Democracy by Diplomacy - Tapa blanda

For more than twenty-five years, the tiny independent island-states of the English-speaking Caribbean have been dispatching diplomats to the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Commonwealth of Nations, and to many capitals including Washington and London. This book recalls the heroic instances when the diplomats from these tiny states succeeded in keeping the USA, the world's lone superpower, true to its democratic creed. The USA is inclined to abandon democratic ideals when other interests are at stake. The Caribbean diplomats have helped to improve US world- and regional-leadership by challenging the US when it was willing to stray; and, they have improved the lives of millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean by their insistence on democratic ideals at every juncture. The diplomats and leaders from the tiny Caribbean states have utilized the multilateral institutions where they sit at table with the USA to make themselves a moral force for good. How could tiny states possibly compel changes in US foreign policy? A former Ambassador to the UN, the USA and the OAS answers this question in Democracy by Diplomacy.

Ambassador Lionel A. Hurst has served 15 cumulative years as Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the United Nations, to the Organizationof American States, and to the United States of America. He is an American-trained lawyer, specializing in international law. He also earned an MBA before law school, specializing in international business; and, he earned an undergraduate degree in international politics at the City University of New York. As a diplomat from a small state, he was instrumental in shaping foreign policy, not only of his country, but of the larger Caribbean region of fourteen states known collectively as CARICOM. Ambassador Hurst was born in Antigua and Barbuda in 1950 when it was still a colony of Britain, and participated in the reshaping of his state and region during the heady years of the 1960s. His English is impeccable though he often reverts to using the language of his streets which is a colourful mixture of his forebears' African past and the European language they were compelled to learn when shipped to the Caribbean, beginning in 1632. He writes songs for calypso singers, speeches which he delivers to university audiences and multilateral bodies, and articles which appear in two of Antigua's newspapers. He is also the host of a well-listened to radio talk-show called Fire and Steel. He drives a 1980 Volkswagon, studies Spanish, and is the father of eight children.