​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Remarks by Ambassador Irwin laRocque, Secretary-General Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States (CARIFORUM) at the Nineteenth Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States (CARIFORUM) Roseau, Dominica 25 November 2011
Speeches
​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) It is with great pleasure that I welcome you Ambassador once again to the Headquarters of the Caribbean Community. Your posting here in Guyana would be the second time that our paths have crossed professionally, following one of your stints in Barbados while I served as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Dominica.
​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Your Excellency, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, Secretary General of the Caribbean Community, Deputy Secretary General, other members of the CARICOM Secretariat, U.S. Embassy colleagues, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to serve as the United States of America’s fourth Plenipotentiary Representative to the Caribbean Community.
​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Permit me first to recognize the presence of the Hon. Joseph Gilbert, Minister of the Environment, Foreign Trade and Export Development of Grenada at his first meeting of the COTED. I also wish to recognize the presence of Sir Edwin Carrington, Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago to CARICOM and immediate past Secretary-General of CARICOM.
​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Let me start by officially welcoming Ambassador Irwin LaRocque to his first meeting of the COTED in his capacity as Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community. We are all aware of Ambassador LaRocque’s long-standing relationship with the COTED, first as the representative of Dominica and later as the Assistant Secretary-General for Trade and Economic Integration in the CARICOM Secretariat.
​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Good Morning. Mr. Secretary-General, my first and most enjoyable task today is to extend to you the warmest congratulations on your assumption of the office of Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community. We have worked together for many years and I know that in you, the Community is in very capable and committed hands. I wish you a most successful term of office.
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(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) I am particularly pleased to join in welcoming all our participants to the Second Meeting of the Caribbean Basin Security Commission and to state how grateful we are to the Government of Guyana for agreeing to host this year’s meeting and for the warm hospitality extended to the delegations represented here today.
​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Good morning, Happy Eid Ul Adha.
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    Today, Friday 5 November 2010, is, for me a very special and truly humbling experience. Allow me therefore to make the following brief remarks.
To have been bestowed with the Award of Knight Commander (ad honorem) of the Most Distinguished Order of the Nation (KCN), and moreso by such an esteemed personage as the Governor General of Antigua and Barbuda, Her Excellency Dame Louise Lake-Tack, makes this ceremony for me, an occasion of historic proportions.
- On The Occasion Of The Opening Ceremony Of The First Award Of Excellence In Services Trinidad & Tobago 31 October 2011
​(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)We meet here this evening in these convivial surroundings to participate in the Opening Festivities of what I am sure will be an enlightening and productive observance of National Services Week, here in Trinidad and Tobago, and to recognise and celebrate the achievement of outstanding service providers, including our youth.