Dear Editor,
Last week Sonny Ramphal launched his autobiography, Glimpses of a Global life. Among Ramphal’s widely acknowledged skills are those of an outstanding negotiator. I had the privilege of discussing with Rashleigh Jackson the skills employed in a few of the negotiations mentioned in the book. In the course of that exchange, we also discussed the formidable skills of LFS Burnham in some of the events mentioned by Mr Ramphal. Mr Jackson is of course far too modest to make reference to his own contribution to those events save to highlight some relevant experiences and amusing parallels here and there. Burnham and his unacknowledged sponsor if not political mentor, Ramphal were both lawyers, a profession that has fostered many of the world’s outstanding negotiators.
On the other hand, Jackson is a mathematician by training, a discipline that is a key asset from the standpoint of strategy and logic, arenas in which he is matchless. In these three personalities we have an idea of just how unique and gifted were the members of the two to three generations preceding that which is currently involved as leaders and negotiators in the constitutional crisis.
In some of their successes I have had the opportunity to see these three former colleagues in action. On a global stage they are amongst the world’s best. And, I might add that negotiating was not at all their main skill. So, whenever I have the opportunity to lecture on negotiations, an opportunity that arose most recently in Sri Lanka, I rarely miss the chance to outline the Guyana experiences, in which LFSB, Ramphal and Jackson have been involved in one way or another – the Alcan bauxite nationalization, the first Lomé Convention, the election of Mohammed Shahabuddeen to the ICJ, and various regional and non-aligned negotiations.
There is a lot to be learned from the skills and approaches of our compatriots.
’What is in it for me‘ is an expression that very quickly comes to the fore in any negotiation and all potential negotiators need to be aware that it is the first question that the other side to a potential negotiation will ask themselves. In the course of one of our recent negotiations with the PPP, I reminded Messrs Ramotar and Luncheon that faced by comparable difficulties, Dr Jagan not only negotiated but gained from a recognition that the purpose of the negotiation was not simply to deny others any benefit from the negotiation. In responding, Mr Ramotar denied that Dr Jagan benefitted from say the 1976 negotiations. This position is not only untrue but implies that Dr Jagan was naive to the point of being stupid. In other words, it suggests that he made concessions and received nothing in return. Similarly Mr Burnham conceded things that the PPP had gained anyway. Time does not permit elaboration here. Suffice it for me to say that no-one who worked with these two Guyanese would, outside of negotiations, suggest that they were either stupid or without guile. Mr Ramotar and his current associates believe so however. They have a different approach to negotiations or rather not to negotiations but to resolving problems.
I have made that point to underscore two things. First, the difficulty facing those charged with negotiating with the PPP on constitutional and other matters such as Linden. Dr Jagan’s successors have a very peculiar notion of negotiation and it is aptly captured by Dr Luncheon’s comments about Mr Carberry not being his ’equal’. Carberry, was his counterpart during the Inter party dialogue overseen by Barbados Attorney General King that broke down over disagreement about PPP control of land distribution committees even in regions where the Opposition held a majority. This indecency continues up to now and is reflected in secret and extensive land grants and concessions to Indian nationals (such as Indian Conglomerate Ajeenkya DY Patil) and Trinidadian firms in the Canje Basin, an important wetland, without any reference to damage to the environment (EIA) or consideration of the wishes of local communities.
The PPP view is that they are dealing with political inferiors or election-losers rather than porte-parole. That is why, prior to any negotiation, the PPP embarks on a barrage of insults and abuse. It is unbelievable that anyone could believe that prior to the start of Anti Money Laundering negotiations in a Parliamentary setting where the PPP needs the support of the Opposition, the President can call the other side criminals and, anti-nationalist prior the Amaila negotiations or obstructive and threaten to not cooperate and even to prorogue the Assembly on the pretext that it is for the purposes of dialogue. The President has done every one of these things each of which is guaranteed to derail negotiations. He has apparently been surprised at the negative consequences.
Nowhere, have I ever encountered such a perverse approach to negotiations. Exceptionally for an economist, my own work experience has afforded me considerable and extensive exposure at the highest levels in the arena of negotiations in a variety of fora, Lome and Cotonou Conventions, WTO banana negotiations, Caribbean trade (EPA and Caribbean Canadian free trade talks), Guyana national public sector wage negotiations, some bilateral cooperation agreements (EAI and CBI), international debt negotiations and the like. In all that time I have never seen any negotiations approached in the manner preferred by the PPP regime.
A competent negotiator seeks to establish confidence in his/her good intentions in and outside of the negotiating room. No-one could do this with more flair than Mr Burnham or greater charm than Ramphal. Today Mr Rohee is fond of calling for good faith whenever the question of negotiation arises. In fact, the question of good faith arises because of the PPP’s failure to deliver on agreements. Their justification has been simply that they exercise state power by virtue of being declared winners of national elections. Messrs Jagdeo and Ramotar have broken every agreement concluded with Opposition under a range of very different leaders on the other side – Armstrong Agreement, Herdmanston Accord etc ….
Why do they do it? Actually, abuse is used to great effect by the PPP in domestic politics. From the case of the late Dr Desrey Fox, former Minister in the Ministry of Education to PNC turncoats all were mercilessly abused in a process intended to weaken them publicly, along with actions aimed at undermining their economic status. They were then offered places at the PPP table in return for abusing their former allies. In the process, the political credibility of these persons has actually been destroyed but the PPP is not in search of credible turncoats they seek to deny the turncoats‘ skills to the Opposition.
