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Ali urges UN Security Council to back Rodrigues-Birkett for next SG

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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 September 2026, 21:19 by Writer

Guyana and CARICOM’s nominee for the post of UN Secretary General, Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, flanked by natural resources minister Vickram Bharrat and finance minister Dr Ashni Singh

President Irfaan Ali on Thursday issued a stirring appeal to the Permanent Members of the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council and other member states of the U.N. to support Guyana’s nominee, Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, to become the next Secretary General of the global body.

“In the humblest of ways, I call on the P5 (permanent members), the Security Council, and every member, and every member here, to look beyond the small country that nominated her,” he told the 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly.

The Guyanese leader made no reference to the United States’ reported veto of Ms Rodrigues-Birkett, currently Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, because she described the situation in Palestine as “genocide”.

However, he appealed to the P5 — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — to support her to become the next UN chief.

“The responsibility for recommending the next Secretary General rests in the first instance with the Security Council, and we therefore, respectfully, place before its members the candidature of Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett endorsed by the Caribbean Community. We invite all to consider her candidacy on its merits, and to judge whether her vision, experience, expertise, and record can help restore confidence in the United Nations at this critical moment,” he said.

Ms Rodrigues-Birkett was at the helm of Guyana’s delegation as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council for the 2024–2025 term.

President Ali said the U.N. “needs leadership capable of restoring trust without compromising principles, of listening without surrendering conviction, of building bridges across the widening chasms between north and south, large states and small states, and the developed and developing world. We need a Secretary-General who will defend the (U.N.) Charter not only when it is politically convenient, but precisely when its principles are under pressure,” he said.

Touching on Palestine, he reiterated Guyana’s call for a just and lasting solution to the crisis in the Middle East, that brings an end to the suffering of innocent civilians and recognises the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to self-determination and to secure a homeland of their own.

“We reiterate our support for a two-state solution,” he said.

Departing from his prepared speech, Dr Ali said Ms Rordrigues-Birkett, who hails from an Indigenous community in Region One (Barima/Waini) and went on to become Amerindian affairs minister and later Guyana’s foreign minister, is guided by her upbringing, struggle, and accomplishments by breaking barriers.

“An Indigenous woman coming from a small indigenous village, defying the odds, the odds against indigenous persons, the odds against women, the odds against poverty, defining every challenge, and rising to the top amidst those challenges. Her character is built on struggle, sacrifice, commitment. Her accomplishments are crafted in her humanity,” he said.


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Guyana seeks fresh “era” of relations with Venezuela after ICJ ruling on border controversy

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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 September 2026, 20:58 by Writer

President Irfaan Ali addressing the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday.

President Irfaan Ali on Thursday urged Venezuela to accept the upcoming World Court decision on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Award of the land boundary and set the stage for a “new era” of relations between the two South American nations.

“Now that we have both participated in the hearings, which were completed in May 2026, we urge Venezuela to abide by the forthcoming ruling, in accordance with their obligation under the UN Charter, as Guyana will do. We look forward to a new era of neighbourly relations in the interests of our peoples, the development of our countries, and the stability and prosperity of our region,” he told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Dr Ali’s call came less than one day after Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodrígues told the 81st session of the UNGA that her country wanted Guyana to come to the negotiating table as the only pathway to a long-lasting solution to the border controversy over the 160,000 square kilometre Essequibo Region.

“Here, I appeal to the Cooperative Republic of Guyana to resolve the issue and to return to negotiations, as stipulated by the Geneva Agreement. Agreements which last the longest are those that emerge from bilateral negotiations. They last longer and function better than those imposed by external bodies,” she said. 

While Venezuela said the 1966 Geneva Agreement stipulates that there must be a negotiated settlement and that the ICJ had no jurisdiction in the matter, that Spanish-speaking neighbour has participated in all the stages of the case that Guyana took before that judicial body after becoming fed up with 50 years of mediation through the UN Good Offices process.

