The government yesterday said that outgoing UK High Commissioner Andrew Ayre should be considered a “pariah” over his recent statements that the suspension of Parliament here was a violation of the Commonwealth Charter and sanctions by London could be in the pipeline.
In his attack on Ayre yesterday, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon also signalled that the European Union (EU) had reneged on an agreement with Guyana on budgetary support.
GINA said that during a post-Cabinet media briefing yesterday, Luncheon said that there seemed to be something about Western envoys who are about to depart this country that encourages them to comment on government’s affairs or as he described it “feats of folly”. This was a reference to Ayre and former US Ambassador to Guyana Brent Hardt. The latter was given what Luncheon would later famously describe as a `feral blast’ by Education Minister Priya Manickchand after he made pointed statements about the absence of local government elections.
Referring to Ayre, the Cabinet Secretary noted that the official who has served for three years, took the opportunity to be “unusually remembered” by government, further describing him as “terribly dishonourable” for attempting to depict President Donald Ramotar’s actions as a constitutional crime. He added, GINA said, that the High Commissioner also attempted to portray the prorogation action as one worthy of Commonwealth sanctions, and one that could result in the withdrawal of developmental aid.
Luncheon further that the UK High Commissioner, “sinisterly and conspiratorially” revealed the European Union’s and the UK’s handiwork in the “recent EU dishonouring” of its agreement with the Guyana Government on budgetary support.
“His attempts to damage Guyana’s credibility and its economic prospects are considered by cabinet to be unpardonable”, Luncheon railed.
He added that since such concerns, are usually shared bilaterally, the High Commissioner’s actions needed to be condemned as they are, “unacceptable in the realm of international diplomacy as any concerns of the UK government can and ought to be continued to be shared conventionally”.
Luncheon declared that it was “irksome” for western diplomats to be running around the world with the “S word” or sanctions, which seems to have assumed a very notable role in the diplomacy, in the “soft or even the hard power” of these states.
He said that the threat to withhold development aid was viewed as “most dastardly”. Government’s sentiment, he added, is that the outgoing official be accorded the status of a “pariah” whose departure was eagerly anticipated.
