Sir Shridath receives Belize’s highest national honour
Stabroek News
June 1, 2003
Guyanese Sir Shridath Ramphal has received Belize’s highest national honour, the Order of Belize, for “service to Belize, the Caribbean, the developing world and the international community generally.”
Over the last two years, Sir Shridath has served as Belize’s facilitator in a pro-cess structured by the Organisation of American States (OAS) for ending the century-old dispute with Guatemala, a release from Sir Shridath’s office said.
The only previous recipients of the award have been Belize’s first Prime Minister, George Price, former President Salinas of Mexico and President Fidel Castro of Cuba, the release noted.
In accepting the award before 600 scholars from all over the world at the 28th Caribbean Studies Conference in Belize City on May 26, Sir Shridath recalled the struggle of Belize and the Caribbean, and called on the Region to continue to “stand-up and be counted,” the release stated.
It also quoted him as saying, “The architecture of peace in our time may have to be developed by a coalition of the many who are right, though they are separately weak; not by the few who are wrong, although they are singularly strong.”
Sir Shridath is a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and is at present Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.
As Foreign Minister and Attorney-General of Guyana, the release noted, he had championed international support at the United Nations and in Commonwealth and Non-aligned conferences for Belize’s right to freedom as a sovereign state with its territorial integrity assured.
And he continued to advance that cause as Commonwealth Secretary-General.
Sir Shridath continued to serve Belize, as part of the wider Caribbean when he was the Region’s Chief Negotiator in the Regional Negotiating Machinery that was tasked with stewardship of the Caribbean’s trade negotiations with the European Union and in the World Trade Organisation and the Free Trade of the Americas processes, the release stated.