The UN Secretary General had referred the border controversy to the ICJ in keeping with the Geneva Agreement, and the ICJ subsequently ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear Guyana’s case on the validity of the 1899 award.

Like in her remarks before the ICJ to wrap up Venezuela’s submissions, Ms Rodríguez did not criticise the United States or ExxonMobil as she had often done alongside Maduro.


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OPINION: Justice Abel stands up, speaks out (welcome, sir)

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Last Updated on Thursday, 24 September 2026, 20:51 by Writer

by GHK Lall

At last! At last, someone with the courage. To contemplate and question, even challenge, the mighty American Eagle. It plucks Guyana’s young in its talons. Who knows what next it will swoop to destroy? My thanks to Justice Courtney Abel, in his silver headed years, the head of the UG Department of Law spoke. He said what had to be said. Squeeze Justice Gino Persaud yesterday, there could be others today. Definitely some hesitancy tomorrow. Will this ruling please the president? How will the U.S. ambassador react to a judgment away from public sight? What will the U.S. State Dept do?

In my first writing in the immediate aftermath of the “visa review” development impacting Justice Persaud, I alluded to the chilling effect on the fraternity. Looking over its shoulder with tentativeness, in timidity. Second-guessing itself. Less for judicial sagacity and acumen, and more of where would the U.S. stand on this? Bluntly, Guyana’s judiciary now operates in fear. It may not be palpable; but it is audible. It is detectable. Fear has its own smell.

This is now less a matter of judicial independence, and more of this. What merit, what standing, national sovereignty? The U.S. barged into Caracas and took out a president. The U.S. put in its own president. In Guyana, the U.S. reached above and around Guyana’s president, Guyana’s Judicial Service Commission, and Guyana’s chancellor and effectively sidelined a sitting judge. Is Guyana still a country or is it the doormat and toilet of the U.S? If President Ali has any salt left in him, he should raise that question with Ambassador Nicole D. Theriot in their next face-to-face encounter. I would have grabbed the nearest phone and let her hear that in the sharpest terms. But the so-called special relationship reminds of the limitations to what he signed onto, his role. A bit player, a nobody, on the Great American chessboard.

Hon Attorney General Anil Nandlall faced the public from his cyberspace den and had his say. The PPP Govt is not pleased with Justice Persaud’s rulings. But the PPP Govt’s hands are clean. No involvement in U.S. “visa review”. Neither initiation tabled nor hint whispered off the record. What to make of the Hon Anil Nandlall’s representation in this instance? I struggle. For he is the same scholarly citizen, a creature of impeccable integrity, who has sold many (and himself) that Guyana is a country where the rule of law reigns, and respect for law and order is paramount. When I look at what Guyanese have for law, and how men feature dominantly in how that law is sometimes applied, sometimes weaponized, and oftentimes wielded, there is difficulty reconciling the PPP Govt being hands-off re visa review, despite its disagreement(s) with Justice Persaud.

Of greater concern to me is how the U.S. can swoop and savage a sitting Guyanese jurist. If there, then where else, and with what limit? Where is the Guyana Bar Assoc? Where is the Judicial Service Comm? Did the chancellor speak, and I didn’t read? I have read about cultural imperialism. Now I come across the blatant and arrogant projection of American imperialism into the very heart of the Guyana construct. The Ugly American is back. He is uglier than before. Go ahead! Mark me! Make my day!

What is Guyana and Guyanese today? Sitting ducks or turkeys in a barrel? A pack of bleating sheep just shorn of its wool, and left with only its meh? There is passive and there is docile. Good Lord! Does it have to be of the most obsequious and odious variety? The White man rules and Guyanese are only too delighted to roll in the mud and the filth and in utter self-disgrace. Pause and absorb this contrast. Americans can be attracted to and approve money launderers in Venezuela but is full of righteous wrath re Gino Persaud. There are White people I will always love. But how can I ever love hypocrisy, the bully, and the sneaky?

Whatever this “visa review” entails, it had better be good. Wherever other Guyanese are, there was Justice Courtney Abel. And next to him, little ole me.


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