Darby Etienne MA Diplomacy
Since the general elections a year ago the chair of His Excellency St Lucia’s High Commissioner has remained unoccupied until now.
I am certain an apology is eminent to the nationals, whether it was a commitment to West Indies Cricket, the backlog of business at St James’s with both the Queen’s Jubilee and London 2012 Olympics, don’t worry accept that His Excellency Dr Ernest Hilaire is now the man at the helm ready to defy the odds and make his tenure more successful than his predecessors.
If history is anything to go by, the St Lucian community in UK will lament that representation in the past has been abysmal.
Dr Hilaire is poised to do well because he has experienced the plight of ordinary people. An open minded individual as was demonstrated in his last post as Chief Executive Officer of West Indies Cricket, successfully taking West Indies cricket to a position of strength.
His former senior lecturer at University of the West Indies – Cave Hill Campus, Dr Neville Duncan summed it up nicely when he said “Mr. Hilaire is easily the best student ever to have emerged from the Department of Government, Sociology and Social Work.
Mr Hilaire has a superb intellect; every course he has studied, essay presented and any bit of research has been highlighted by a commitment to relevance and utility. I rank Mr. Hilaire as an exceptional scholar.”
Dr Ernest Hilaire St Lucia High Commissioner to UK. Photo courtesy dominicacentral.com
Dr Hilaire certainly has the educational tools to make a massive difference. The fact that his thesis was based on “International Relations and Sovereignty: State, Society and Foreign Policy in Saint Lucia” shows clearly the direction where his heart wanted to be.
A quick prompt for Dr Hilaire; – the organic nature of diplomacy in recent times is complex, placing the international issues to be dealt with in the following order of priority: terrorism and security, economy and climate change.
Fuelled mainly by globalisation, the nature of international organisations automatically raises the importance of multilateral diplomacy.
The most pressing issue today is terrorism and security for the Caribbean region. Can St Lucia consider itself too small to be involved? Economy is another depressing issue where unemployment is at an all-time high.
Would a need for more basic exchange programs, workable bilateral agreements, lessen our dependence on colonial linkages? How does our relationship unfold on the international stage?
Yet another issue is climate change, which appears to only come to the forefront during the hurricane season. Here lies an opportunity to take this issue forward with international organisations and NGOs.
Dr Ernest Hilaire as former CEO WICB. Photo courtesy nationnews.com
This means that the new high commissioner will need to invest significant time operating within the diplomatic field in new methods such as lobbying the corridors of Westminster, raising awareness central to St Lucia and facilitating and coordinating relief efforts for his country throughout the United Kingdom.
Most importantly also, Dr Hilaire must be aware that his representation covers St Lucians in the United Kingdom and not just London, something over looked by his predecessors.
The success of this role will ride on His Excellency’s ability to rise to the challenge that is sure to present itself, drawing on his skills of serving as president of the Caribbean Federation of Youth and also a Foreign Service Cadet in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Above all, his desk will be full of matters in UK concerning immigration under the Economic Partnership Agreement signed with Europe and also, the bigger issue of the termination of the use of non readable passports since the expiration date is 2013. This should be one of his priorities in a call to the Diaspora.
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