|
| (E-204/00) November 22, 2000
ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
ELECTED TO
With the new emphasis the Organization of American States now places on civil society input, the Organization's Permanent Council today elected St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ambassador Kingsley Layne to head up a committee on civil society participation in its activities. Layne was elected by acclamation on a motion by Ecuador, seconded by Jamaica and Guyana, during a meeting of the hemispheric Permanent Council. The United States and Canada sponsored Layne's candidacy for Chairman of the Special Committee on Civil Society Participation in OAS Activities, created in June last year to foster transparent and modern procedures for interaction between civil society and the OAS' political organs. Ambassador Layne underlined the important contributions civil society has been making to "all that we have been doing in this Organization in recent times--promoting, defending, upholding and protecting democracy, human rights and the search for a better life for all our people. "Whatever we do in government can only be successful insofar as it gains the support of civil society," he stressed. The Permanent Council Chairman, Canada's Ambassador to the OAS Peter M. Boehm, congratulated the Caribbean diplomat, telling him "It is fitting that for an issue of such great public importance reflecting the inclusiveness of this Organization and the value it gives to diversified interest groups and partnership-building that you, as our dean, have accepted this important position." His country's first resident ambassador to the United States, Layne has represented St. Vincent and the Grenadines at the OAS since September 1990 and among other distinctions, was elected as the first Chairman of the OAS' Permanent Executive Committee of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CEPCIDI) in 1996. He co-chaired with the then Canadian Permanent Representative the working group that put the Council in place. Layne is dean of Washington's Caribbean diplomatic corps and dean among the OAS ambassadors. In 1999, he shared the prestigious Martin Luther King Award with former U.S. Senator Bob Dole and prominent civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. ******
|