WE ARE CERTAIN that Mr. Bruce Golding is not suggesting that Jamaica should give Venezuela back its oil or that Kingston should abandon Caracas' offers under the PetroCaribe accord, if these do not affect our country's sovereignty. So far, however, both Venezuela and Jamaica and the other signatories to PetroCaribe have insisted that President Hugo Chavez demanded no quid pro quo for the deal.
Nonetheless, we take the seriousness and the sincerity of Mr. Bruce Golding's warning to Jamaica not to join President Chavez in any anti-American rhetoric and the underlying unease with some of the Venezuelan president's domestic and regional policies. For, we too, share some of those concerns.
We hold to the view that, its imperfections notwithstanding, democracy remains the best and most equitable form of government devised by man. A crucial test of the efficacy of a functioning democracy is how well it respects the rights of the minority in the context of rule by the majority. That is always a difficult process, which from this distance, President Chavez has not handled well.
Indeed, we have worried that Mr. Chavez, for all his obvious popularity at home and his clear victories via the ballot, has, and is, exploiting the same electoral process that brought him power, to narrow the political space in Venezuela. The accumulation of power onto a narrow base and the lack of adherence to property rights cannot be good for any society.
His ideology and declarations in support for the poor apart, Mr. Chavez's stocks in this hemisphere are high not only because he has been sharing Venezuela's windfall wealth with the poor countries of Latin America. His sharp anti-Bush and anti-America rhetoric has won him plaudits, in substantial part because of a muscular foreign policy, that is the legacy of the neo-conservatives, which has defined the current U.S. administration. It is that foreign policy that caused Washington to back the attempted overthrow of Mr. Chavez and the adventure in Iraq.
There is little doubt that even when we are ill-at-ease, or fundamentally disagree with America's foreign policy, the friendship of the United States remains important to Jamaica and its partners in the Caribbean Community. However, a strong, essential relationship with the United States does not preclude relationships or good neighbourliness with countries with which Washington does not see eye-to-eye or with which it even has sharp differences.
What is important is Jamaica's ability to conduct a foreign policy that does not undermine its national sovereignty or put the country up for sale "for a few barrels of oil", as Mr. Golding suggests to be the case with Venezuela. We believe that the evolution of Jamaica's foreign policy has moved us beyond such narrow and vulgar calculations.
If we believe that geo-politically, it serves this hemisphere better to have Guatemala in a U.N. Security Council seat for the next two years, whether we are so convinced by America's argument or our perceptions of the world, we should make the case to our CARICOM partners and vote our conscience. And if we believe that Mr. Chavez is going too far in his rhetoric we can say that too - no strings attached.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
