CHOOSE JAMAICA🇯🇲

🔘 COMMENTARY: Oh, thy Comrades missed the signals... The strategists reclining in the Government's war room must be laughing heartily at the Opposition. How could the Opposition have missed the signals that, when it came to Cuba, business as usual was over? Two weeks ago, the Government brought a resolution to Parliament calling for, among other things, constructive dialogue between Jamaica's Caribbean neighbour, Cuba, and the United States amid the worsening humanitarian crisis and the decades-old US economic embargo. But there was a glaring departure from previous resolutions: no explicit condemnation of the embargo or call for its removal. Still, the Opposition debated the motion and voted in favour of it. In doing so, Dr Angela Brown Burke, a former spokesperson on foreign affairs, acknowledged that Opposition members had not seen the written resolution. A day later, the Government went a step further, abstaining from the United Nations General Assembly vote calling for an end to the US embargo on Cuba. It was a stunning departure from Jamaica's longstanding position, maintained since the UN first adopted the annual resolution in 1992. Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith has offered a most unconvincing justification for the abstention. She argues that repeatedly supporting the resolution over the decades has brought no improvement in the circumstances of the Cuban people. The Government, she says, now favours a broader approach involving dialogue, economic reform and respect for human rights. That explanation might have been her best diplomatic wiggle from perceived US pressure. But it hardly eases the embarrassment for an Opposition that apparently failed to recognise that Jamaica's posture towards Cuba had been shifting. And the signals were there! As far back as February, amid Cuba's worsening crisis and mounting US pressure, Prime Minister Andrew Holness was already signalling a different diplomatic approach. Rather than explicitly demanding an end to the embargo, he emphasised constructive dialogue between Cuba and the United States, de-escalation, reform and stability. Then, in March, came Jamaica's decision to discontinue its decades-old medical cooperation arrangement with Cuba, against the backdrop of US accusations that Havana's overseas medical missions involved forced labour and human trafficking. The Government insists that the decision resulted from its inability to agree with Cuba on the terms of a new arrangement, not US pressure. And while Kingston has since offered to engage Cuban healthcare professionals individually, that does not erase Havana's claim that the termination of the longstanding programme was unilateral. So, with all of that, how could the Opposition have confidently expected the Government to maintain Jamaica's traditional voting position at the UN General Assembly? An agile Opposition would have recognised the changing diplomatic language, questioned the Government's intentions and prepared accordingly. Instead, it supported a parliamentary motion without first examining the written text, only to cry foul when Jamaica abstained at the UN the following day. That was a serious political miscalculation. But the Government cannot escape the cynicism its handling of the matter has invited. If, as Johnson Smith acknowledged, the administration had been contemplating a shift in policy for some time, why was that intention not made explicit during the parliamentary debate, just hours before the UN vote? And the attempt by Leader of Government Business in the House Floyd Green to rebuke the Opposition over suggestions that the Government needed parliamentary approval for its foreign policy does little to dispel that cynicism. Of course, the Executive has the constitutional authority to conduct foreign policy. But having that authority is not a licence to sidestep political accountability, refuse to explain decisions or to disrespect the Parliament.