Andrew Holness
Anti-communism: The JLP’s default foreign policy mode
In foreign policy, Andrew Holness is stuck, immovably, in the Jamaica Labour Party’s ( JLP’s) antediluvian, Cold War, anti-communist default position — a position first marked out by Alexander “we are with the West” Bustamante and aggressively defended, to the point of war, by Edward “turn dem back” Seaga.
Anti-communism was Busta’s political touchstone, his moral exemplar and his economic model. His friends and enemies, except perhaps for Rastafari, were adjudged accordingly. The US was Jamaica’s closest ally; Cuba its greatest threat. While Busta’s orientation served the foreign policy interests of the US, it is unclear whether Jamaica derived much benefit from his “irrevocable commitment” to anti-communism. And nor did Seaga for that matter. But that is a discussion for another time.
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Seaga, for whom socialism was “a pulling-down ideology” and capitalism “a pulling-up strategy”, asserted that Jamaica’s domestic interests could best be served by alignment with the US. Seaga, according to his own biased account, was in foreign policy, a man of “courage and activism” who, in alliance with arch-conservatives, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, “tamed the turmoil” by ridding the Caribbean of the “infectious” communism spread by radical leftists. In what he saw as a “clash of ideologies”, his job was to rally the forces on the right to “turn back” those on the left. His foreign policy was certainly not about “principle”. Diplomatic relations were broken, foreign diplomats were expelled and his own fired and locked up in jail on the basis of false, spurious and unfounded allegations, in pursuance of an ideological agenda.
Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Kamina Johnson Smith.
It was under Seaga’s watch that the international community condemned Jamaica for violating one of the most sacrosanct, if frequently ignored, principles of international relations, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, to with the invasion of Grenada. The first and only time that Jamaica has been condemned by the international community. Its voting record at the UN was at best spotty. Many people thought then that Jamaica’s foreign policy lacked principle; and that the country had entered into a Faustian pact with Mephistopheles. Jamaican diplomats, popular “movers and shakers” at the UN in the 1970s, were in the 1980s called “accomplices and lackeys of Yankee imperialism” and “eunuchs still with a coloniser mentality”.
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Like Seaga, his ideological soulmate and acknowledged mentor, who continues to guide him from the grave, Holness too has asserted that Jamaica’s greatest asset is its proximity to the United States, that 50 years of diplomacy has not brought it any tangible benefits, and that therefore Jamaica’s objective is to get a seat at the table so that it will be able to eat a food. “Jamaica understands the orbit in which we are,” said Holness, “We are in the backyard of the United States.”
According to Holness’s world view, foreign policy, which has as its objective the promotion of Jamaica’s development, is based on the principle of pragmatism. It was, he said simply, practical. Being pragmatic, utilitarian and, some would say, transactional, means that for Holness there is no fixed truth, no getting bogged down with “ideology” (despite staking out what is clearly an ideological position) and, as the world has changed, Jamaica’s foreign policy must be flexible, adaptable and dynamic. It must reject the old way, the non-aligned, “neutral” way, it must take a stance and adopt a practical approach to development and, by so doing, the country will gain respect. Diplomacy must bring tangible benefits. In this world view, “economic diplomacy”, defined as “the advancement of economic growth through building strategic relationships and leveraging overseas presence to promote Jamaica’s trade and investment”, is paramount. No longer is non-alignment the guiding principle.
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In June 2019, at the funeral service of his mentor, Seaga, Holness said: “There were times… when [Seaga’s] straightforward pragmatism captured the people. In 1979 when former prime minister, Michael Manley, appeared to be flirting with communism, but publicly denying it, Mr Seaga cornered Mr Manley with his classic quip, ‘if you walk like a duck and talk like a duck, you must be a duck’.” The reaction of the audience suggested that some might have found the comment inappropriate. But a year later, a determined Holness would return to his obsession.
In July 2020, two months before announcing the September 2020 General Election, Holness, apparently unprovoked, opined that the Michael Manley-led People’s National Party (PNP) Administration of the 1970s had squandered the gains Jamaica had made under the JLP Government of the 1960s. According to the PM, “the misadventure of the PNP diverted us from the path of economic growth, selling the people of Jamaica false hope and unrealistic dreams.
“We had a flirtation with ideologies that were foreign to us and did not serve us well. With all the social problems that needed to be addressed, had we stayed the economic course and ensured that our economy was aligned [my emphasis] to the opportunities that were created by the industrial transformations that were taking place, Jamaica would be a better place today,” Holness argued.
Holness’s foreign policy strategy has meant a firm realignment of Jamaica towards the West and especially towards the United States. This was most evident in Jamaica’s historically excellent relationship with Venezuela, which, under pressure from the United States, certain bilateral challenges and Holness’s own ideological orientation deteriorated rapidly after 2018.
On the morning of the January 10, 2019, Jamaica voted in favour of an Organization of American States (OAS) resolution “to not recognise the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro’s new term as of the 10th of January of 2019”. On the afternoon of that same day, Jamaica’s representative in Caracas attended the inauguration of President Nicolas Maduro to a new term as of that day. That, according to Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamina Johnson Smith, was “a sign of our interest in remaining engaged with Venezuela, with which we maintain diplomatic relations”.
Later that month, the US recognised Opposition Leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s head of State. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a statement to the United Nations Security Council, said: “Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem. Now it is time for every other nation to pick a side. No more delays, no more games.” Jamaica had already picked a side.
