Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally is understandably upbeat about the 24th Summit of the Rio Group which opens in Georgetown today. In spite of the fact that our limited human and financial resources have been fully stretched and are being severely tested, we are confident that the Government and people of Guyana will rise to the occasion and do everything possible to make the Summit a success.
Mr Rudy Collins, head of the Rio Group Pro Tempore Secretariat, had indicated that so far it has been confirmed that at least five Latin American Heads of State will be in attendance, accompanied by their Foreign Ministers and other high level officials. As the Summit gets under way with great fanfare, Guyana is on show and we hope that our legendary hospitality will allow our distinguished guests to leave these shores with a warm feeling about our culture and a sense of the opportunities that abound in our country.
But beyond the pomp and the rhetoric, we need to know more about what results are expected and what we as a nation stand to gain.
Mr Insanally will surely continue to stress that the Summit is of great historical significance, since it not only marks the twentieth anniversary of the existence of the Group as an important regional forum for consultation and coordination, but it is also the first time that an Anglophone Caribbean member is chairing the Group and hosting the Summit. It is not just national pride that is at stake, for Guyana is acting in representation of the whole Caribbean Community.
As we said almost exactly two years ago in our leader of 27th February 2005 (The Rio Group Beckons), Guyana’s elevation to the Troika, the steering committee of the Rio Group, was “a signal honour and a genuine foreign policy achievement” presenting many opportunities for CARICOM and more specifically, for Guyana.
In this regard, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated repeatedly that Guyana’s position will serve to strengthen links between the English-speaking Caribbean and the rest of Latin America and that the concept of Guyana as a gateway of the Americas will be further enhanced. The Summit must therefore be viewed as the climactic point of this strategy.
In an article last year, our man in Caracas, Ambassador Odeen Ishmael, wrote that he expected Guyana to “play a vibrant diplomatic hand” in the coordination and representation of the Group’s interests and activities. Presumably the focus of the agenda of the Summit on Human and Social Issues, the main item to be introduced by President Bharrat Jagdeo, is a reflection of the leadership we have exercised. And presumably it is also a reflection of the serious concerns that exist across the continent about continuing social and economic inequality, which have led to a resurgence of populism and nationalism in some countries.
However, the more radical policies of these countries have given rise to tensions across the hemisphere, which threaten to put a brake on efforts to achieve closer cooperation. It may therefore be no coincidence that the agenda of the Summit does not address key issues such as how to work towards a regional consensus on the common challenges posed by globalisation and trade liberalization, narco-trafficking and trans-national crime. One can be forgiven for speculating that this is so because there is no such consensus.
Presumably then, Guyana has had little chance to steer the Group towards finding joint solutions to common problems and has had to settle for the lowest common denominator approach, with the more contentious issues placed on the back burner, in the interest of presenting a united front.
But let us not prejudge the Summit and its outcome. To do so would be to generate a sense of anticlimax. Let us instead look beyond the expected diplomatic declarations and statements that emanate from this weekend’s gathering and look to the Government to share with us the people, some specific details regarding what Guyana has achieved and what more can be achieved, in terms of our strategic positioning in Latin America and the Caribbean.
For as Guyana hands over the chairmanship to the Dominican Republic, there will still be a role to play, as Guyana will continue to be a member of the Troika. In this respect, even if the language of diplomacy might appear to suggest few concrete achievements, there must surely be a strategy at Takuba Lodge on how to capitalise on the hosting of the Summit and how to build on the goodwill that should be generated by the Summit.
