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Sep 05, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News – One of the biggest diplomatic failures ever was the Middle Eastern diplomacy undertaken by former President, Bharrat Jagdeo, in 2009 and 2010. Those missions, which were intended to eye-up sources of investment for Guyana, brought little to no benefits to Guyana.
Jagdeo’s much publicised Middle Eastern diplomacy was a diplomatic disaster. More than 10 years after, Guyana is still awaiting the investment dollars, including from the sovereign wealth funds of some of those States.
Jagdeo woke up one day and discovered that the oil-rich countries of the Middle East had huge sovereign wealth funds. These funds were accumulated because of the oil wealth in these countries. Guyana thought that perhaps it could have some of these funds invested here. However, invested in what?
Guyana went to the Middle East without any concrete proposals, hoping to have some of these oil-rich countries empty a portion of their sovereign funds here. It was always going to be a pipe dream.
It was naïve on the part of Jagdeo to pursue such an adventurous course of action. He was clearly demonstrating a form of political adolescence in believing that somehow Guyana could tap investments from those oil-rich countries’ Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Never before in the history of Guyana has a visiting Head of State made such widespread contacts within the Middle East, touting assistance and investments, and come back as empty-handed as Jagdeo did.
Guyana got absolutely nothing substantial from Jagdeo’s Middle Eastern diplomacy. There were, of course, the usual promises from countries about investing in Guyana. But nothing ever came of those promises. Nor did anything significant materialise out of a visit to the region of a top Kuwait official. The Kuwaitis came and signed a few agreements that would have protected their investors from double taxation and other things, but there has been no flood of investors, 10 years onwards.
A diplomatic mission was established in Kuwait. Guyana has benefited little from its presence there. The failure had nothing to do with the quality of the diplomats posted there but rather with the fact that Guyana does not feature prominently, either politically or economically, on those countries’ priorities.
Middle Eastern countries have historically shunned Guyana, except during the socialist period when the Libyans poured resources into internationalising Gaddafi’s Green Book. They established a presence here and had made some minor investments in agriculture.
Middle Eastern countries have no interest in investing in Guyana. Middle Eastern countries do not need sources of investment. It is not as if those countries have a shortage of investment options.
Middle Eastern countries will come here and promise all kinds of investments. But what some of them are really interested in is selling the country vaccines for which they have marketing rights.
Jagdeo has always lacked the diplomatic finesse needed to make significant political or economic breakthroughs with other countries. Nor was he ever able to muster the diplomatic skills to develop a follow through on plans to ensure that the original contacts and openings he made were exploited. He has no major foreign policy achievements to show, none whatsoever.
He failed to adumbrate a Middle Eastern diplomatic initiative following his visits. And it was clear that his idea of diplomacy is the usual one-man show. Unfortunately, the world of diplomacy no longer revolves around personalities but instead around processes and this was completely at odds with the approach adopted by Jagdeo.
It was all part of the failure of the PPP/C administrations to appreciate what constitutes effective diplomacy.
Guyana is now once again seeking close ties with Middle Eastern states. But without the right diplomatic strategy and skills, that too will become another diplomatic disappointment. Where Jagdeo failed, Ali is going to flop.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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