Diplomatic capabilities
Whatever comes out of the negotiations in Jamaica, the Government surely now has come to a point where it must acknowledge that our diplomatic capabilities are in need of invigoration. Perhaps the PPP/Civic is discovering what the PNC also eventually discovered when it was in office, and that is that breaking structures down is easy enough, but building institutions back up again takes time, effort, resources and above all else, expertise. In the diplomatic arena various unfortunate decisions have been made over the past seven years or so, and retrieving the situation cannot be achieved overnight. The first problem of course, is the break in continuity - a break in the goals of foreign policy, as well as in the means to achieve those goals. There has even been a 'break' in the personnel employed in the implementation of those means. Securing the frontiers, and finding solutions to the problems generated by the claims being preferred by our neighbours, has taken a back seat to economic recovery in the past few years. What has now been demonstrated is that economic development is likely to be sabotaged if our border situation is not stabilized in the short term, and if solutions are not found to the controversy in the west and the dispute in the east over the long term. In other words, we have to revert to an earlier orientation when the centrepiece of our foreign policy was the matter of Guyana's territorial integrity. Keeping the border situation on an even keel means evolving far more coherent diplomatic strategies than have been in evidence in recent times. It requires a system of alliances with those who can help us, what Sir Shridath Ramphal the week before last called an "activist" approach in the international arena, and a far less capricious modus operandi when dealing with our oldest friends - the Caribbean community. One cannot turn against Caricom at one moment, and then demand total backing when it suits one at another. If the present administration was a tad sceptical in its earliest days about what the regional community could really do for Guyana, it is surely finding out the answer now. Building friendships and alliances is a cumulative, process. Speaking at the Foreign Service Institute a week and a half ago, Sir Shridath Ramphal told his audience: "It shouldn't be a case of Guyana being heard for the first time when it's in trouble, because at that time there wouldn't be any friends. It must be Guyana calling on its friends to stand by it in times of trouble." There also needs to be some continuity of personnel, because the kind of evacuation which occurred at all levels in the foreign service after 1992 caused a hiatus in policy and in the implementation of that policy, for which we are paying the price now. None of our neighbours has ever made that mistake. They all recognize that there simply is no substitute still for experience in the diplomatic field. Writing in 1822 of the death of British Foreign Secretary Castlereagh, the Austrian Chancellor Metternich was to say: "An intelligent man can make up the lack of everything except experience. Castlereagh was the only man in his country who had experience in foreign affairs. He had learned to understand me. Now several years will have to elapse until somebody else acquires a similar degree of confidence." (It was Castlereagh and Metternich who devised the system which gave Europe many decades of peace in the nineteenth century.) A diplomat's job is not something that anyone can do; it requires a particular combination of talents. Similarly in the case of a negotiator. One can only hope that the utilization of the skills of Mr Rashleigh Jackson and Dr Barton Scotland in the recent negotiations with Suriname, signal a return to greater professionalism in the conduct of diplomacy.
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