WikiLeaks releases SVG-US confidential cable

The Wikileaks website, which has been creating diplomatic nightmares for governments around the world with its publication of confidential documents, has leaked a United States embassy cable pertaining to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.{{more}}

The cable, which contains a report of a January 29, 2008 meeting between Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves and then US Ambassador to Barbados and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Mary Ourisman, was released on Thursday, June 23, 2011.

Although the release of these confidential documents has drawn the ire of many world leaders including United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, PM Gonsalves is taking the release of the cable in stride, saying it is just “an impressionistic account by somebody”.

Gonsalves described relations between the US and St. Vincent and the Grenadines as excellent, and said what is important at the end of the day is not what Ambassadors may gossip about you, but what is the state of the relationship between countries.

“We are in communication all the time about a wide range of issues. We do a lot of cooperation on security issues, drug trafficking; we do a lot of work on money laundering,” he added.

However, in the report, Ourisman said Gonsalves “remains a master of contradictions who continues to court whatever foreign government he can, in order to secure financial and other benefits for his country.”

“That is what I mean by opinion,” Gonsalves said, when asked to comment on the Ambassador’s description of him.

“In this very challenging world, small countries like St. Vincent and the Grenadines have to find space…. So that what she sees as contradictions, is really astuteness, in trying to make space … in this world for us to be flexible in our foreign policy,” the prime minister explained.

In her report of the breakfast meeting, Ourisman was also of the view that Gonsalves appeared to “generally want to disassociate himself” from the ideologies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Gonsalves, however, said he does not know what Ourisman means by ‘Chavez’s ideologies’, adding that his analysis of the role the State should play in an economy is more sophisticated than would be captured in a summary.

“If anybody asks me about Chavez’s ideological position, you will have to tell me, well what are those positions. If you are telling me about socialism in the 21st century, Chavez is nationalizing banks, while I am privatizing. But there are other things on which we will have agreements,” Gonsalves stated.

The cable also includes what Ourisman describes as a “surprising admission” from Gonsalves, that St. Vincent and the Grenadines has not been consistent in the past in voting on human rights at the United Nations. Ourisman said Gonsalves “blamed” this situation on the “cynical” view of former St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ambassador to the United Nations, Margaret Ferrari.

“I may not have used the word cynical. That may have been her own interpretation,” the prime minister responded, adding that Ferrari felt that the United States was politicizing human rights, and sometimes abstained from voting.

The report also said that Gonsalves was critical of St. Lucia’s Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation Allen Chastanet, describing him as being among “a species of brown people in the Caribbean with money ” who are “not loyal to anybody”.

Again, Gonsalves said the brevity of the report does not give a full picture of what he said.

“I would have given a sophisticated discussion about the political sociology of a particular class of people, but she reduces it to a one liner,” he declared.

Going into more detail, Gonsalves said, “There are positive things about them (‘the brown people’), and there are also negative things about them. They tend to oscillate a lot and they normally get pulled into the mass movement in a progressive manner, if that is where the historical forces are leading. Sometimes they can be very backward and they cut your throat. It is a complex phenomenon. We have seen how they function throughout the region.”

Gonsalves, however, told SEARCHLIGHT that he is not ashamed about anything in the cable, nor is he worried about the release of other cables.

“She is reporting on a leader who is very strong, who is more than holding his own with this American ambassador,” he quipped.

“I expect there would be many more of them; some of them will be better than this in terms of reports, some will be worse,” Gonsalves said.

On Sunday, November 28, 2010, WikiLeaks began publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February 2010, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington, DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.