Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0198/01981.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 20KB | 316 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01981}
$Pretitle{233J}
$Title{Jamaica
Chapter 2C.   Foreign Relations}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Rex A. Hudson, Daniel J. Seyler}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{jamaica
states
relations
united
government
cuba
seaga
caribbean
jamaica's
manley}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Country:     Jamaica
Book:        Caribbean Commonwealth, An Area Study: Jamaica
Author:      Rex A. Hudson, Daniel J. Seyler
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 2C.   Foreign Relations

Relations with the United States, Britain, and Canada

     Close ties with the United States, Britain, and Canada traditionally have
been of prime importance and have existed at the political, commercial, and
personal levels. After World War II, the three nations all provided economic
assistance to Jamaica through international organizations, private investment,
and encouragement of the idea of West Indian federation. By the 1950s, the
United States and Canada had replaced the once dominant British trade role. On
August 7, 1962, the day after independence, Prime Minister Bustamante
described Jamaica as pro- Western, Christian, and anticommunist, and he
announced "the irrevocable decision that Jamaica stands with the West and the
United States."

     Independent Jamaica adopted Western models for internal development and
external perspective. Jamaican leaders, recognizing the strong United States
disapproval of Soviet influence in Cuba and British Guiana (present-day
Guyana), rejected the Soviet alternative. As British influence in Jamaica
eroded rapidly following independence, the United States began paying closer
attention to political events on the island. Beginning with the seizure of
power in Cuba by Fidel Castro, Jamaica's proximity to both Cuba and the United
States raised Jamaica's profile in American foreign policy circles. Growing
United States economic interest in Jamaica paralleled the former's increasing
political interest. Jamaica sided frequently with the United States in its
United Nations (UN) voting on cold war issues during the first few years of
independence. The nation became visibly less pro-West in its UN voting
beginning in 1965-66, however. Jamaica moved out of the United States orbit
for the first time when it abstained on the 1971 vote to admit China into the
UN. According to a survey by academic researchers, favorable attitudes toward
Jamaica's alignment with Western nations declined from 71 percent in 1962 to
36 percent in 1974.

     Nevertheless, during his visit to the United States in 1970, Prime
Minister Shearer declared that his party, the JLP, had reoriented its foreign
relations priority away from Britain to the United States. Relations between
Jamaica and the United States, Canada, and Britain remained generally
friendly. Tensions arose occasionally, however, over the dominance of foreign
firms in the Jamaican economy in the 1970s, continuing colonial patterns of
trade, racial antagonism, emigration of well-educated Jamaicans to the United
States, and the nation's ambivalent attitude toward the United States as a
global power.

     Jamaica's foreign policy orientation shifted again under Michael Manley,
who decided that Jamaicans, in order to solve their economic problems, needed
to break out of their traditional reliance on the United States and the
Commonwealth of Nations. Jamaican-United States relations were strained after
the Manley government established diplomatic relations with Cuba in late 1972,
at a time when a majority of the Organization of American States (OAS) had
voted against such recognition. In July 1973, the Manley government declared
the United States ambassador, who was a political appointee, persona non
grata; the ambassador had claimed before a congressional committee that he had
made a "deal" with Manley, promising United States support of Manley's
candidacy in the 1972 elections in exchange for his promise not to nationalize
the bauxite industry. Also contributing to strained relations were the Manley
government's imposition in mid-1974 of a production levy on companies
producing bauxite in Jamaica and its move to acquire 51-percent control of the
industry; however, subsequent negotiations largely overcame these issues (see
Role of Government, this ch.). In the late 1970s, Jamaican- United States
relations were aggravated further by Manley's anti-United States rhetoric in
Third World forums, his government's close relations with Cuba, his staunch
support for Cuban interventionism in Africa, and his defense of the placement
of Soviet combat troops in Cuban bases.

     After becoming prime minister in 1980, Seaga reversed Jamaica's pro-
Cuban, Third World-oriented foreign policy and began close, cooperative
relations with the United States administration of President Ronald Reagan.
Seaga was the first foreign leader to visit Reagan following Reagan's
inauguration in January 1981. A Stone Poll conducted that month indicated that
85 percent of the Jamaican electorate supported Seaga's close ties to Reagan.
That year United States aid to Jamaica increased fivefold; it averaged more
than US$125 million a year during the 1981-86 period but was cut by 40 percent
in 1987 (see External Sector, this ch.). The Reagan administration made
Jamaica the fulcrum of its Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), a program that
Seaga helped to inspire (see Appendix D). Seaga met periodically with Reagan
and other senior United States government officials during 1980-87, and in
April 1982 Reagan became the first United States president to visit Jamaica.
In addition to its pro-CBI stance, Jamaica adopted pro-United States positions
on Grenada and relations with Cuba (see Economy, this ch.). The Seaga
government favored a return to principles of detente in hopes of ensuring the
security of small states, and it firmly supported nuclear weapons reductions
with adequate verification. The Seaga government has disagreed strongly with
the United States, however, on two issues in particular: South Africa and the
Law of the Sea Treaty. Jamaica, for example, disputed territorial water
boundaries recognized by the United States.

     Jamaica's international horizons remained limited mainly to the United
States, Canada, and Britain, except during the 1970s, when Manley's government
maintained close relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Although
twenty-seven countries had missions in Kingston in 1985, Jamaica maintained a
minimal diplomatic presence in foreign capitals. Even its most important
missions abroad--in London, Washington, Ottawa, and at the UN--were kept
small. Jamaican ambassadors usually were accredited concurrently to several
countries.

Relations with Communist Countries

     Jamaica had no formal relations with any communist state until Manley's
government opened ties with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China in 1972. The
Manley government later developed diplomatic ties with Eastern European
countries. In addition to his ideological sympathies with the socialist world,
Manley sought new relationships of trade, technical assistance, loans, and
direct aid from communist countries. He made his first visit to the Soviet
Union in April 1979. While there, he signed a long-term agreement for Jamaican
aluminum exports, as well as joint accords on sea navigation and fisheries. In
addition, Moscow granted Jamaica a long-term loan to finance the purchase of
Soviet goods. Manley also signed trade agreements with Hungary and Yugoslavia
and established diplomatic and commercial relations with Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and the German Democratic Republic (East
Germany).

     Manley's government developed particularly close relations with Cuba
during the late 1970s. Manley visited Cuba in July 1975 and sent a PNP
delegation to the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in Havana that
December. Cuban president Fidel Castro reciprocated Manley's visit by going to
Jamaica in October 1977. Numerous Jamaicans, including members of the Manley
government, wer