New US Ambassador highlights priorities

Last Updated on Saturday, 4 November 2023, 7:57 by Denis Chabrol

New United States (US) Ambassador to Guyana, Nicole Theriot on Friday evening laid out her agenda during her tour of duty and promised to engage with a broad spectrum of people.

“I am here to reaffirm the US government’s commitment to our shared democratic values including transparency, fairness, inclusion, equity,” she said.

Ms. Theriot’s plan appears to be in line with the Joe Biden-led Democratic government, as since coming to power in January 2021, a number of Democratic Congress members, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Biden have all stressed the need for transparency, shared prosperity and inclusion.

The Guyana government continues to push back against such concerns, with the latest major effort having been a mission to Washington led by President Irfaan Ali where he met with key elected officials, including Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries whose concerns had also mirrored those by Guyana’s opposition coalition of A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC).

Ambassador Theriot acknowledged that the US also needed to address a number of issues, but at the same time she said the US, Guyana and the wider Caribbean Community (CARICOM) needed to work together to deal with them. “We all, including my own country, have a lot of work to do and together I believe we can and will address the shared challenges within our collective neighbourhood no matter how daunting they may seem,” she said.

Ms Theriot said she would be reaching out to Guyanese to ascertain how the US and Guyana could collaborate. “Plans to engage directly with Guyanese to garner their thoughts, opinions and recommendations on how we can best work together to advance our shared priorities,” she said.

The Ambassador added that she was looking forward to partnering with President Ali and the Guyanese people to “advance the goal of a prosperous and safe Guyana and to build a more sustainable and secure region with a special emphasis on energy security, food security and climate resilience.” In that regard, the Guyanese leader reaffirmed that “you will have Guyana with the United States and the rest of the world in a lead position on all three of these issues.”

She also promised to meet with Guyana’s private sector and business leaders to ascertain how the US and this country could strengthen “our critical commercial and trade partnership” as well as civil society and youths who are clearly “invested in supporting Guyana’s democracy.”

The governing People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) and APNU+AFC continue to accuse each other of rigging the March, 2020 general elections. The Representation of the People Act has since been amended to avoid a recurrence of multiple declarations and the early electronic transmission of results. International and regional observers had heaped criticism on the tallying of results for Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), eventually leading to a nationwide recount of votes and the declaration of the PPPC as the winner of those polls.

In his remarks, President Ali reiterated that the US “has been one of our strongest partners” especially in the areas of defence, security and transnational crimes such as a money laundering and drug trafficking. “We have never had this level of robust cooperation and joint action in the history of our country, and we are grateful for this cooperation,” he said.

Dr Ali said his immediate priorities include fixing the blackout woes in recent weeks, attracting more private sector investment, and improving health and education.