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Caribbean Islands Other Third World Relations
After independence Jamaica's foreign policy increasingly
emphasized the nation's connection with Africa and issues such as
colonialism, racism, and South Africa's apartheid system. These
concerns reflected the African ethnic origin of about three-fourth
of Jamaica's population. In recognition of the political importance
of the Rastafarians, who actually constituted less than 5 percent
of the Jamaican population, the government of Prime Minister
Shearer hosted a state visit by Ethiopia's Selassi I on April 2,
1966. Jamaica opened low-level diplomatic relations with black
African states in 1968, but established an embassy only in
Ethiopia. Shearer and Manley, the leader of the opposition, made
extended tours of Africa in 1969, including visits to Addis Ababa.
In the early 1970s, Jamaica opened resident missions in Algeria and
Nigeria.
Jamaica's UN voting in the 1960s reflected its pro-African
stances on four issues: Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Namibia,
African territories under Portuguese administration, and apartheid
in South Africa. Since independence Jamaica's voting record on
these issues has closely followed that of other Commonwealth
Caribbean and other nonwhite states. Until 1973 Jamaica gave only
verbal and moral support to the anti-apartheid and -colonial
causes. That year, however, Prime Minister Manley visited several
African countries on his way to the Nonaligned Movement (NAM)
summit conference in Algiers and pledged material support for
guerrillas seeking to overthrow the white-dominated regime in
Southern Rhodesia. In 1976 Jamaica signed the International
Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of
Apartheid. The Seaga government continued to support UN resolutions
and actions against apartheid and for the independence of Namibia,
rejecting the view that Namibia's independence must be conditioned
on the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola.
Jamaica, which had become a full member of the NAM by the time
of the Belgrade Conference in 1968, began playing a prominent role
in that organization after Manley became prime minister in 1972.
Saying he was trying to find a "third way" between capitalism and
communism, Manley emphasized nationalism and railed against what he
called United States imperialism. He headed a high-level Jamaican
delegation to the NAM conference in Algiers in 1973, traveling to
the meeting by airplane with Fidel Castro. In addition to its
leading role in establishing the IBA early 1974, Jamaica was
involved in the international negotiations that led to the signing
of the Lomé Convention in early 1975. A Jamaican delegation also
played a key coordinating role in promoting a "new international
economic order" at the 1976 UN Conference on Trade and Development.
Seaga's government continued the nation's nonaligned status on
key political and economic issues before the UN. Jamaica generally
continued to vote with the positions of the NAM. For example, in
1986 Foreign Minister Shearer advocated a comprehensive settlement
of the problem in the Middle East and the right of the Palestinian
peoples to a homeland. He also called for Israel to pull back to
its 1967 borders, but, at the same time, stressed the right of the
Jewish state to exist. The Seaga government advocated the UN as the
best forum for negotiating a solution to Middle Eastern conflict.
Although Seaga expanded his nation's relations with Third World
countries in the 1980s, he lowered its profile as an advocate of
NAM causes.
In addition to participating in the UN, Jamaica has
participated actively in international institutions such as the
World Bank, IMF, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
Group of 77, EEC, IBA, Intelsat and the International Seabed
Authority (ISA), which made Kingston its headquarters.
Data as of November 1987
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