The Foreign Service, Guyana’s irreplaceable asset for understanding and interacting with the countries vital to Guyana’s support in the international community, continues to be gutted in a spate of unceasing diplomatic self –sabotage by the Granger Administration.
While it is not the nation’s armed front line, it is on the frontline as the nation’s first line of defense when things go wrong with other countries, as lead negotiators in the face of hostility, as coordinators in programs that help protect borders from the various forms of trafficking in crime, for example.
The indiscriminate hollowing out of this corps of public servants that keeps Guyana safer than most people are aware is potentially a national crisis that cannot be ignored…and this is why we remain committed to airing all concerns shared with us with the request for public dissemination under Guyana’s Whistleblower Statute Protected Disclosures Bill No.12 of 2017
It would be instructive, at this point, to ignore the hyper propaganda that streams from the Caped Crusader of Unmitigated Crap, the self- appointed New York arm of Coalition Communications, whose anecdotal trivia is consistent with lazy and shallowing thinking – a gratuitously purist way of saying ISH.
The purging of these stalwarts by this President on the eve of an election, in the face of a border dispute with a country that has already occupied part of Guyana since 1966 and in the advent of oil, questions why he has chosen to disembowel the nation’s foreign service to place highly sensitive matters in the hands of politically appointed novices, for reasons that do not benefit Guyana- and at a time such as now.
The goal was G77 Chairmanship -against the professional advice of the Foreign Service .
The cause was a vanity project that will imply only gravitas to Foreign Affairs’ Karen Cummings, decidedly functionally unqualified, gift Torrington USD 8000 monthly and confer upon Mr. Ten Pow a position that is more for his self-promotion than that of Guyana, for taxpayers’ burden of USD 750,000 in honoraria and sundry expenses.
Of note is that the chairmanship of G77 was voted against by Nicaragua, Cuba, an unquestionably important ally and for obvious reasons but a better friend to other no- voter Venezuela ,whose support for Guyana holding the Chairmanship comes with an unequivocal BRIBE – the DEMAND that Guyana agrees NOT to discuss the border disagreement on the G77 stage in exchange for Venezuela’s vote for any Ten Pow initiative advanced which Venezuela will block without this agreement from Guyana … some political exchange that should put fear and trembling in the hearts of every patriot, registers the complaint.
Ten-Pow, Chair- in- waiting, visited Granger with Cummings and Torrington around November 28 -30 2019 to secure President Granger’s pledge to comply with Venezuela’s demands….an unsettling matter, given the stakes.
BAD WORD!
Of deepest shame is the blemish that this haphazard dismissal of Foreign Service Personnel brings to Guyana.
Cited is Guyana’s Chairmanship of the Global Agriculture Trade Negotiations at the World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, June 10 to 13, 2020 which was supposed to be represented by Dr. John Deep Ford. Firing Mr. Ford has summarily rendered Guyana a deserter, having abandoned its post and attendant responsibilities without warning six months before the scheduled summit, to the shame of Guyana.
Add to that, the African Caribbean and Pacific Sumit being hosted in Nairobi Kenya December 9-10 2019, for which Guyana is Chair and was scheduled to give a progress report to the Summit Heads of State in the capacity in which it has functioned. A critical meeting with European Union negotiators was also scheduled.
The firing of the Foreign Service Representative means Guyana will be a no- show and will not be fulfilling its obligations, to the shame of every Guyanese citizen that this Government was elected to represent…is the overall complaint.
Granger’s uninformed removal of diplomats and their staff has earned Guyana the stigma of unreliability due to erratic government, now that committees, once chaired by Guyana, will not be getting their composite reports and other assignments that Guyana was expected to produce, having chaired these committees for the better part of a year.
Good luck with future Committee Chairing… unless of course some form of bribe, to the detriment of Guyanese, will be involved… is the fear.
President Granger is asked to remember that he was elected to serve Guyana’s best interest and that the implication of authority to govern comes with parallel implication to govern in the best interest of country which would mean prudence and wisdom…virtues he claims deep affinity with.
Purged as Ambassador is Cheryl Miles- dismissed within weeks of her representing Guyana at the International Court of Justice against Venezuela’s claims. The loss of Ms. Miles, a career diplomat who speaks, writes and works in Spanish, Portuguese and French and at this critical moment, constitutes a severe blow to Guyana … one which Maduro relishes, causing speculation as to the motive of her removal now when Guyana is seeking Venezuela to support the foppish cause of heading the G77…more important than Ankoko, we guess.
Other stalwarts weeded out, most through a pipeline of administrative confusion, are seasoned veterans Hamley Case, of immeasurable experience and qualifications, Clarissa Rheil who extended her contract at the request of the President Granger last year for the reward of being booted without advance notice. Ambassadors, Cammie Ramsaroop, Baynie Karran, have been cited for aging by an Administration with an average age that tops three score and ten.
We support the advancement of a younger cadre but not at the cost of a replacement batch through a method that appears so proudly anti-expertise, in its philosophy.
It will take years to replace some of those low and mid-level staffers who were experts or functionally literate in some unique area of their assignment. It’s not a restoration that can be made overnight and by political plants.
Cultivating diplomats and diplomatic staff is a continuum, as is evidenced by the decades of service of those who are now being axed indiscriminately, those who taught those below them the building blocks of the craft.
Out of concern, these egregious malfunctions of State have been brought by these dedicated Public Servants to the people.
Out of duty, we have agreed to air them, even as we get the childish emails with the juvenile threats that are intended to ‘friken’ us, from folks who seem to see Guyana only in the context of their Party.
We are a publication that prides itself in doing all that it can to expose every action, all wrongdoing committed by every entity that uses public office and the trust placed in them by the people, for self gain and wrong doing.
The Coalition is the General Election’s incumbent. AFC’s silence here makes it complicit. It’s the kind of principle this entity, AFC, was created to evict from politics. Instead of counting seats, we expected them to counter every attempt at disservice.
To the majority holder of the APNU, the PNCR, we’ll simply point to the Manifesto and its segment Foreign Relations and express regret.
And to those so blinded by partisan loyalty, that can’t see the detriment of the decapitation of the country’s Foreign Service, we say that we should all be proud of these Foreign Service personnel, patriotic enough to ring the bell of alarm on their way out.
Though they are no longer keeping the metaphorical lights on, they want to be seen as nothing more than the patriots who defended Guyana at the frontlines of its diplomatic battles.
The demolition of the Foreign Service now poses many questions about a decimation doctrine favored by a President whose career, before politics, signaled that he knew better.
It’s a heavy load to fetch to the polls.
