A CLEAR message has been telegraphed to Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo as new Chairman of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). And it has come from the iconic Brazilian politician, who has just been conferred by the Guyanese Head of State this nation’s highest national honour – The Order of Excellence (OE):
The soon-to-retire President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva, speaking last Friday ahead of the final day of the Fourth Summit of UNASUR, expressed the hope that Guyana will take the initiative, under President Jagdeo’s leadership, to organise a special meeting between MERCUSOR (the four southern common market countries) and the 12-nation UNASUR bloc of states.
President Lula’s anxiety for such an initiative, as well as his previously expressed interest for deepening relations between UNASUR and our own 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM), would be viewed as being consistent with his admirable commitment for strengthening Caribbean/Latin American integration.
He had earlier hosted in Brazil two special conferences that reflected such a commitment.
In the process, a special relationship seems to have developed between the outgoing President of Brazil, that South American colossus, and President Jagdeo, and made all the more evident by the increasing interest of Brazil for improved economic and cultural cooperation with Guyana.
As would also be known to Guyana’s other border neighbours, Venezuela and Suriname, in addition to the wider membership of UNASUR, President Jagdeo has been consistent in his own efforts to promote the closest and most practical forms of cooperation between CARICOM and Latin America.
It is that perspective and commitment that would have inspired his call, as new Chairman, for all member states of UNASUR to fully embrace the proposal that surfaced at the just-concluded Fourth Summit, for the establishment of a UNASUR Parliament. Or, at least, the coordination of legislative efforts to stimulate the integration process through people-focused meetings and debates.
Naturally, President Jagdeo would be expected to sensitise his CARICOM counterparts to the idea of a UNASUR parliament, or coordination of legislative initiatives between our Community and UNASUR.
This could well materialise when he briefs his Community counterparts on the outcome of the Fourth UNASUR Summit at the forthcoming CARICOM Inter-Sessional Meeting in St. George’s, Grenada in July next year, if not earlier.
From all reports, and judging from comments by visiting Heads of State and Foreign Ministers, and, of course, the text of the unanimously approved Declaration of the Fourth Summit of UNASUR hosted for the first time by a Caribbean nation in Guyana, was a successful historical event.