Laura Tanna, Contributor
Former Trinidadian High Commisioner Dennis Francis. - CONTRIBUTED
HIS EXCELLENCY Dennis Francis came to Jamaica as high commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago but at a state banquet in Prime Minister Simpson Miller's honour, hosted by the President of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), she announced quite rightly that Dennis is leaving Jamaica as a 'Trinijam'!
The longest-serving diplomat after six years, Francis leaves as dean of the Diplomatic Corps in early June to take up a substantive post in Geneva, Switzerland. He will be sorely missed by those who know his intelligence, sensitivity and warmth of heart as well as his diplomatic skills - including the ability to repeatedly down even the strongest of foreign toasts without losing his dignity or fluency of speech!
Trinidad and Tobago has 16 missions in the world and Jamaica has been fortunate to have been served by someone of H.E. Francis' ability. He leaves to serve as permanent representative to the United Nations and ambassador to the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Trade Commission, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in Paris, Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome and United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in Vienna. He will be working in Switzerland, France, Italy and Austria.
He disclaims political ambitions: "Because I like being a bureaucrat. I find satisfaction in that. I am at heart an academic and enjoy the challenge of understanding the logic of the subject matter, analysing it and making sense of it in a way that will have an impact in a wider sphere. I find great gratification in unearthing options available, costing those options, and making a recommendation to my political masters, of course fully acknowledging their right to accept or not.
CONCIOUS
"But as a bureaucrat, one always wants to be in the position of having given the correct advice. As a professional, one operates so as not to be emotionally tied to the advice that you give. I'm passionate about my work, but I fully acknowledge that it's not going to be the only opinion on the table. It's not going to be the only one that's credible and one accepts it in that light."
Born in Port of Spain (PoS) November 27, 1956, to Grenadian parents, economic migrants to Trinidad, Dennis was the last of seven children, one of whom died of pneumonia before his birth. He also contracted pneumonia as a child, but survived after 10 months in hospital. His father owned a small construction company which built many houses in T&T while his mother was a homemaker in Maraval where the family home still exists, though both parents have passed on.
Their neighbourhood was racially mixed with Trinidadians of East Indian heritage to the right, African across the street, Chinese on the left, British down the street and Portuguese several streets away. In Francis' words: "That is part of the reality and the magic of Trinidad and Tobago society!"
SIBLINGS
One sister, a psychiatric social worker, and a brother who owns a fruit and vegetable distribution business, live in the U.S.; another brother, a retired senior public servant, and two sisters, a human resource manager in a state corporation, and a clinical psychologist, remain in T&T.
Neither parent went to secondary school but both had a deep appreciation for the importance of education. Dennis remembers: "You had to be literally sick like a dog not to go to school, regardless of how heavy the rain was falling. I think much of my family work ethic was inculcated in those early days. Even now, if I don't feel up to going to the office, invariably I get up, get dressed and go in. Because I had been nurtured on the fact that you do your duty."
Though his father was a Methodist, the children were raised in their mother's Catholic faith. Dennis attended Boissiere Roman Catholic School, then Woodbrook Government Secondary School. Despite his teachers' protests that he had been under-assessed in the 11 plus exam and should seek redress from the Ministry of Education to be assigned to a more prestigious college, Francis insisted on staying where he had been assigned, which his parents accepted.
Says Francis: "Growing up in my family, we were always encouraged to think independently."
Dennis arrived in Jamaica in 1976 as one of two students doing a special degree in geography, completing every course in geography offered by the University of the West Indies. Francis returned to T&T eager to be a town planner, working for a year and a half in the Town Planning Department.
"But," he says, "I discovered that T&T had been so very well planned. There were shelves and shelves of plans. I worked on the Tobago Regional Plan, and on the master Northern Range Plan, in terms of maintaining the environmental balance, sustainable development of housing and recreational spaces. Many of these things had not been implemented, so I thought 'I don't want to spend my professional life doing something that would not have a reasonably immediate quantum impact on the society.' I was encouraged by a friend, a senior public servant, to join the diplomatic service instead, which was an elaborate process."
Now there is an exam, but then it took 16 months, including academic assessment and interviews by highly placed public servants, including the head of the public service who is the Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister.
Francis was grilled for two hours, noting: "Many of the questions asked were in the realm of international relations and politics, in which I had had no training but having done a special degree in geography, and a course in political geography, I was very well positioned to deal with those issues."
"We had very rigid training as diplomats. A foreign service officer was sent to the Institute of Foreign Relations at the St. Augustine campus to read for a Diploma in International Relations, to do research and submit a thesis. I did that programme in 1981, resumed duty and applied for an OAS (Organisation of American States) scholarship to do a master's degree, which was granted. So I went to Johns Hopkins Washington campus, the School of International Studies, to do a Master's in International Finance and Latin American Studies." While there he studied Spanish intensively for two years.
Upon graduation he resumed duty in PoS for three years before being assigned to Canada in 1988 as deputy consul general, where he remained for seven and a half years in Toronto.
"I was the continuity in terms of the office function, the relations of T&T and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and very important, in maintaining the discussions with Canada about Carib/Can Trade Facility by which Canada would allow access into its market of certain designated goods from the Commonwealth Caribbean.
"Those discussions were conducted Caribbeanwide. Over time, we got the Canadian government to acquiesce that certain categories of goods that had been excluded from the agreement, which were of importance to the Caribbean, be included, for instance, in the case of T&T methanol, in the case of Jamaica and others, garments. We did a considerable amount of very productive work that had the effect of creating jobs or keeping jobs in the Caribbean. This is one of the things that is often not well-known by the general public, in terms of what a diplomat does. A lot of what we do is to try to open doors that create jobs or create opportunity."
"Back in Trinidad, I was made deputy director of the Division of International Economic and Trade Relations. We, meaning CARICOM, negotiated bilateral trade and economic arrangements with Venezuela, and Colombia. The early work started what later became the CARICOM/Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement. It was an extremely difficult time for me because I had come back from Canada in March of 1996 but most of my friends almost never saw me because I was travelling abroad on Government business or when I was at home I was so busy.
"In 1997 I worked every Saturday for the year. At the time informally I had become the major speechwriter for then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ralph Maraj, on international trade and economic policy. It was great working for him because wherever he went in the world and delivered a statement, he would phone me in the office and say: 'Dennis, I've just delivered it and congratulations. It was so very well received. Thank you.'
It was very gratifying. In those days I would work all night for two weeks, researching and writing speeches, then go to work next day because I had my daytime responsibilities that needed attending to, from '96 to '98."
"Then the Government made a strategic decision to intensify its relations with Europe. The Foreign Ministry was reorganised, a new Division of European Affairs established and Minister Maraj asked me to become the director of the European Division which took another two years of my life but prepared me for the job I'm leaving for now."
High Commissioner Francis loves Jamaica, particularly the parishes of Portland and Hanover, and hopes one day to return to own a country home here.
