Robert Buddan
BRUCE GOLDING and Karl Samuda do not want Jamaica to do anything
to anger the United States. They did not want Jamaica to give
refuge to Bertrand Aristide and do not want Jamaica to support
Venezuela's bid for a two-year seat on the UN Security Council.
How will the Simpson-Miller/Anthony Hylton foreign policy regime
eventually vote? So important is Jamaica's foreign policy that
its first four Prime Ministers after independence Alexander
Bustamante, Donald Sangster, Hugh Shearer, and Michael Manley
- reserved the ministry of foreign affairs for themselves. Foreign
ministers who were also deputy Prime ministers - David Coore,
Hugh Shearer and Seymour Mullings, followed them. Then a former
foreign minister and deputy Prime Minister, P.J. Patterson, became
Prime Minister.
Portia Simpson Miller was never a foreign affairs minister but
as Prime Minister, it is impossible for her to avoid international
issues. Already, she has addressed the Inter-American Development
Bank (IDB), the Jamaican Diaspora, a regional conference on early
childhood education, met with the President of Chile, and addressed
a meeting of international bankers and investors in Miami. Before
the year is out she will have the opportunity to attend the CARICOM
Summit in July, the UN General Assembly in New York and the Non-Aligned
Summit in Cuba, both to be held in September. Her administration
will have to make the United States understand that, like the
U.S. itself, Jamaica's foreign policy is pursued in the country's
best interest and not to any other country's disadvantage.
At independence, Bustamante had famously declared 'we are with
the West'. In today's post-cold war global order, Jamaica's foreign
policy should be 'we are with the world'. It must pursue international
relations for development.
MATCHING THE GLOBAL WITH THE LOCAL
The administration wishes to match global strategies with local
objectives. The Prime Minister's local objectives are macro-economic
stability, early childhood education, provision of basic shelter,
and investment in education and training. She wants a foreign
policy where gains are passed on to local communities to empower
the poor.
She advised the IDB to be more relevant to development by investing,
for example, in education. She wishes to see UNICEF do the same
to transform early childhood education by assisting her initiatives
to make children develop into better citizens and more valuable
human beings. It could assist care centres and the objectives
of government's Early Childhood Act.
Mrs. Simpson Miller has called upon the Jamaican Diaspora to
be involved in the development process and explained her commitment
to policies for the poor. She emphasises the importance of moral
and spiritual values, these being important forms of social capital
that will balance people's lives.
HEMISPHERIC OPPORTUNITIES
Jamaica similarly pursues an international relations of development
within the hemisphere. Jamaica and CARICOM balance their interests
among three groups. There are competing views of what the hemispheric
order should be like among the 'free market' NAFTA partners
Mexico, the U.S., and Canada; a moderate socialist group
the ABC countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile; and the Bolivarian
group of Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, the most radical anti-U.S.
group.
Jamaica and CARICOM have advantages to all of them - CBI status,
market proximity, and votes in international organisations. For
example, Brazil wants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council
and Venezuela wants a temporary seat. The NAFTA group wishes to
counter-balance the others, particularly the Bolivarian group.
Jamaica has sought to avoid getting involved in their ideological
quarrels and to focus instead on the particular areas that benefit
the country's development.
Brazil wants to get into ethanol production in Jamaica because
it is guaranteed duty-free export of ethanol to the United States
under the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act. This will help
to save the jobs of 40,000 Jamaican sugar workers and could make
Jamaica the leading cane sugar and ethanol exporter in CARICOM.
Brazil's Coimex is already partnering with Petrojam and Aracatu
is bidding with the Jamaica All-Island Cane Farmers Association
for five state-owned sugar companies.