Outside of that peculiar Guyana setting, responsible and informed negotiators accept that a negotiation is only likely to be successful if there is scope for both sides to gain something of value to them and valued by them. That means that there is no point in closing the door on those goals from the very inception or in having such a bad reputation for non-implementation that your unwillingness to deliver is palpable and would threaten the status of the negotiated package among members on the other side. It also means that the Political Party in question and its supporters need to want what is being offered. The PPP cannot decide what is valuable to the APNU.
Having taken this long route to the matter, let me offer a few personal observations on the proposals emanating from various quarters as regards the ending of the current PPP prorogation of the National Assembly. I start with the question of approach. Dr Ashni Singh at the recent GCCI award ceremony tastelessly and not unexpectedly used the floor to embark on a campaign speech. He drew an analogy between Messrs Ramotar and Obama and their political situation. It was as absurd as the mid-1990s parallel which the PPP tried to draw between Dr Jagan and Mr Nelson Mandela. In the Obama case, I am not aware that President Obama had closed down or abolished the US Congress and Senate, however obstructive he feels them to be. Nor has the Guyana National Assembly tried to close down the entire Government operation and bureaucracy at any point. It is these falsehoods which underlie the Government’s approach to negotiations an approach which views it as an additional arena for mischievous PR and spin – an extra string to the bow of the cuss-out-and-mislead culture – rather than for achieving some element of common goals.
The PPP in the form of Mr Ramotar, closed down the Assembly on November 10th, an Assembly which together with the Presidency emerged from a General Election in 2011. If one element of that Parliament is illegitimate then so is the other. Both are the offspring of the same process and under the Constitution, the Presidency has no more or less legitimacy than the Assembly in which the President is an actor. It has to be acknowledged that Art 70(1) of the Constitution imprudently endows the President with the powers to prorogue the House. Unwise I say, because unlike the Crown and the Governors General from whom this article derives, the President could never be an honest broker in the Parliamentary system of Guyana because he is part of the affray, he is the leader and on the list of one of the Political Parties embroiled in the dispute. That is why Mr Ramotar could act to close the Assembly in order to silence it and stop it from exercising a legitimate power written into the constitution and one widely exercised in all Parliaments since 1782 when Lord North’s government was defeated in England.
AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan made the announcement in an address to his party’s delegates’ conference held at St. Stanislaus College auditorium, Brickdam. “On that score, then, hard decisions would have to be made and indeed the AFC is ready to enter, if necessary, into negotiations and to lead a pro-democracy alliance of progressive forces that is comprised of civic groups, workers’ unions, political forces- and by political forces here we are talking about even PPP members who have been disenchanted with the performance of the PPP thus far and even APNU,” he said to a loud round of applause.
Ramjattan has, in the past, maintained that his party would not coalesce with APNU, whose major constituent is the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) that had governed Guyana from 1964 to 1992. The AFC, which has been tapping into the traditional East Indian support-base of the governing PPPC, has in the past reasoned that it wanted to preserve its identity as an alternative to both major parties.
He sought to justify the shift towards engaging the APNU by arguing that there was need for collective patriotic action and cooperation of all Guyanese in undertaking the “herculean task” of voting out the ruling party. He said the time has come for a true government of national unity “one in which the politics of inclusion reigns over the politics of fear and division.” The AFC leader, however, stressed that the AFC wants to “lead” such a movement. He used the word “lead” at least four times in that context. “We have the capacity to lead such a pro-democracy alliance because we feel at this stage the reform nature of the Alliance For Change, its concepts on constitutional reform, governance issues and, of course, integrity in leaders that has emerged out of this party, it is so necessary that we lead in that process,” he said.
The question of negotiation skills will again be an issue if the initiative announced by AFC Leader, Ramjattan during the opening of his party’s delegates’ conference on Saturday is to materialize and bear fruit. At first blush many readers would see nothing new in this announcement for the APNU said the same thing during the course of its launch in 2011 and has been calling for a coalition with the AFC. A bait which the AFC leadership has not bitten. Indeed, in the recent past the AFC faced with the prospect of helping the APNU to bring down the PPP Government declined or baulked at the opportunity. They probably did so in the mistaken belief that the PPP regime wanted to see a better Guyana and could be persuaded to accept outside inputs which could help in the process needed to restore the administration and the behaviour of its members to some acceptable standards and levels of decency as regards corruption and abuse of executive power. They are now wiser. The story peddled in the corridors of Ramotar wanting to effect change but being prevented by his predecessor’s henchmen is just that, a story. The PPP leadership of Mr Ramotar is quite comfortable with the level of corruption and abuse of power, thank you!
Whatever the reason, the AFC has thrown out an initiative. The AFC has now adopted a position the majority of the electorate has been willing to embrace for at least six months now. Many have publicly criticized the leaders of both parties for their inability or unwillingness to pursue that path. But the AFC now seems to have arrived at that juncture. I would not have used the language employed by Mr Ramjattan and doubtless that could prejudice some attitudes to the initiative. I do not believe that the APNU leadership and those eligible PPP members should pay too much attention to style. The practice in negotiations is for the first offer to reflect a maximum position, the best possible outcome for the proposer. Other leaders while not ignoring the positions should give thought to their own positions and try to identify what can be common ground in the proposals.
The skills required of such an exercise should not however be under-estimated. The Opposition leadership will be put to the test to demonstrate that they have the very negotiating skills which the PPP demonstrably lacks.
Yours faithfully,
Carl Greenidge
