GUYANA must constantly look towards building world peace, President Donald Ramotar told the Heads of this country’s Diplomatic Missions on Monday. Addressing them at the opening of their conference in the International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, the Head of State said, in terms of security, the nation is very, very important.
He continued: “And you are also, in many ways, on the frontline of that, as well. The missions are part of our whole security infrastructure in order to try, first of all, to create good relationship in the world, to minimise possibilities of any kinds of things that can affect us.
“In a broader sense, our whole outlook must be one for building world peace, because only within an atmosphere of peace in the world will we be able to fulfil many of the plans that we have. Only in an atmosphere of peace will we be able to tap into many of the resources that exist internationally.”
He added: “Therefore, although we are a small nation, I think that we should, constantly, look to see what contribution we can make. Whatever small contribution we can make in developing, promoting and working with those that are fighting for peace in the world at large.”
President Ramotar said, more particularly, the envoys have to, constantly, look “in our own region and neighbourhood and always be conscious of what is happening in our neighbourhood to see that our region is free from conflicts that can have an impact on us.”
He also remarked to the delegates that they are on the frontline of another type of struggle, which is the fight against crime and it has become international in many ways.
“Even if you look in our own country and look at the crimes that exist, even the petty crimes and the smaller crimes are spinoffs from drug trade because, in the drug trade, itself, it has a lot of illegal weapons within the society and it leads to a lot of gun crime within the society.
“We have all agreed that this is a big fight in which we need cooperation, we need regional cooperation and we need international cooperation and wider cooperation in every way,” he emphasised.
President Ramotar said, clearly, a lot of cooperation is needed “if we are going to make a dent,” in this regard.