United States Ambassador Sue Cobb pauses before answering a question at last week's Gleaner's Editors' Forum. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer United States Ambassador Sue Cobb was the special guest at The Gleaner's Editors' Forum last week during which she answered tough questions on US relations with Jamaica. The following are excerpts from the occasion.
ON THE SNIPER ISSUE AND JAMAICANS LIVING ILLEGALLY
IN THE UNITED STATES.
We are not concerned about the number of Jamaicans who live illegally in the United States. We are concerned about the number of illegal persons who are able to come into the United States and it is definitely not directed to any one country. I would say that any American who has given this any thought fully recognises that the Jamaicans who have come to the United States have contributed far more than the handful of criminals who get some publicity such as the sniper. And we, of course, have the classic example we have always used, our Secretary of State (General Colin Powell) who is a wonderful human being but there are many, many examples.
We have benefitted...and people forget that we all came from somewhere else, and we have benefitted by the Jamaicans who have come to the United States. It is like life, there is some good, there is some bad. Probably there are some illegal people who came in, started working and did just fine.
I know that Jamaicans have been concerned about the ramifications of the sniper case but it is an isolated kind of a situation, there is not a chance in the world that one particular country is going to be targetted in that manner because of an incident like that.
ON US ASSISTANCE IN
THE FIGHT AGAINST CRIME
We view the elements of transnational crime, drugs, illicit activities particularly as it relates to movement in the Caribbean and up towards the States to be a very, very high priority. It is probably our highest priority, to help Jamaica become fully capable in every way of taking care of itself, taking care of its borders, intercepting the bad guys that want to come through here and helping the United States in that regard on what we truly consider to be our first order.
So that is a whole range of things which we can deal with if you have questions about drug interdiction, migration, port security, crime - those kinds of issues. Probably largely because of the terrorism activity we are focusing a great deal on the migration issues, that is one of our priorities, and we have a programme working with the Government on right now which I will tell you about later that will help Jamaica in its border security and tracking entries and exits to and from Jamaica which we think will be supportive of Jamaica's own efforts to cut down some of the drug trade, help stop some of the gun smuggling, that sort of thing. That is an important area to us.
ON ILLEGAL GUNS..
The two toughest issues that I have seen since I have been down here, us collectively - the Jamaicans and Americans - seeking to address illegal guns. We have made some strides with the effort on guns, we do think about it, we do talk about it, we do focus on it. Guns do not come entirely from the United States as everyone might well know. In fact, the biggest influx, as we understand it, occurred when the cocaine trade started to come through Jamaica. Guns came along because that was a means by which you could protect your investment, so I certainly don't expect the United States to take one hundred per cent blame. But, obviously, we produce guns, we have guns and that is a problem.
The manner in which we have been working with the Government of Jamaica, and we have been having some progress, is in the area of tracing the guns. Just last week we had a major conviction in the United States which we attribute to the successful work of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) here.
When the guns are picked up and turned over to the Embassy here and then traced back to the person who possessed them, to where that person got them, to the illegal entry, to the source in the States and then we prosecute those people. Sometimes they are convicted on charges other than gun smuggling but we know that the bad guys typically tend to do the same things - guns, money, drugs. So it is a difficult issue. We clearly cannot search everything that leaves the United States. We are hoping to increase your border security in different ways in the context of today's conversation and that should help also in detecting illegal guns that come in from the States.
ON TOURISM
A year ago before September 11, I promised to increase the number of tourists coming here but so far I have failed miserably on that but we will continue to work with Jamaica on that and, hopefully, have things turn around here at some point. We know how important it is to your economy and we intend to be as supportive as possible on that.
The major thrust of this brief mention from our perspective of our presence here in Jamaica, a lot of people think it is only about business and consular affairs but that is not the case.
ON VIOLENCE IN JAMAICA
AND TRAVEL ADVISORIES
There are two things. One is that the means by which most travellers get their information is their television and, unfortunately, it does not matter in what small locale an incident might take place, it is called Jamaica, so that is the largest amount of information that gets spread.
From our perspective, we do have an opportunity, almost always, occasionally there is a slip up, but we do have an opportunity to review travel advisories and believe me, we tend to try to protect Jamaica while giving appropriate warnings to citizens. I haven't seen one in quite some time whatever kind of warning now is there but I will look at it when I get back to see if anything can be done differently. We watch them though, we clearly watch them.
ON ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
We in the United States have been very, very fortunate to be prosperous for most of our history. We recognise that economic prosperity is critically important to be able to maintain a democratic and free country and so we are very focussed on trying to help our friends and neighbours who are sometimes struggling on the economic prosperity side. We are doing a lot in the area of development and what we call sustainable development. Of course, not just here but in the Caribbean and also in other parts of the world.
ON HELP WITH HIV/AIDS
Another broad area of great interest which has the President and his administration's full support is the international fight against HIV/AIDS. The President will be asking for a considerable amount of money to put into the HIV/AIDS programme and there are several things going on.
