Aubrey Norton, former People’s National Congress Reform Parliamentarian, who unequivocally asserts that “the current administration does not understand foreign policy…in simple language; the country’s foreign policy is in a mess”.
Norton, who served many years in the country’s Foreign Service and has a working knowledge of the international arena, related that “Guyana has a reactive foreign policy and has been all over the place in terms of foreign policy. There is no clear articulation of what Guyana’s interests are and the country’s course of action to pursue those interests”.
“It started with a New Global Human Order that has disappeared, and then we moved to a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), which to me at this point is a tragedy.”
Lamenting on the LCDS, which was developed by the Bharrat Jagdeo regime and is being continued by President Donald Ramotar, Norton said Guyana is a signatory to the Biodiversity Convention and stands to benefit, but there is no evidence that Government has developed an approach that permits the country to benefit from its biodiversity.
“There is this issue in the biodiversity debate about countries like Guyana benefiting from biodiversity…Nothing has been done…We have the tendency of putting our eggs in one basket – the LCDS – and that’s it,” he said.
Norton is of the view that there is a multiplicity of areas emerging that should be addressed, and pointed to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). He recalled that there was “a lot of noise” about the EPA. He questioned whether Government is seeking to put the modalities in place to benefit from what the EPA has to offer, regardless of how little it is.
He said that foreign policy has an element called concentricism or a concentric circle, and a country like Guyana needs to look at its immediate borders – Venezuela, Suriname, and Brazil – and articulate foreign policy to protect its interest in that context and to ensure that it benefits.
“One time we are with UNASUR, next time it is with CARICOM, and we are all over…One time the former president said no road to Brazil, it is not economical… now you are hearing about a road to Brazil,” Norton reflected.
“You gain the impression that it is a disorganized set of people, whose only interest is what they can benefit personally, but not what the society can benefit. And so it is evident that in the area of foreign policy, this Government is lacking.”
Another area that Norton touched on was the operations of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. He said Guyana cannot produce diplomats by keeping Foreign Service Officers at home.
Norton suggested that the Ministry has to have a structured approach by which young Foreign Service Officers are exposed to the diplomatic corps, allowing them to develop skills and relationships to create the linkages beneficial to Guyana.
Emphasizing his belief that Government does not understand foreign policy, he explained that technical officers are required to the work, so when the Minister and President arrive whatever documents emerge are technically sound and would just be getting the endorsement.
“What we have here appears to be a Minister running around as if competent in the area, and there is no evidence that there is the institutional support to give to the foreign policy. So, in my opinion, we are in a foreign policy mess; that is the simple language you can put it in,” Norton concluded.
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