Dawn Ritch READERS WILL remember how highly I think of Robert Lightbourne from a recent column. But the full measure of the man could not be taken without Hugh Lawson Shearer's role. It's a story that my late friend Morris Cargill always told me could never be repeated, until after the former prime minister's death.
As Shearer's Minister of Trade and Industry, Lightbourne had been flying back and forth to London trying unsuccessfully to get a better deal for Jamaican sugar exports. Then on one occasion Lightbourne got wind that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was very cut up because it looked as though the Commonwealth was going to break apart.
In 1965 the white Rhodesian racist, Ian Smith, had seized power in what is now Zimbabwe, Africa. Commonwealth nerves were frayed. South Africa was under apartheid, and the then U.K. Prime Minister Edward Heath, had decided to resume arms sales to the racist regime.
Heath was an unsympathetic and cold British ear. Not only to the wishes of Jamaica for a better deal for Jamaican sugar, but to sentiments of black Africa that wanted the economic sanctions against the hated Ian Smith regime to continue.
It was then public knowledge that President Julius Nyerere had warned that Tanzania could leave the Commonwealth, and that other countries would follow suit. The next Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference was slated for Singapore in 1971. The British Government advised the Queen not to visit Singapore, although she had never failed to attend a Commonwealth Conference before. She ignored them.
DISINTEGRATION
The premier Jamaican diplomat, Sir Laurence Lindo was then our High Commissioner to the Court of St. James. He became Dean of the diplomatic corps in the United Kingdom, and had the Queen's ear. The Commonwealth was on the "brink of disintegration". He knew of Her Majesty's desire that it be preserved, and her belief that Jamaica could play a role.
So Lightbourne saw an opportunity for Jamaica, and telephoned the then Prime Minister Hugh Lawson Shearer from London. What if Jamaica were to save the Commonwealth, and came to the attention of a grateful queen?
So in 1971 Prime Minister Hugh Shearer led Jamaica's delegation to Singapore. This was the first Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference to be held outside Britain, and the atmosphere was fraught with mistrust.
At Shearer's right hand was Robert Lightbourne. The Jamaican delegation included Sir Laurence Lindo, Sir Egerton Richardson, G. Arthur Brown, Hartley Neita and Peter King.
The clear Jamaican agenda at the conference was to negotiate a Commonwealth accord in exchange for obtaining a higher price from Britain for sugar.
Shearer, the consummate negotiator, seized the opportunity. Peter King says of Shearer in an autobiography he's writing, and from which much of this detail comes, that with energy and patience the former prime minister put together several back room meetings in Singapore. He brokered a compromise accord with the words crafted with input from the Jamaican team.
The result was the Commonwealth Declaration of Principles. This stated, among other things, that the Commonwealth was an association of independent sovereign states seeking to work together in the interest of all citizens, and considered racial prejudice "as a dangerous sickness threatening the healthy development of the human race and racial discrimination as an unmitigated evil of society".
The Commonwealth remained intact.
Heath was off the hook, saved by Shearer. Shearer, a black Prime Minister, was respected and credible. His reasoned and balanced approach was acceptable to his colleagues in Africa. And his civilised demeanour disarmed Heath, who was an arch-conservative.
Lightbourne and King left for Britain, where the former took several boxes at the theatre and gave a glittering dinner party with pheasant under glass and pressed duck at the Savoy. The influential heads of the West Indian Committee were invited, including the Jamaican sugar baron Sir Robert Kirkwood, well-connected to the powerful Conservative sugar firm Tate and Lyle. Sir Laurence Lindo had ensured that the "right" people were there.
APPRECIATIVE
Downing Street received a subsequent message from the Palace saying that Her Majesty was appreciative of Mr. Shearer's help in Singapore.
Shearer followed to London where a meeting was held at Chequers, the British Prime Minister's country residence. Asked by an unusually cordial Heath how Her Majesty's Government might be of assistance, Shearer replied that he could "stop screwing our sugar industry and its workers into the ground."
Heath asked Sir Robert Kirkwood, who was present, what exactly Prime Minister Shearer meant. The swift reply was "He says you're giving Caribbean sugar a right royal f___".
The Jamaicans were told that British coffers could not accommodate an increase in the price of Commonwealth sugar. Ever ingenious, Lightbourne suggested that a formula could be devised that would apply only to sugar grown in the Caribbean. Heath instructed his officials to see how such a scheme could be put in place to meet the real needs of "our true Caribbean friends".
The result was a complicated chemical formula, including the brix content combined with harvest timings, which could only apply to sugar grown and produced in the Caribbean. This was implemented without fanfare, and few were the wiser about how Jamaica got its sugar accord.
As strategists and negotiators, Hugh Shearer and Robert Lightbourne were a matched pair. They seized every opportunity to gain an advantage for Jamaica.
Today our politicians believe that governance is holding a press conference to announce initiatives which always come to nought. They then turn around and blame the fault on international events.
It never bothered Shearer that nobody ever thought he amounted to much as a Prime Minister. And that he was just a ladies' man. Indeed he used to tell close friends that he gave up the post because it interfered with his schedule of girls. If there was ever any doubt, this brief period in our history is proof that black men once knew how to govern.