ON MANAGING VISA APPLICATIONS
Our Consular Affairs plays a big part although it is the normal day to day work. I am proud of this group. This year since I have been here they have been running a Consular Affairs section because they have managed to greatly streamline the process so that there is no longer a backlog. I think it was up to like three months (that) people were waiting to get visa applications processed but now there is no backlog, same day service - you come in and whether you are accepted or not it happens quickly; some by appointments so the people do not have to come to Kingston and sit around and wait and see what is going to happen and they have to come back and so forth. So I think the team in our Consular Affairs section has done a great job. That is in the context of Jamaica which is about the 10th largest visa processing operation in the world, so all those officers under the leadership of Don Walsh are really doing a fine job.
ABOUT WAR ON TERRORISM AND ITS IMPACT ON THE DRUG WAR
I think there was a pretty rapid recognition that the same routes, transit routes so to speak, that are used for facilitating terrorism are used for facilitating other illegal activities. There has been, I think, in the minds of many representative personnel in the United States and others, a convergence of the war on terrorism and the war on drugs. They are separately funded in the United States, but it is pretty easy to see if you can move some drugs from point A to point B, you can also move people. You can also move money, you can also move guns and you have the same contacts who have proven themselves to be willing not to be law-abiding citizens. So there is that convergence in a lot of people's minds. I feel that way and I think that our Government is seeking to address both.
ON MIGRATION AND BORDER CONTROL
We were able to propose and receive from the State Department a request for funds to help Jamaica upgrade its border control systems and migration. By this I mean - how people enter and leave the country through different ports - airports and seaports. We received approval for US$2.2 (J$107.8 million) for a programme to be administered by the International Organisation of Migration. There is a technology component, upgrading the actual technology features at the major ports. The Governments of Jamaica and the United States are talking about this right now, working through the different requirements and exactly what is going to be done.
There is a second component, not chronological altogether (but) technical assistance in terms of training and in terms of any revisions of legislation that might be necessary in terms of tying this International Organisation of Migration programme together with existing programmes that are ongoing in Jamaica and in the implementation of the capacity to control your own borders.
ON THE EMBARGO ON CUBA
Let us take the position on the embargo on Cuba. We do not see any reason to support a regime that has the human rights record that Cuba has - no real freedom of speech, no freedom of elections, no representative government and no effort being made toward that end. I think China is somewhat different in terms of effort, and China has taken a number of steps that certainly we have not seen exhibited (by Cuba) in any regard, so we are not going to support that kind of regime.
We are frankly and openly capitalists, we like to trade, we like to make money and the folks in the middle part of our country particularly in agriculture do want to sell their crops to Cuba which looks to be quite a good market, so there is considerable discussion on that.
It gets quite interesting to me that very often people have a pre-conceived impression of what a leader is going to say about a subject. When President Bush gave his speech in May about Cuba, there was a near flurry about it in South Florida but there was also, in my judgement, not a very thoughtful review of what he really said. If you go back and read that speech, I think you will find that President Bush was offering the leader in Cuba the opportunity to take some steps that he probably could take without vitiating his own philosophical position that would lead to steps to be taken by the United States. In other words, if Castro was willing to do a couple of other things that were necessary to take steps towards human rights, freedom of speech, whatever, they were going to be met by positive reaction from United States. That was totally lost in the coverage of the speech but rejected thoroughly, fully and absolutely by Castro in any event. So would the United States react positively if Cuba moved to what I think all of us would think of as a freer democratic environment with greater human rights? I think there could be movement but under the circumstances they are basically at loggerheads. Castro essentially said no, closed the door, voted to get his resolution and his Parliament to have his Constitution in power forever.
ON THE CARIBBEAN BASIN INITIATIVE PROJECT UNDER FORMER PRESIDENT REAGAN
At the Quebec Summit shortly after President Bush was elected, he announced the Third Border Initiative - the initial funding was something like $30 million - but the charge to the people involved in the region - the US State Department and the Embassy - was to make proposals of things that could be supported under the Third Border Initiative. For example, the standard for excellence in teacher training has been initiated here in Jamaica and education is a big component of going to sustainable development. Our USAID programmes are numerous - USAID is celebrating 40 years this year of support in Jamaica. Those have been re-energised. I think we spent about US$15 million last year on programmes that go toward education and sustainable development and a portion of that which is again preparing younger folks to be contributing members of the society.
We will have in the fiscal 2003 budget in the upcoming year, an additional $45 million for the CARICOM region which is an increase of some US$15 million, something like that. There is a fair amount going on in that area and there is a lot of thinking about things we can do on the Third Border.
In immigration, the International Organisation of Migration programme is also a Third Border Initiative. That is the area I went in to get some money to do something on border security. The Foreign Ministers of CARICOM have sent a thoughtful set of suggestions and requests under the rubric of the Third Border Initiative. They included addressing guns, deportees and border security, economic development and a number of things which are being studied carefully by the State Department.
Having said all that, in some ways all of us here in the Caribbean are, unfortunately, negatively affected by the focus shifting from the western hemisphere when this President certainly started to focus on the Middle East and Afghanistan and terrorism. That happened less than a year in the President's incumbency. I don't know if you remember, I certainly remember the direction he had in his mind about focusing on the western hemisphere. It is an unfortunate change of emphasis demanded by the time that we were in but the President has not forgotten. He is doing what he can, when he can and how he can to get funds to put into this hemisphere because he believes that we should be united, that our democracies here in this part of the world should be united, not in lock and step with the United States, but in your own fashion, within your own culture, supporting each other as best you can, he believes that.
