Suri­name’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Al­bert Ramdin was elect­ed yes­ter­day as the new sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) for a five-year term, urg­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and call­ing on mem­ber states to be unit­ed in the fight against a chang­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

Ramdin was elect­ed by ac­cla­ma­tion fol­low­ing the with­draw­al of Rubén Ramírez, the For­eign Min­is­ter of Paraguay. He suc­ceeds Luis Al­ma­gro, who was first elect­ed as OAS Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al in 2015 and re-elect­ed in 2020.

Ramdin is the first Caribbean na­tion­al to be elect­ed to the top po­si­tion at the OAS.

“In a world that is quick­ly evolv­ing, the foun­da­tion of a strong democ­ra­cy con­tin­ues to be the cor­ner­stone of free­dom, jus­tice and hu­man dig­ni­ty,” Ramdin told the 56th spe­cial ses­sion of the OAS Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

“We re­alise we ex­ist in chal­leng­ing times, con­stant­ly and rapid­ly chang­ing roads and as we face these chal­lenges of the present and look to­wards the fu­ture, I be­lieve it is im­per­a­tive that we lis­ten to each oth­er, un­der­stand our dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives…while look­ing for com­mon grounds.”

He said that com­mon ground could be found in mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism, se­cu­ri­ty, gov­er­nance based on the rule of law and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples, re­spect for hu­man rights, adding “these ex­ist in uni­son, they are not sep­a­rate from each oth­er, with­out one, the oth­er can­not be ful­ly at­tained.

Ramdin said he was count­ing on a “strong ac­tive re­la­tion­ship” with mem­ber states “as we iden­ti­fy and ex­e­cute the way for­ward.

“As I stand here to­day, my com­mit­ment is ab­solute­ly to serve all mem­ber states of this or­gan­i­sa­tion and I would like to re­it­er­ate our col­lec­tive strength lies in our abil­i­ty to work to­geth­er…as I said one can­not do it alone…uni­ty re­quires col­lab­o­ra­tion, more specif­i­cal­ly di­a­logue, con­sul­ta­tion and col­lec­tive re­solve around the ta­ble…even when we have dif­fer­ent view points,” Ramdin said.

Ramdin, 67, who has served as Suri­name’s top diplo­mat since 2020, and was pre­vi­ous­ly the OAS’ as­sis­tant sec­re­tary gen­er­al for two terms from 2005 through 2015, is push­ing for greater ef­fi­cien­cy in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and high­light­ed the need for it to bet­ter sup­port Haiti, which is fac­ing a con­flict against armed gangs with lim­it­ed in­ter­na­tion­al aid.

“I be­lieve every cri­sis must bring an op­por­tu­ni­ty which we must cap­i­talise on. I am ab­solute­ly in­vig­o­rat­ed by the sup­port re­ceive from many all over the world and look for­ward to a very ef­fec­tive and pro­duc­tive time to­geth­er,” he said.

T&T's Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne, said he is pleased to have con­tributed to Ramdin's elec­tion.

"Min­is­ter Ramdin has been my close col­league as the For­eign Min­is­ter of Suri­name and we have worked very well to­geth­er on Cari­com is­sues as fel­low mem­bers of COF­COR (Coun­cil of For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions). He has al­so worked very well with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young on en­er­gy-re­lat­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion. He is a great friend of Trinidad and To­ba­go and we are con­fi­dent that he will pro­vide the prin­ci­pled lead­er­ship that is need­ed at this time from the of­fice of OAS Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al," said Browne.

Ja­maica’s For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Min­is­ter, Kam­i­na John­son Smith said her coun­try has all the con­fi­dence that Ramdin has the “nec­es­sary skills and ex­per­tise to build con­sen­sus among mem­ber states, to en­hance syn­er­gies among the in­ter-Amer­i­can bod­ies and agen­cies to to ef­fec­tive­ly en­gage the pri­vate sec­tor and civ­il so­ci­ety to  ad­dress is­sues such as pover­ty, food and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate change, ir­reg­u­lar mi­gra­tion and vi­o­lence against women and girls."