PRESERVING OUR HISTORIC MEMORY

Feb 21, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

I have once again been embarrassed by my country. A Minister within the Foreign Ministry of Canada was in Guyana and when he turned up at State House to meet with our President, he along with his delegation was seated but there was no visible presence of any other Guyanese to keep the delegation’s company until the President arrived. We are messing up with simple diplomatic protocols in this country and in the process making Guyana look bad.

There was no other country to which a Foreign Minister of Guyana would be paying a visit, not just the President, and local dignitary and high-level protocols officers would not have been seated with the team. I have no doubt that there may have been emissaries from the local Foreign Ministry to greet the Canadian Minister and his team when they arrived.  But there also ought to have been escorts to be with the team until the person they came to meet would have been arrived.

Guyana has to understand that it will be frowned upon, if it does not ensure high standards of diplomatic protocol. And Guyana has to understand, also, the importance of recording notes of these meetings. This is an established practice in almost all countries. Yet Guyana seems to be operating in the Stone Age with the President of the country meeting important representatives of foreign states without a note-keeper.

The government must understand that in its meetings with the representatives of foreign governments there must be an official record of the meeting. Otherwise what happens to our historical records and our institutional memory? Surely no proper functioning government should leave the record of bilateral meetings strictly to the recollection of individuals.

The Foreign Ministry, any succeeding Foreign Minister,  any succeeding government, the respective desk officers and others all need to have a record of what took place so that they can better understand the thrust and direction of the foreign relations between states. How can our diplomats function where there are no briefing papers about what was discussed? Surely the Minister of State within the Foreign Ministry of Canada was simply not paying a courtesy call on the President.

He was here on behalf of the interests of his country and Guyana needs a record of what was discussed since these notes form an important part of the relationship between countries and in fact can be used to determine whether a country has been acting hostilely to another.

There is such a concept as diplomatic belligerence and often the first salvo in any aggression is made through diplomatic notes and meetings between officials of States.

The Canadian Government must have had important concerns to pursue and this is why they dispatched such a senior government official to Guyana. These concerns must have gone beyond Canada’s negotiating position in respect to the forthcoming Summit of the Americas.

And yet we do not know whether a record of the official’s meeting with the President was kept. It is surprising and disgusting that the PPP government should find itself in such a situation.

After all, this is the party of Cheddi Jagan who was himself very much interested in detailed note-taking and who during his earlier administrations always ensured that there were records of important meetings, something which the British emphasised within their colonies and which is still very much practised in England today.

The constitution of Guyana spells out the format of statutory consultations.  There is a requirement that notes of the consultation be held. Yet a short while ago, the opposition leader was called to a meeting and certain matters were discussed and this was deemed by the government to be formal consultations. It was clearly not so since there is a fixed procedure which has to be followed.

And there is a reason why our constitutional drafters sought to include these procedures in our constitution.
The reason was to give seriousness and meaningfulness to consultations which are required under our constitution. The onus is on the government to ensure the keeping of this record but I have noticed that the leader of the opposition has always set a fine example by having a senior party official accompany him and take notes during such consultations.

Why if the leader of the opposition can do this in respect to formal consultations, why if a party in opposition- and likely to be in opposition for the next seven years- can see the wisdom in keeping records of important meetings, can the government not appreciate the process by which a country’s diplomatic history is preserved?