There is something quite bizarre about Guyana’s foreign policy – if such it can be called. Surely there cannot be too many other countries in the world which are so consistent about adopting stances diametrically opposed to their own self-interest. And there are even fewer nowadays which will publicly endorse a naked breach of international law and a seizure of the territory of a neighbouring state. The ever shrinking complement which will, includes such models of respect for human rights and international law as North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
Guyana’s latest act of self-harm in the foreign affairs arena was to abstain on a resolution at the UN General Assembly a week last Thursday. The resolution declared the Russian-backed referendum leading to the secession of Crimea as invalid, and it was passed after 100 nations voted in its favour, 11 voted against and 58 abstained. Among the abstentions were a number of Caricom countries, namely, St Lucia, St Vincent, Antigua, Dominica, Jamaica and Suriname, while Barbados, The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti voted in favour.
It should be noted that the referendum in question came after Russian-backed armed forces had occupied Crimea, and that it was arranged in great haste under Russian auspices, quite independently of Ukraine to which it belongs, and quite out of consonance with the requirements of the UN Charter and international law in general.
Perhaps the government here in its naïvete lulled itself into thinking that this was an issue involving faraway people in a faraway place which had little local resonance, but this is not so. Any country such as ours which is under threat from irredentist neighbours – however misplaced their claims – has to be very cautious about the principles to be applied in analagous situations. And any country such as ours which has actually experienced the annexation of a portion of its territory by the armed forces of a hostile state and has been the victim of foreign aggression in its territorial waters, should be extraordinarily sensitive to the dangers of an ill-judged vote in this particular instance.
It was reported by Reuters and other news agencies that Russia had applied enormous pressure to nations across the globe in order to secure a no vote or an abstention. While it is clear what kind of economic pressure Russia can exert on a country like Moldova, for example, she has infinitely less leverage in the Caribbean region, Rusal’s bauxite investments in Jamaica and Guyana notwithstanding (the one in Jamaica is shrinking anyway). One suspects, however, that in our case the ruling party – which as things are, still lives in the past – harks back to a period before the Berlin Wall came down, an era they recollect through a rosy haze. A number of them (not excluding the President) lived for a time in the Eastern bloc in their younger days, and in addition to their desultory adherence to some vague version of Marxism-Leninism, they may well have sentimental feelings about Russia.
Whether that is enough to cause them to follow such an eccentric path in this instance, is not known, but as it is there are probably other powerful forces at work as well. Leaving aside Suriname for the moment, the fault line in Caricom corresponds for the most part with the Alba/PetroCaribe divide. Alba members Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua voted against the resolution, while Ecuador and the Caricom territories listed above abstained. Guyana and Jamaica are not Alba members of course, but they are heavily dependent on Venezuela for their oil supplies in addition to other things, such as the provision of a rice market in our case. Suriname’s close relationship with Venezuela has to do at least in part with President Bouterse’s personal problems with the outside Western world.
Given Venezuela’s intimacy with Russia, and the fact that the latter nowadays supplies most of that country’s military hardware, it is not impossible to imagine that at least where nations coming under its economic and geopolitical umbrella are concerned, it played proxy for Moscow. There would no doubt have been some co-ordination about the vote among the Alba nations in any case, while those like Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname may conceivably have been contacted, and the last two, one presumes, would have presented no challenge to persuade.
Previous Guyana governments have at least been conscious of the sensitivity of our situation, and the need for consistency in relation to key aspects of foreign policy. Our territorial integrity was the primary consideration when taking decisions, which were also weighed for their longer-term implications. But now we have a government which jumps like a carefree grasshopper from one policy stalk to the next without a thought about where it is going, what has happened in the past, and how its insouciance might constrain its future ambit of action.
And as said above, there is plenty in its past which should have given it pause for thought, starting with Venezuela’s annexation by force of Guyana’s part of Ankoko in 1966, which continues to this day. Have the gurus in the President’s Office never heard of Ankoko, or is it that they are incapable of understanding principles and applying them with consistency to cases like the Crimea? Ankoko is just one example of any number of incursions or acts of aggression of one kind or another on the part of Venezuela, whose armed forces have killed our citizens either in our waters or at Eteringbang, and blown up our mining dredges in our river, to cite just two instances of more recent times.
Most recently, of course, there is the glaring instance of the Venezuelan navy forcing the oil exploration vessel the Anadarko from our waters. Are the memories of the faceless mandarins responsible for foreign policy responses so poor that they have forgotten that one already? Or is it that they cannot see analogies, and so they are incapable of recognizing potential problems for this country when we are seeking support somewhere down the line for aggressive posturing against this country? And let it not be forgotten, as the SN editorial of Friday pointed out: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elías Jaua when visiting the islands of Caricom, no less, was reported early last week as saying that Venezuela had not renounced its “legitimate” claim to Essequibo.
That is Venezuela alone, but of course there is also Suriname with its expulsion of the CGX oil rig and drill ship from Guyana’s waters in 2000 to take into account, along with a slew of other incidents, including the incursions into the New River Triangle.
So how does the Government of Guyana justify its Crimea vote? Inevitably the onus of defending the indefensible fell to Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, who, like Alice, soon found herself trespassing in Wonderland. As we reported last Tuesday, the Minister grounded her defence on the principle of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states, and Guyana’s obligation to insist on respect by all states for the principles of the UN Charter and international law, among other things.
If all this left the local pundits gasping for breath, then the foreign ones must have been staring at their computer screens in disbelief. Now in fairness to Ms Rodrigues-Birkett, foreign policy has been conducted, as far as can be divined, from OP, rather than Takuba Lodge, but even by the none too demanding standards of both those entities, this statement was extraordinary. There is Russia, who by its actions has breached every one of the principles the Minister cited, being defended by her as upholding those same principles. What is going on in Vlissengen Road and South Road? Who is doing the thinking?
One of these days when Guyana is being menaced by unfriendly nations she will cast around seeking vocal support from her friends. And who will her friends be? They will be the ones doing the menacing together with their allies; in other words the very same countries with whom we are now making common cause to ignore principle. So who then will listen to us when we try to have recourse to ‘principle’ in our search for support?
One other thing too is certain: the Alba Caricom members will have been cowed into silence by a few barrels of oil.
