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Guyana FOREIGN RELATIONS
The international relations of the former British colony have
been oriented toward the English-speaking world and guided by
ideological principles. Except for those countries on Guyana's
borders, Latin America is largely ignored. Independent Guyana's
foreign policy has had five predominant themes: political
nonalignment, support for leftist causes worldwide, promotion of
economic unity in the English-speaking Caribbean, opposition to
apartheid, and protection of Guyanese territorial integrity in the
resolution of the border disputes with Venezuela and Suriname.
Although upholding the principal foreign policy themes, the PNC
has adroitly shifted emphasis to reflect changes in domestic
policy. To consolidate power against the leftist PPP, PNC foreign
policy from 1964 to 1969 was pro-Western. Confident of its domestic
power base from 1970 to 1985, the government was nonaligned in
international affairs, with strong support for less-developed
countries and socialist causes. Guyana established diplomatic ties
and symbolic economic ties with the communist governments in
Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. Since Hoyte's accession
to the presidency in 1985, foreign policy has again been less
supportive of leftist causes, in part to obtain backing for Hoyte's
economic programs from Western nations.
Data as of January 1992
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