Georgetown, Guyana – (May 29, 2016) President David Granger, on Friday evening, attended the launch of “Guyana in the World – The First of the First Fifty Years and The Predatory Challenge” by renowned Guyanese-born international diplomat Sir Shridath Ramphal, at the Georgetown Club.
The book, which was published by Hansib Publications, is the brainchild of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to mark Guyana’s 50th Independence Anniversary and features an essay on Guyana’s engagement with the world in two parts. The first highlights its regional and international encounters in the earliest years of independence, while the second focuses on the challenges it has faced on the borders, particularly from the neighbouring Venezuela.
A career diplomat, Sir Shridath was invited to write the essay about Guyana’s international experience over the full 50 years. The essay throws new light on several areas of Venezuela’s baseless claims and looks to a final resolution by judicial settlement, under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary-General.
“The Venezuelan claim upon us is a calumny born of greed, nurtured by falsity and fable and maintained by political demagoguery. It is a claim that is contemptuous of the rule of international law and scornful of the sanctity of treaties. It is a claim that threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana and the peace of our region. It combines greed, lies and xenophobia into a toxic brew but it is a brew stirred not by the ordinary people of Venezuela, who are our brothers and sisters but by classes and forces, cliques and cabals, in Venezuela who pursue their own needs,” Sir Shridath said.
He also pointed out that Guyana’s strength lies in the understanding of the people of the righteousness of its cause and the hollowness of Venezuela’s.
“It is with the accomplishments of the earliest years of independence that Part One deals. If Part Two demands us confidence in ourselves to cope with the world’s challenges, Part One offers evidence in abundance of our ability to cope. To have accomplished all that is recorded there as an infant State is something that shall ever be to the credit of Guyana and ever remembered by the world. Guyanese must be mindful of those accomplishments as many the world over are,” Sir Shridath said.
Meanwhile, Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Carl Greenidge said that the book is “insightful” noting that it provides every Guyanese with the opportunity to become acquainted with the history of their country.
Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Barton Scotland, Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, Minister within the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Ms. Annette Ferguson, Director General (acting), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Audrey Waddell, former Director General, Ms. Elisabeth Harper, members of the diplomatic corps and others, also attended the launch.
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