FORMER Charge d’ Affaires of Guyana to the United Nations, Mr. George Wilfred Talbot, heads the list of six key diplomatic appointments  made by the Government of Guyana.
Ambassador Talbot will serve as this country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolyn Rogrigues-Birkett, announced yesterday.
The other appointees are Mr. Keith George, who has been appointed as Ambassador to Suriname; Mrs Audrey Jardine-Waddell, Ambassador to the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR); Mrs Satyawattie “Sattie”  Sawh, appointed acting Honary Counsul General to Canada; Mr Michael Elijah Brotherson, as Consul General in Barbados; and Ms Esther Griffith, appointed as Chief of Protocol.
Minister Rodrigues-Birkett, in a brief on the respective appointees, at a news conference she hosted at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, noted the new appointments reflected a process that began two years ago when they had been appointed Senior Foreign Service Officers.
She announced the imminent appointment of more than 30 Honorary Consuls and accreditations of representatives to Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Ambassador George Talbot
Of Ambassador Talbot, she said that prior to the appointment, while serving as Charge d’ Affaires, he also held the rank of Minister Counsellor and had previously served as Second and First Secretary in the Permanent Mission.
Ambassador Talbot has had a varied experience in multilateral diplomacy, working on economic, social and political issues, and has represented Guyana at the United Nations.
He has been a member of this country’s delegation to several sessions of the General Assembly and ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council –United Nations), including during Guyana’s chairmanship of the Group of 77 in 1999, and was also head of delegation in New York during Guyana chairmanship of the Rio Group in 2006 and the UNASUR in 2011.
Mr Talbot has also held several posts on inter-governmental bodies within the United Nations system, including Vice President, High-Level Committee on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries; Vice-Chairman, United Nations Forum on Forests; Vice-Chairman, Commission on Sustainable Development; and Vice-President of the UNDP/UNFPA (United Nations Development Programme/United Nations Population Fund) Executive Board, according to a bio-data on the new Ambassador to the UN.
Also, from June 2001 to August 2002, Mr. Talbot was Adviser to the United Nations Coordinating Secretariat on Financing for Development, previously served from October 1991 to June 1992 as Assistant Lecturer, Spanish at the University of Guyana.
Ambassador Talbot, who began his career in the Foreign Service in 1993, previously served in the Department of International Economic Cooperation, and had also worked in the private sector from 1981 to 1986.
He is the holder of a M.A. in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a B.A. in Modern Languages (Spanish/French) from the University of Guyana.
In addition to being fluent in English and Spanish, he is conversant in French and Portuguese.

Ambassador Keith George
Keith George, the new Guyana Ambassador to Suriname, who joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs just over 19 years ago, was credited by Minister Rodrigues-Birkett, while holding the post as Director of Frontiers, as been instrumental in efforts aimed at protecting the territorial integrity of Guyana and ensuring that Guyana enjoys its rights and meets its obligations with respect to the maritime spaces over which Guyana exercises jurisdiction under international law.
He played a vanguard role in drafting and finalisation of the Maritime Zones Act of 2010, she said.
The holder of a B.A. in History and a Post Graduate Diploma in International Relations from the University of Guyana, Ambassador George also headed a Ministry of Foreign Affairs team in the preparation of Guyana’s submission for an extended continental shelf. He has been, too, a member of several Guyana delegations, including that which concluded the Exclusive Economic Zone Cooperation (EEZC) Treaty with Barbados, the Presidential visit to the Republic to Suriname in 2002, and the annual meetings in New York of States Parties of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
He has also participated in several short courses overseas, on matters ranging from investment and trade, to intellectual property, development cooperation and defence, and maritime delimination.

Consul General Michael Brotherson
As Guyana’s Consul General to Barbados, the appointment of Mr Brotherson signals an upgrade from the previous position of Honorary Consul which was last held by the deceased Norman Faria in May 2010.
He will address consular and trade matters for Guyana in Barbados, where there is a huge representation of Guyanese nationals.
Following the death of Faria and immigration issues involving Guyanese as a result of new immigration laws instituted on the island recently, Guyana has periodically been sending immigration officers to the island to address matters relating to renewal of passports and other immigration issues.
Consul General Brotherson, in addition, will have the added responsibility of overseeing honorary consuls in other Caribbean countries.
“We are hoping, too, that the officer who would be placed there would look at other issues like trade matters. We might be able to increase our trade with Barbados if we have someone there to provide information at hand, meeting with the business community, so we think it augurs well,” Minister Rodrigues noted.
Brotherson, who joined the Foreign Service in 1991, served as the CARICOM Desk Officer up until 1995, when he was moved to the Public and Information Unit in the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was appointed Head of Unit in 1995, and in 1993 was posted to the Guyana High Commission in London to serve as First Secretary.
In 2008, he was promoted to the rank of Counsellor and was reposted to Georgetown later the same year.
In 2009, as a Senior Foreign Service Officer, Mr Brotherson assumed a special assignment in the Office of Climate Change of the Office of the President.
During his career in the Foreign Service, Mr Brotherson was a member of Guyana delegations to several regional and international fora, including CARICOM and the United Nations Heads of Government meetings.
Mr Brotherson holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication from the University of Guyana (1991); graduated from the Sixth Professional Course for Foreign Diplomats, Foreign Service Institute, New Delhi, India (1995) and earned a Post Graduate Diploma in International Studies, UG- 2001.
His professional training includes US State Department Visitor Programme on Preventative Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution and EU/ACP Seminar for Information Professionals, Lisbon and Brussels.

