Let us be honest, the foreign policy of the governing Jamaica Labour Party, which they label as pragmatic, is a failure. This foreign policy has seen us nationalize Venezuela’s share in Petrojam without paying them, doing deals and engaging in business with a country in the form of Israel that is engaging in genocide and ethnic cleansing. It has seen us slowly abandon CARICOM, deport Haitian refugees fleeing violence, and it has seen us abandon Cuba and expel Cuban doctors and nurses. It has seen us do all this to curry favour with the US, and we have nothing to show for it.
Recently, however, it was revealed that the government looks to go one step further in its attempt to kowtow to the US by entering into an agreement that will see Jamaica act as a hub for third-country nationals who are to be deported from the US. The skeleton of the deal will see Jamaica accepting up to 25 persons monthly, with a figure of 10,000 listed as the overall number to be accepted. In an attempt to split hairs, the government has stated that these are not deportees but are instead third-country nationals who have been charged with no criminal offences.
They state that there has been a lot of misinformation surrounding it, but much of it is coming from the government. For example, did Audrey Marks suggest, and was it of her own volition or was this a cabinet decision? Were we pressured into it, as some allege? Rumours abound that we agreed to this because the holy grail that is the US visa was threatened. Are we sure that this is not human trafficking? If we terminated the Cuban agreement because it was alleged by the US that it was human trafficking, how can we enter an agreement that has such ill-defined legality?
The PM says that people are confusing the agreement with attempts by the government to import skilled labour, but it was the deputy PM who stated publicly that he wants the people who are coming to be skilled workers, so the PM should seek clarity from within the cabinet and not gaslight people. Our foreign policy is an embarrassment; our inability to say no to the US in a meaningful way is shocking, and it will have further negative impacts.
The would-be US ambassador to Jamaica, Kari Lake, has openly stated that the country’s dealings with China are firmly in the crosshairs. We will, shortly, whatever administration emerges next, have to make a choice: do we side with the US, the country which has invested little but extracted much from us, or do we side with the Chinese who have invested massively in the country’s infrastructure?
We know we will have to make these decisions because we had to make them already. Lest we forget, it was the US which pressured the Jamaican government to block Huawei from operating in Jamaica; it was US pressure which saw Jamaica abandon plans to have a Chinese company have majority control of the port. The US has never been afraid of saying publicly that if there are dealings with China, then we will suffer consequences, and the politicians are aware of what they are, be it a halt on trade, funding of opposition to destabilize the government, or a simple revocation of visas and a halt on issuing new ones.
I oppose this MOU signed between the government and the US. I think it is shameful and is something which in the not-too-distant future we will regret in a major way. We are acting as a cleanup crew for the US and its illegal internal shenanigans. The country should not become a dumping ground for what the US has described as some of the worst people on earth. The lack of honesty on this matter will hang over this government, but it will not budge them, as ideologically, many of them are of similar mind to those in Washington.
With the deportation of TCNs from the US already being challenged in US courts, the government has put itself in a worrying position of potentially engaging in illegal actions, therefore opening itself up to legal challenges. What is to stop any potential TCN sent to Jamaica from taking the government to court for engaging in what they may deem to be a breach of their human rights?
Instead of accepting these TCNs, we should be saying no and demanding that the US end its barbaric policy of deporting asylum seekers and others whose only crime is to have not been born in the US or obtained its citizenship. But we are not doing that; we are not even remaining silent anymore and are now active participants in the US’s aim of whitening the population by expelling black and brown people.
The people may be opposed to it, as was evidenced by the protest in Cross Road and St Mary, but not to the point of taking to the streets. We remain a country that is politically apathetic, the government know this and believes that if they can ride out the storm for 2 weeks, then they will be good. That may be true, but if any of these deportees, I’m sorry, TCNs, commit any crime, then the response from the population will be harsh, and we will see massive protests.
The fact that this was done in secrecy, with no heads-up given to parliament or the people, makes this even worse. If it were not for a leak to the newspaper, we would only have known about this once it was completed. That is not democracy; the people need to be informed beforehand by the authorities and should not have to rely on leaks to get information on activities that could impact them.
Our foreign policy is a dud; it breaks upon the walls of reality, a reality which says that neutrality is good and that sucking up to the US gets you benefits. It is obvious that there is no room for neutrality in the region and that the US is handing out no benefits to its satellites.
We will have to take a side: do we go with the dying hegemon whose only tool is force, or do we go with the Global South, which is on the rise, led by China? The choice in my eyes is obvious, we need to go with the Global South, but this deal shows us that it is not anywhere near the agenda for this administration. We will continue on our current path until it is too late and we have become something akin to Cuba in the 50s.
Jamaica should be refusing to be Guantanamo 2.0. We have our own issues of inequality and racism; we don’t need extra kindling for this fire, which is what this would be, as it creates many NIMBY persons. It will only breed suspicion and animosity between citizens and deportees, and as a country that lives and dies based on how well we host people – read tourism – any negative action towards the deportees will possibly be blasted all over global news, just as the case of the Jamaican in Eswatini was made global news. However, the train is in full motion, I doubt it can be stopped, but nevertheless, we must oppose it as it is the only correct thing to do.
