The President embarrassed himself

Jul 05, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The President took to social and television media to answer a question that is supposed to have been tabled in the National Assembly. While he did not provide details about the question, it presumably pertains to the country’s foreign policy.

It is the not the duty of the President to publicly answer a question that was not asked of him – he is not a member of the National Assembly. And it is outside of protocol for a question posed in the National Assembly to be first answered outside of the Assembly’s Chambers.

But as the President explained, he likes to speak directly to the public. And this he did. He would have been better advised not to say anything at all because what he reveled about his own understanding of foreign policy is quite embarrassing.

The President launched a long diatribe about the benefits of his overseas travels and about the achievements of the country’s foreign policy. But the more the President spoke the more it became clear that he really has a limited grasp of foreign policy.

He is not the first and will not be the last to assert that Guyana is pursuing economic diplomacy. The PPPC has long claimed that this was a principal thrust of its foreign policy. The APNU+AFC did the same. But none of them have clearly defined economic diplomacy.

All diplomacy is about economics, politics and security.  A country’s diplomacy is about protecting and promoting its national interest, and that interest has always had an economic aspect, a political element and a security dimension.

Economic diplomacy is concerned with securing and protecting markets and defending vital economic interests. Unfortunately, when our local politicians speak about economic diplomacy they reduce this to attracting investments and marketing the country’s goods and services internationally. This is not the work of diplomats. They are not trained for such work.

Diplomats can and should be asked to sign major economic cooperation and trade agreements, involve themselves in trade and other economic negotiations and organize economic conferences. But it is not their role to be salespersons, to pave the way for the government to secure loans or seek investments. This role is better left to politicians and the private sector.

Diplomacy and foreign policy are not interchangeable concepts. Diplomacy is the means through which a country’s foreign policy objectives are pursued and attained. Regrettably our political leaders have such a poor understanding of foreign policy that they see economic diplomacy as a foreign policy objective rather than the means towards that objective.

The President should never have broadcast that recent address on the country’s foreign policy because it was unexceptional at best. He failed to clearly define the country’s foreign policy objectives, and was prepared to merely list some of the benefits which he claimed resulted from his foreign trips.

The Irfaan Ali administration is guilty of not clearing defining the country’s foreign policy objectives. It was unpardonable that in almost 25-minutes diatribe, the President did not mention what has long been deemed the country’s primary foreign policy objective: defending the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Guyana.

The President is clearly at sea when it comes to articulating the country’s foreign policy. And this is why he should be seeking advice and ensure he is properly prepared before speaking on such subjects.

It will soon be three years since the government is in office. To date there has been no reports of the President addressing a Heads of Mission Conference. It is not even clear whether such a conference has ever been organized so as guide the work of our foreign diplomats.

The government has neglected the Foreign Service. It has failed to make key diplomatic appointments. There is no ambassador to the largest state in South America, Brazil. There is no ambassador to Venezuela, with which Guyana has a territorial conflict. A number of other missions are without Ambassadors and High Commissioners. The High Commissioner to India has been recalled for months now and yet, to date, there has been no appointment.

When the APNU+AFC created the post of Foreign Secretary, the PPPC was highly critical of it. Jagdeo questioned the role of the Minister in light of this appointment.  But the PPPC has gone and done the same. It has appointed its own Foreign Secretary.

The President needs to speak on issues under advisement. He should never have embarrassed himself in that way by using his Presidential prerogative to speak about a topic for which he was ill-prepared.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Chambers, foreign, National Assembl, Peeping Tom, policy

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