In February 2019, Jamaica’s House of Representatives approved legislation to retake ownership of the 49 per cent shares in Petrojam held by the Venezuelan State-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDV) Caribe. And In March, the Government of Jamaica announced that its embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, would be temporarily closed with effect from April 1. It has remained closed.
In January 2020, on a visit to Jamaica, Pompeo praised Holness for “standing up to the illegitimate destabilising Maduro dictatorship and its brutal repression”. He went on to say that, “We will keep working together to help the Venezuelan people to have a democratic nation with free and fair elections and a return to prosperity that the Venezuelan people deserve.” The upstanding Holness, by his silence consented.
In 2020, the US, the UK and Jamaica, all led by conservative governments, were agreed on many things, two of which were: that the failure of socialism explained Venezuela’s malaise; and that socialism would not be allowed to take root in their countries. Socialism, which was being branded as a denial of America’s most cherished value, freedom, and as the worst form of government, would not be tolerated in the free and democratic USA, UK and Jamaica. It was a consistent theme of President Trump. For Holness it was easy, as anti-communism had long been the JLP’s pre-selected option. Of course, what had been going on in Venezuela could not be explained as the failure of socialism or “the brutality of the maniacal” Maduro. But a dog had to be given a bad name if you intended to hang it. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first declare mad; or label them socialist.
In July 2020, at the same time that Holness was pronouncing on Manley’s “alien” ideology, and with elections in the air in both Jamaica and the US, Trump told an interviewer that, “The same type of ideology that took over Venezuela, one of the richest countries in the world. They now have no water; no food and they have no medicine. And that’s gonna happen here, if [Biden] wins.”
Yet the spectre of socialism had not just haunted the Trump administration at home, it had provided it with a justification for certain actions taken at the international level. Mike Pompeo, would avail himself of every opportunity presented or created to ring the anti-socialist alarm. On a visit to the UK in May 2019, he said: “It is disgusting to see leaders, in not only the United Kingdom, but the United States as well, who continue to support the murderous dictator Maduro. It is not in either of our country’s best interests for those leaders to continue to advocate on their behalf.” The following month, he told a group of Jewish leaders that he would not wait for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister of Britain to “push back” against him or any future actions he might take against Britain’s Jews. Corbyn, a “socialist”, who had accused Pompeo of interference in the internal affairs of the UK, lost the general election to Boris Johnson, a conservative ally of President Trump, in December 2019. Corbyn, it was suggested in some circles, lost because he was an “anti-Semite” and an “avowed Marxist”.
So, in July 2020 when Holness, apparently out of nowhere — as nobody had been talking about socialism in Jamaica — raised the issue of foreign ideologies from a time more than four decades previously, he had blown the dog whistle to rally his ideological base, to scare off his opponents and to send a signal to financiers. The tactics of conservative political parties being almost identical, there was certain to have been consultation among the ruling parties in the US, the UK and Jamaica. The JLP won the September 2020 election. However, Trump lost the November 2020 US presidential election. It was left to Johnson and Holness to carry on the struggle.
We are with the West, said Busta in the 1960s. We saved the West in the 1980s, said Seaga. We should have “aligned” ourselves with the West in the 1970s, said Holness. Now Jamaica is once again aligned with the West said Anju.
Anju, like Eddie, would turn them back. He too was resolved that Jamaica would never be a socialist country and was determined to contain the spread of the alien ideology that he deemed socialism to be. Holness, the anti-communist, Christian soldier created an ideological straw man to knock over, scare off the PNP from its socialist roots and use scaremongering to frighten campaign financiers.
What sometimes goes unnoticed is that Holness, who is on the Christian right, and seldom comes across as fervent as some of his fellow acolytes, can be counted on as a faithful disciple. It was his own faith, and his own insecure, transactional, recognition-seeking nature, a desire to make Eddie proud, by reliving the glorious 1980s moment which perhaps caused him to be led down the primrose path to international embarrassment and shame by a practised liar and a hubristic fabulist to whom he had aligned himself. Much treasure was wasted and political credit squandered on a fool’s errand. It was a “monumental error” and one of the greatest blunders ever in Jamaica’s diplomacy. Foreign Minister Johnson Smith took offence at suggestions that her (and Jamaica’s) candidature for the post of Commonwealth Secretary General was a proxy for Boris Johnson. Yet the perception persists and there is much in the JLP’s foreign policy and practice that explains its durability.
Memories of Eddie, Ronnie and Maggie continue to haunt Anju. When he grows up, he wants to be just like Eddie. Delusions of grandeur, touches of hubris, the unrealism of ambition. But Trump and BoJo are no longer around to guide and instruct him. He has to fend for himself. And Biden, busy courting Maduro and waging war on others, has little time for him. Others are getting all the props, blocking out his light. His Caricom colleagues probably have good reasons to distrust him. His foreign policy is in disarray, he stands alone in this world. At home the economy is in dire straits; the society bordering on a state of anomie; and the demos have lost faith in politics. Spiralling inflation threatens the country with economic ruin. De Dacta and De Govana are clueless. The benefits Anju had expected from the transactions, he had entered into, have not been forthcoming. He has handed over the money and he is yet to receive the honey.
Perhaps a seance with Uncle Eddie is called for. A candle, a song, a sankey, a finding of his way back to Maduro in Caracas. That shouldn’t be too difficult as he has been there before. He knows the way as does Bruce, his sometimes-able guide.
Audley Rodriques
Ambassador Audley Rodriques served as Jamaica’s senior envoy to Venezuela, South Africa and Kuwait.
