THERE is something about Guyana’s global presence that sets it apart from a majority of post-colonial countries including post-colonial giants like India, Nigeria among others. From colonial time right up to the present moment, the bulk of Guyana’s important politicians have never been psychologically comfortable with taking Guyana into the bosom of one particular country or group of countries.
Even at the height of Burnham’s pro-West policies there were serious disagreements between the PNC leadership and its coalition partner, the United Force (UF) over Guyana’s foreign policy between 1964 and 1968. This period of Guyana’s foreign policy denoted the complexity in the mentality of Guyanese leaders when it came to global politics.

Little has been written about this aspect of early post-Independence dysfunctional relationship between the PNC and the UF. One of the most ironic moments in the foreign policy behaviour immediately after Independence in the Third World occurred right here in Guyana.
Despite his geopolitical embrace of the United States after Independence, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham exhibited a residue of willingness to become part of the new nations’ desire to embrace each other because of the common link of colonial victimhood. Burnham then, with a relentless socialist, pro-Third World Cheddi Jagan on his heels, did not want to be seen as a complete Western sycophant.

But it was not easy sailing because Burnham’s coalition partner, the UK was shamelessly pro-Western and did not agree with Burnham’s opening up to fellow Third World nations. This foreign policy disagreement was one of the earliest quarrels with the UF. The UF satisfied that Burnham’s foreign policy was pro-West did not want Guyana to have any deepening relations with socialist nations in the Third World. For a plausible description of this emerging disharmony see Tyron Ferguson’s “To Survive Sensibly or Court Heroic Death: The Political Management of Guyana’s Economy, 1965-1985.”

The Jamaica Observer recently did an editorial on how Guyana’s buoyant oil economy will affect its role in global geopolitics. The fact is oil or no oil Independent Guyana was born into global geopolitics, for two reasons – the Western desire to undermine the Cheddi Jagan Government and the Venezuelan border claim.
Careful maneuvering in a geopolitical world has been a successful record of all Guyana governments since Independence right up to the Ali presidency. It has not been an easy task during the Cold War but all Guyana governments have not succumbed to total enmeshment with one particular world power even with the emergence of a uni-polar international system after the fall of the Non- Alignment Movement and the collapse of the USSR. In this respect one has to see the history of Guyana’s foreign policy as a complex scenario.

This complexity still persists because the international system has reverted to the Cold War only this time, the USSR has been replaced by China and China is not the same, weak, uncertain, financially poor player that the USSR was. The new Cold War will get hotter as the years go by because the US, back in the old days, knew it was a superior competitor to the USSR but the most formidable challenge to the hegemony of the West since the Second World War is China.
What in this new Cold War will be the shape of Guyana’ foreign policy? The Ali presidency has an inviting opportunity to sail in smoother international waters than all of his predecessors for two reasons. One is there has not been a successful working out of a multi-polar world the past one hundred years as what we have now in the 21st century. Secondly, the economy in the immediate post-colonial period did not allow for a more flexible foreign policy of the newly emergent nations.

It is basic to international relations that a country’s successful economy gives it more scope to maneuver in a world of geopolitical competition. The next few years then, Guyana still has to be involved as a geopolitical player until the end of the Venezuelan conflict but must use its economy to deepen global multipolarity that now characterises the world. The crucial factor for the successful preservation of developing nations in the present context of international relations is to ensure that multipolarity remains intact.

The benefits that accrue from multi-polarity are enormous for Third World countries and the best example is the formation of BRICS. China, India, Russia, South Africa and a number of middle powers (Iran, for example) are playing a major role in BRICS. The Jamaica Observer notes how the superpowers are now courting Guyana but the Ali presidency has a rich tradition in Guyana’s foreign policy to guide him in dealing with geopolitical pressures. Dr. Ali no doubt knows that countries never had and never will have permanent friends, only permanent interests.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.