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Feb 02, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
President Bharrat Jagdeo, in defending his disastrous faux paus on Iranian soil, justified it within the context of Guyana’s independent foreign policy.
Then Dr. Randy Persaud (who strenuously refuses to identify his designation within the Office of the President; so much for transparency) wrote a letter to KN (Feb 1) restated the President’s assertion.
In so doing, Dr. Persaud not only made a colossal contradiction but went on to undermine the very purpose he set out on – to defend his President.
Before we deal with Persaud’s dilemma, a word about foreign policy. On the very first day the professor of international relations steps into the classroom, his utterances on foreign policy is that it is the outcome of national attributes. A country’s foreign policy is the result of what it has as a nation.
If it is huge, with a large population, wealthy and backed by military greatness, its foreign policy will differ significantly from a middle-level power or small state struggling to develop as a nation.
The examples are literally countless. Take the Maldives Islands. Its economy is bound up with India. It depends on Indian markets.
The same can be said of our neighbour, Barbados. Regarded as one of the centers of western leisure culture, Barbados is a tiny island with nothing going for it in terms of manufacture and/or industrialisation.
Its major source of income is tourism from those areas of the world where western civilisation with its attendant values and culture prevail.
A Bajan foreign policy that moves away from relations with countries with that particular mainstream is courting huge disasters. Barbados has also developed a plausible financial services sector linked to the capitalist countries of Europe and North America.
It is unthinkable that Bajan leadership would want to be seen running all over the Middle East making criticisms of the US similar to those President Jagdeo echoed in Iran in the presence of Iranian leaders.
In terms of micro-states and poverty stricken territories, foreign policy means nothing. Such countries hardly have a foreign policy. In the harsh post-Cold War world of diminishing economic returns, poverty stricken states cannot afford the luxury of an independent foreign policy.
If they do have one it is more for reasons of bravado than realpolitik.
Guyana stands out as an egregious example of that bravado. Since when a country without an independent economy, could have an independent foreign policy? What is Guyana? It was listed as belonging to a group of the poorest eleven countries in the world when the G7 gave it HPIC terms in writing off its multilateral debts five years ago. Now enter the theory of Dr. Randy Persaud.
Let’s quote Dr. Persaud; “Let’s get something straight. Guyana is a sovereign state and it has the right to pursue an independent foreign policy. That foreign policy should be and is indeed geared towards THE NATONAL INTERST (emphasis mine) of this country.” This is what I mean by bravado.
Dr. Persaud’s statement is not only misplaced chauvinism but it is a massive contradiction in how foreign policy is made with regards to Guyana. If foreign policy is geared towards THE NATIONAL INTEREST then both Mr. Jagdeo and Persaud need to learn more about Guyana’s NATIONAL INTEREST.
Before I touch on that just a quick note – Guyana may be a sovereign state but that sovereignty has been seriously curtailed by Guyana’s acceptance of the structural adjustment programme which gives the IMF and World Bank a critical role in the shape of our economy.
So what is our NATIONAL INTEREST? Our trade is intricately bound up with the West. Our Diaspora is located in the West. Our multilateral aid programme comes from the West. Isn’t that our NATIONAL INTEREST?
Why jeopardise that for solidarity with regions that will never match the generosity of the West and regions that really don’t give a damn about Guyana.
Isn’t our NATIONAL INTERST bound up with freeing up our debt obligations?
The West gave us sweeping debt relief. President Jagdeo failed to get Kuwait to cancel US$50M we have for them. Now US$50M is to the Kuwaitis what $5000 Guyanese is to Banks DIH, DDL or the Beharry Group of Companies.
If there is anything President Jagdeo should learn from his recent Middle East trip, which in my opinion was a failure, is that indeed foreign policy is bound up with NATIONAL INTEREST. But does President Jagdeo know what Guyana’s NATONAL INTERST is?
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