Rohee sees much foreign affairs success despite loss of CGX deal Stabroek News December 29, 2000 Foreign Minister, Clement Rohee yesterday defended the record of his ministry despite the loss of the CGX oil exploration investment as a result of Surinamese aggression. Rohee told reporters at the press conference he called yesterday to review the activities of his ministry for the year that the Foreign Ministry had pursued its mandate with much success, though this did not mean that there were no challenges. Among the achievements he recounted, as a result of its support to the Finance Ministry in pressing for debt relief, were the 100 per cent debt write-off by the United Kingdom, as well as debt write-offs by the governments of Canada, the USA and Norway. Guyana supported Norway, Colombia, Ireland and Singapore, which won non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Other benefits flowing from the involvement of the Foreign Ministry were the provision of volunteers by Japan and Ireland to enhance capacity building; and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Ireland and Belarus. Other achievements listed by Rohee were the mobilisation of CARICOM and other support to ensure that Suriname should not again resort to the use of force or the threat to use force in its relations with Guyana; the negotiation of a Cooperation Agreement between the Guyana Police Force and the Federal Police of Brazil; the passage of a resolution supported by 22 countries on the need for a New Human Global Order, the brainchild of former president Cheddi Jagan; the conclusion of a partial visa abolition agreement with the Government of Brazil, with similar agreements to come into effect on the exchange of letters with the governments of Argentina and Uruguay. Commenting on the loss of the CGX Energy Inc investment, Rohee said that whatever victory had been won by Suriname was a pyrrhic one and the country would have to address in the future the stigma of the use of force in a dispute with a neighbour. Rohee stressed that the then Suriname government had resorted to the use of force even though its president at the time, Dr Jules Wijdenbosch, had assured President Bharrat Jagdeo that the issue would have been resolved peacefully. Rohee rejected the suggestion that the ministry was not being properly served by its mission in Paramaribo because it was not alerted to the possibility of the Suriname government reacting in the way it did. "We had received certain signals from the Surinamese authorities that they were uncomfortable with the location of the CGX rig, which was long before its forced eviction." That information, he said, was received as a result of the monitoring of the international and Surinamese press. Rohee contended that Suriname's action was prompted by the matter being made into an issue during the elections campaign when the Wijdenbosch administration was being portrayed as unpatriotic and not sufficiently nationalistic to properly represent Suriname's interest. This, he said, forced the Wijdenbosch administration to act in bad faith while a meeting was being arranged to resolve the issue. Asked whether he was satisfied with the support CARICOM had given to Guyana in the dispute with Suriname, Rohee said not entirely. He would have liked CARICOM to have given its full support to Guyana, but noted that Suriname was a member of CARICOM and had expressed fear that certain countries were ganging up on it. But he noted that CARICOM had remained engaged in the process by having the CARICOM chairman--then Prime Minister Sir James Mitchell of St Vincent, who has been succeeded by Arnhim Eustace--monitor the development in the relations between Guyana and Suriname and Jamaica's Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, facilitate the negotiations on a maritime agreement. Follow the goings-on in Guyana in Guyana Today