Dear Editor,
Guyana’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and Permanent Representative to the European Union and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), Sasenarine Singh, has once again abandoned the office he holds to intervene in a domestic partisan political dispute on behalf of the government that appointed him. In a letter published this week, Ambassador Singh set aside every convention that separates the representative of a state from the operative of a party and used the authority and prestige of his office to enter a political controversy concerning criticism of the government’s handling of the Region Two squall damage.[1]
An ambassador represents Guyana. He does not represent the PPP, and he does not represent the administration currently occupying office. This distinction is not a technicality. It is the entire basis on which a diplomat is permitted to speak with the authority of the state rather than the authority of a faction. Vienna Convention practice and the professional norms that govern every serious diplomatic service rest on the understanding that a head of mission conducts the affairs of the nation abroad, not the internal quarrels of the party that happens to hold power at the time of his posting. Ambassador Singh has now made clear, repeatedly, that he either does not understand this distinction or does not care to observe it.
Ambassador Singh’s error lies not in the position he took, but in the fact that he took one at all. Whether the criticism levelled against the Government was fair or unfair is beside the point. An ambassador is not appointed to intervene in domestic partisan political disputes, nor to use the authority and prestige of diplomatic office to defend the government of the day against its political critics. The office exists to represent the State of Guyana abroad, not to participate in political contests at home. Once that distinction is abandoned, the integrity of the office itself is diminished.
This matters because the people of Guyana are entitled to a foreign service that they can be proud of when they look outward. Every time an ambassador is permitted to trade the dignity of his office for partisan combat, Guyana’s diplomatic standing suffers in the eyes of the very missions, governments, and institutions he is meant to be building relationships with on the nation’s behalf. Other diplomats in Brussels are watching. Other capitals are watching. When our representatives cannot manage the most basic discipline expected of a diplomat, we should not be surprised when our nation is not taken as seriously as we insist it deserves to be. This is precisely how a country earns a reputation as an outlier rather than an equal in the rooms that matter.
An ambassador who conducts himself this way, and who has done so more than once, has demonstrated that he does not understand the role he occupies. That failure is not a personal matter. It is a national one. I believe that if we put our hearts and minds to it, Guyana can become a first world nation within fifteen to twenty years, not by chance, but by design, and a first world nation deserves diplomatic representation that understands the basics and the rudiments of diplomacy and foreign service. It is obvious that Ambassador Singh does not. Ambassador Sasenarine Singh must be recalled, and the government owes the Guyanese people an explanation for why this conduct has been permitted to continue for as long as it has.