Venezuela offers PetroCaribe by which Jamaica gets 21,000 barrels
of oil each day. It is allowed to keep 40 per cent of the cost
as a loan. It repays this loan over 25 years at one per cent a
year. The savings are put into a development fund, which sponsors
projects like environmental protection and infrastructure. Depending
on oil prices, Jamaica will save between $20 and $30 billion dollars
a year. In fact, Minister Paulwell and a team were off to Venezuela
last week to obtain US$300 million for highway spending, an additional
2,500 barrels of oil per day for Air Jamaica, and money for the
rehabilitation of infrastructure damaged by Hurricane Ivan.
Cuba's contribution to health care in Jamaica and CARICOM is
vital, particularly in treating HIV/AIDS and eye care. It is now
believed that 25,000 Jamaicans have HIV/AIDS. Between August last
year and May this year, 1,870 Jamaicans were treated for free
in Cuba for eye problems. Another 531 relatives of these patients
who accompanied them were also eligible for treatment at no cost.
Almost 2,200 operations have been done. Cuba provides round trip
transportation, hospital care, surgery, and medication during
and after the operations. Another 500 patients are on a waiting
list for the same benefits. In addition to all this, we have just
received a critical supply of 200,000 bags of cement from Cuba
and Cuba has given us 30,000 energy saving fluorescent bulbs.
POLITICISING HEMISPHERIC RELATIONS
Unfortunately, the United States is in an ideological war with
Cuba and Venezuela and a trade war with Brazil. Yet, it trades
with all of them. It is a little known fact that the U.S. is the
largest exporter of food and agricultural products to Cuba. It
has made exemptions under its embargo to please its agricultural
states. Now its energy sector wants similar exemptions to explore
for oil in the Cuban Basin and many suspect that the energy lobby
is powerful enough to get them. Venezuela is the third largest
export market for the U.S. in Latin America and is one of the
top four suppliers of oil to the U.S. US-Brazil trade is worth
US$30 billion and being the largest economies in North and South
America, their trade could double if they sort out their trade
disputes.
Jamaica has a right to benefit from trade with these countries
just as the U.S. does. Brazil is the world's largest ethanol producer
and no country has offered Jamaica the prospects for developing
an ethanol industry, as has Brazil. Venezuela is the largest oil
producer in the hemisphere and no country has offered oil concessions
to Jamaica on the scale that Venezuela has. Cuba is the world's
best provider of free health care to countries of the world and
no country offers as much free health care to Jamaicans as Cuba
does. None of these countries pressure Jamaica to vote for their
causes.
Countries like Jamaica need help in development from wherever
it can get it as long as the country's integrity is not compromised.
I hope the Government supports Brazil, India and South Africa,
and Venezuela's bid for seats on the Security Council. They clearly
support regional integration and the fight against poverty. These
are our objectives too.
Robert Buddan is a lecturer in the department of government
at the University of the West Indies. Email robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.
APOLOGY
THE ARTICLE by Robert Buddan, a lecturer in the Department
of Government, University of the West Indies, published in The
Sunday Gleaner, dated June 25, captioned "Reneto Adams policing
the badlands of Jamaica, stated that the Farquharson Institute
of Public Affairs, in conjunction with other government and private
organisations have amassed more resources to convict Mr. Adams
than any other individual in Jamaica's history, and further made
a statement the thrust of which was that the Farquharson Institute
had joined with criminals in a joint enterprise to convict Senior
Superintendent of Police Reneto adams.
The Gleaner Company Limited is satisfied that the above statements
are false; in fact the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs
has at no time made any statement about the Adams trial, nor have
they been involved in any way in the prosecution of Reneto Adams.
The Gleaner Company unreservedly apologises for publishing the
statements made in the article and for any impression that might
have been left in the minds of the public that the Farquharson
Institute of Public Affairs was in any way connected to criminals,
or joined with others to influence the course of justice.
The Gleaner Company disassociates itself from the comments made
in the article which offended the Farquharson Institute of Public
Affairs. We wish to assure it and members of the public that we
continue to hold the institute in high esteem. In apologising
for the publication of the statement, we regret any embarrassment
and inconvenience which it may have caused the Institute.
