IS JAMAICA REGRETTING SEAGA BREAK-DOWN IN CUBA RELATIONS? The Cuban Revolution (1953–1959) was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castros 26th of July Movement and its allies against the government of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953 and finally ousted Batista on 1 January 1959, replacing his government with a revolutionary socialist state. Jamaica had no formal relations with any communist state until Michael Manleys government opened ties with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China in 1972. He made his first visit to the Soviet Union in April 1979. 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). Manleys 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 Cuban Communist Party in Havana that December. Cuban President Fidel Castro reciprocated Manleys visit by going to Jamaica in October 1977. Numerous Jamaicans, including members of the Manley government, were sent to Cuba for ideological indoctrination and paramilitary training as members of brigadista groups. According to the State Department, by 1980 nearly 500 Cubans were working in Jamaica. Having made Jamaicas relations with Cuba a major issue during the 1980 election campaign, Edward Seaga, in his first official act as prime minister, terminated the brigadista program with Cuba in January 1981. He also expelled most of the Cubans, including Ambassador Armando Ulises Estrada, identified by the State Department as a Cuban intelligence operative. Although the Seaga government stopped short of severing diplomatic ties with Cuba at that time and allowed a few Cuban Embassy officials to remain, it broke diplomatic relations with Cuba on October 29, 1981, in an unprecedented move of major significance in Jamaicas foreign relations. Havanas refusal to extradite three Jamaicans wanted on murder and other charges served as an apparent pretext. In a speech to Parliament on November 1, 1983, Seaga announced the expulsion of a Cuban journalist and four Soviet diplomats, whom he identified as operatives of the Committee for State Security (KGB), for espionage and conspiracy to murder a protocol officer at the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Jamaican-Cuban relations have remained severed under Seagas government. As of December, 2014, talks with Cuban officials and American officials including President Barack Obama have resulted in the exchange of releasing American Alan Gross, fifty two political prisoners, and an unnamed non-citizen agent of the United States in return for the release of three Cuban agents currently imprisoned in the United States. Additionally, while the embargo between the United States and Cuba will not be lifted, it will be relaxed to allow import, export, and certain commerce within a limit between the two. Whither Jamaica?
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:25:54 +0000
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