Ambassador Audrey Jardine-Waddell
According to the Foreign Minister, Guyana’s Ambassador to UNASUR, Mrs. Audrey Jardine-Waddell, who joined the Foreign Service on November 11, 1985, and has served both home and on overseas assignments, was previously attached to the Embassy of Guyana in Caracas as First Secretary from 1991 to 1995. She also served in the same capacity in Brazilia, from 1996 to 1993.
In 2003, she was assigned Director of the Department of the Americas and Asia, and served in that position until September 2008, when she was posted to the Embassy of Guyana in Havana, Cuba, as Minister Counsellor and Head of Chancery.
Upon her return to Guyana in 2001, she served as Head to the UNASUR Pro Tempore Secretariat, established at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during Guyana’s Chairmanship.
Mrs Jardine-Waddell holds a Bachelor’s in Sociology and a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Studies from the University, in addition to completing post graduate studies in Development Diplomacy in Berlin in 1990, with the German Foundation for Development and Cooperation (Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit) and in `Language and Diplomacy in 2005, University of Malta.

Chief of Protocol Esther Griffith
Ms Griffith, the new Chief of Protocol, who joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1989, has garnered a wealth of knowledge having worked directly with a number of specialists, including David Hales, Ambassador Cheryl Miles, Mrs Yvonne Mbozi, Mr M.R. Khan and Ambassador Elisabeth Harper, who now serves as Director of Foreign Affairs and Guyana’s Ambassador to CARICOM.
Both Mrs Mbozi and Mr Khan served as Chiefs of Protocol for several years.
“That background of tutoring enabled her to get a grasp, not only of Guyana’s Foreign Policy, but also of the essential nature of the protocol that regulates relations between States and among emissaries of those States,” the Foreign Minister noted.
From 2004, Ms Griffith was given the responsibility for the administration of the Protocol Division and was involved in such important events as the hosting of the CARICOM Heads of Government Conferences, the 19th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Rio Group, and the Fourth Summit of the Union of South American Nations, among several high-level visits.
The holder of a BSc in History and Political Science from the University of Guyana, Ms Griffith also completed the Post Graduate Programme in International Relations at the Foreign Service Institute of Guyana in 2003. She has also benefitted from several programmes on Protocol and Consular Relations, including the 23rd Course for Foreign Diplomats held at the Foreign Service Institute in India in 2000.

Consul General Satyawattie Sawh
Mrs Satyawattie `Sattie’ Sawh has been confirmed in the position of acting Honorary Consul General, in which she has been serving since November 2010.
The wife of the late Minister of Agriculture, Satyadeow Sawh, she has been working at the Guyana Consulate in Toronto since 2006, serving in the capacity as trade attaché to the consulate which has jurisdictional responsibilities for the Greater Toronto area, Western Ontario and Western Canada.
According to Mrs Sawh’s bio-data, she has also held several posts in her working life, including Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Export Promotion Council, Administrator of the Office of the Ombudsman of Guyana, and accountant at the Building Community Capacity Project in Guyana.
And prior to moving to Venezuela, where she served alongside her then Ambassador husband from 1993 to 1996, she worked as Project Manager/Accountant for various Property Management firms in Canada.
Mrs Sawh has also been an avid member of the volunteering community and was active with several Guyanese groups and diplomatic women associations in Venezuela, the Guyana Central Arya Samaj in Guyana, and various Guyanese associations in Toronto.
The last of 10 children, Mrs Sawh was born in Blairmont, Berbice, and attended the Indian Education Trust College. She later migrated to Canada and attained diplomas in accountancy and business management from colleges in Toronto.
Mrs Sawh, a mother of two sons, has also attended several training sessions and seminars geared towards trade and investment promotions.