EDITORIAL - The WikiLeaks demand more than hubris

It is not enough for the Golding administration, as it has done through its national security minister, Mr Dwight Nelson, to react with mere hubris and anger.

That suggests the administration is inviting Jamaicans to infer that the dispatches from American diplomats in Havana were either contrived, or misrepresented their briefings by Cuban officials, or that the Cuban authorities were being deliberately hostile to Jamaica. Neither of these conclusions, it seems to us, is logical nor credible.

First, it would demand the most compelling and sophisticated of arguments - sophistry, perhaps - to convince anyone that the geopolitical relationship between Washington and Havana is such that Cuba would join the United States in a conspiracy to tarnish Jamaica. It matters naught which political party forms the government in Jamaica, especially, as has been the case for years, when ideological distinction between the two is little to none.

Indeed, only this week, the Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodriquez Parrilla, was in Kingston for an official visit, according to the official communiqué issued by the Jamaican foreign ministry, "to strengthen the bonds between Jamaica and Cuba based on the strong ties of friendship and cooperation that have characterised the relations between both countries".

No Cuban minister has made such a visit to the United States, or vice versa, in the more than half a century since Fidel Castro declared his revolution communist. Cuba and the United States co-operate in practical ways on critical issues - such as combating the narcotics trade - as states often do when common interests are at stake.

The greater likelihood, therefore, is that the Cubans had genuine concerns about Jamaica's posture - or the posture of some of its officials - to the narcotics trade, and had shared some of those concerns with US agents at the time of the dispatches in mid-2008.

The United States itself echoed similar concerns in its international narcotics report for 2009, issued earlier this year. Washington complained that the strong cooperation on narcotics interdiction had gone tepid.

More than a coincidence

Assuming that there is no US-Cuban conspiracy, it would seem more than a coincidence that both these countries would share the same misgivings about the same time. What, in this regard, Minister Nelson might do is trace what issue, event or personality might have been relevant at that period to cause reticence towards, or in anyway affect cooperation with other countries against the narcotics trade.

He, and preferably Prime Minister Bruce Golding, should assure the country that such constraints have been identified and removed. And in the event that persons were identified who were engaged in a conspiracy against the Jamaican state, it would be good to know that they are safely behind bars, or are heading there.

It is important that the prime minister convince us that there is no possibility of the capturing of the Government by narco-bosses or their proxies. Accomplishing this means that he must start by ensuring the integrity of his ministers and the cleanliness of his party.

But this is a matter over which the Opposition cannot afford to gloat. It, too, must consider a serious bout of house cleaning. And who knows what the next set of WikiLeaks might reveal about its long tenure in government?

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