Editorial | Very messy diplomacy

Jamaica’s roll-out of Kamina Johnson Smith’s candidacy for the job of Commonwealth secretary general has been, to say the least, a messy affair. It has the potential not only to cloud Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame’s imminent visit to the island, but Ms Johnson Smith’s prospects for a running start in the post, should she be elected.

The matter again suggests a continuing erosion of Jamaica’s vaunted diplomatic skills of the past and perhaps the need for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to act on this newspaper’s previous urgings that his administration assemble a team of old foreign policy hands to help sort out an obvious problem.

It is not clear why Jamaica felt compelled to make the formal announcement of Ms Johnson Smith candidacy last Friday, except the administration feared it might have been reported by this newspaper, given our questions, before its release, about President Kagame’s visit and matters related to it. Which leads to how the timing of the announcement could upset and embarrass President Kagame.

Official visits by heads of government or heads of state tend to be highly scripted and choreographed affairs, planned to the final detail. Neither side wants to be caught in controversies. That is potentially what Mr Kagame faces.

The domestic confirmation of his visit to Jamaica and Ms Johnson Smith’s planned run for the Commonwealth secretary general’s position happened on the same day. Mr Kagame is an influential African leader, and it is expected that Jamaica will attempt to elicit his support for Ms Johnson Smith candidacy and his help persuading other African leaders to back her. Nothing, on the face of it, is wrong with that.

Except that Paul Kagame will chair the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in the Rwandan capital of Kigali in June, where the 54-member organisation will elect the secretary general. And unless the incumbent Baroness Patricia Scotland backs down, she will be challenged by Ms Johnson Smith. President Kagame, during his visit, will be in the middle of a Caribbean controversy over who should be the region’s candidate. Indeed, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who supports Baroness Scotland, has accused Jamaica of breaking regional ranks on the issue.

REPAIR DAMAGE

President Kagame will not want to be perceived as taking sides in the matter. Jamaica has a significant job to repair any damage that may have already been done and ensure that the Rwandan president is insulated from any further taints during his visit.

But the matter surrounding Paul Kagame is not Jamaica’s sole diplomatic faux pas in this affair. Born in Dominica to a Dominican mother and Antiguan father, Baroness Scotland grew up in Britain. She held several ministerial positions in Tony Blair’s government. Her last was as attorney general.

However, when she was elected Commonwealth secretary general in 2015, it was not as a Briton. Baroness Scotland was Dominica’s nominee. She won the post over the Guyana-born, Antiguan diplomat Ron Sanders, and Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba, a Motswanan and former deputy secretary general of the Commonwealth, whose insertion into the race was surprising, given that under the Commonwealth’s informal regional rotational arrangement, it was the Caribbean’s turn. Commonwealth secretaries general are elected for four-year terms, but a second term is considered almost automatic.

Baroness Scotland from early on faced hostility from Britain’s Tory government and the old Dominions – Australia, and Canada and New Zealand – which was exacerbated by a 2020 internal audit that criticised the secretary general over a consulting contract to a company owned by a personal friend. The company was found to be insolvent. Baroness Scotland insisted that the Commonwealth procurement rules were strictly adhered to.

The post would normally have been up for re-election in 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented formal summits that year and in 2021. Boris Johnson, the Commonwealth’s current chair, opposed Baroness Scotland automatically getting a second term, as some members had proposed. She has since been on roll-over contracts.

Last year, in a move that was seen as supported, if not orchestrated, by the Commonwealth’s ABC members – Australia, Britain, and Canada – Kenya announced that its then defence minister, Monica Juma, would seek the job. She later withdrew, which may have had something to do with last year’s summit between Africa and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), led on the African side by Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta.

In early March, after their summit in Belize, CARICOM leaders said there was “overwhelming support” for Baroness Scotland – language that stopped short of a declaration of unanimous or full endorsement. Nonetheless, Antigua and Barbuda’s Gaston Browne said that there was “consensus within CARICOM … that we will support Baroness Scotland”.

FORMALLY CLARIFY

It is important that Jamaica formally clarify this matter lest it be interpreted that Kingston is operating a stalking horse for others as well as reprise questions about Jamaica’s foreign policy posture, similar to when it supported the Trump’s administration’s efforts to remove Venezuela from the Organization of America States and stopped just short of recognising Juan Guaidó as the president of Venezuela rather than Nicolás Maduro.

Further, if Jamaica is profoundly dissatisfied with the incumbent Caribbean candidate to continue as the Commonwealth’s secretary general (during what is still considered to be the region’s rotational term), Kingston, in keeping with normal diplomatic protocols, would be expected to first attempt to persuade the other capitals to its position. In this instance, Baroness Scotland would be made to see that her candidacy was untenable, and encouraged to withdraw, before Jamaica unveiled an alternative. However, taking Prime Minister Gaston Browne at his word, it appears that he was blindsided by Kingston’s announcement. We assume it was the same for Barbados’ Mia Mottley, a strong backer of Baroness Scotland, as well as Dominica’s Roosevelt Skerrit.

Should Kamina Johnson Smith become the Commonwealth secretary general, this cannot be the way she wants to begin her tenure – shrouded in controversy and facing wariness from a number of countries in her home region.

Jamaica may indeed stand on its own on foreign policy, caring little for partnerships with the small states of this region. If that is Kingston’s position, it is a flawed analysis of global relations. In any event, Jamaica has an immediate problem to which Prime Minister Holness must attend.