PM, US should clarify Vaz issue
BRUCE GOLDING, the former prime minister, is right that the Americans sometimes wield their entry visas as a political cudgel. We agree, too, that they should tell Jamaica why they rescinded Daryl Vaz’s, only to damn the return of his travel privileges to the United States with faint praise.
It is not just the Americans who should speak. Given the latest developments, Prime Minister Andrew Holness is obliged to explain to Jamaicans the basis of his continued confidence in Mr Vaz to serve in the Cabinet, including whether, like Donald Tapia, the former US ambassador to Jamaica, he considers the treatment of Mr Vaz an affront to natural justice. This is not a matter that Mr Holness should fudge, given the likely impact of the event on the trust Jamaicans, already leery of public officials, have for their Government.
Mr Vaz, the science and energy minister, used to be a citizen of the United States, which he rescinded in order to serve in Jamaica’s Parliament. This meant that to enter the United States he had to acquire American travel visas. The ones he received were cancelled in 2019. The United States did not disclose its reason(s). That same year, the Americans also cancelled the visa of Opposition member of parliament and former minister, Phillip Paulwell.
Having a US visa is not a sine qua non for serving in Jamaica’s Government. But for the perception of the affected official and of the administration, being denied one is bad. Having your visa yanked away is worse. First, the United States is the most powerful country in the world, with the ability to exert outsized political pressure on a small country like Jamaica. The US also happens to be Jamaica’s major trading partner and a near neighbour, where many Jamaicans live and to which many more want to travel. Normally, the US issues over 70,000 visitor visas to Jamaicans and another 17,000 or so for permanent residency. US visas are something of a prized commodity.
HOSTILE ACT
That is why when it was disclosed two years ago that Mr Vaz, a minister of a friendly government, had lost his US visa, many people thought that the US action was either a hostile act against Jamaica or that the United States felt it had evidence that he was engaged in egregious behaviour. The basis on which his visa was returned has not assuaged our concern.
Mr Vaz, it seems, intended to herald the return of his visa as a major triumph. The visa page of his passport, a private document, reached the public media. He might not have read the fine print. His visa bears this annotation:“212 (SMALL D) (3) WAIVER OF 212 (A) (2C) (1)”. This note refers to someone being granted a waiver to travel to the United States, despite the Americans knowing, suspecting, or have reason to believe that that person has trafficked illicit substances, has helped in doing so, or has relationships with persons who were, or used to be, so engaged.
Mr Vaz, it has been reported, was also given a A-2 diplomatic visa, which, according to an explanation on the State Department’s website, is reserved for a category of foreign government officials whose travel to the United States is “based on written request of your country to perform official, government-related duties for not more than 90 days”. Cabinet members and ministers, heads of government, diplomats serving in embassies and “government ministers or cabinet members coming (to the United States) for official activities” are normally granted A-1 visas.
REJECTED ALLEGATIONS
Mr Vaz has rejected all allegations against him, which he said were investigated and found to be false. Mr Tapia, Donald Trump’s ambassador in Kingston for 19 months until January 2021, said a US consular officer in Jamaica was wrong to rescind Mr Vaz’s visa and that the annotation on the replacement document was intended to cover up the error. He also suggested that the initial revocation was inspired by an investigation into Mr Vaz by the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA), ordered by then National Security Minister Peter Bunting, when Mr Vaz’s party was in Opposition. MOCA denied that it was ever ordered to investigate Mr Vaz.
What Mr Tapia’s analysis does not explain is why an investigation ordered by Mr Bunting – assuming that was true – only led to Mr Vaz’s visa being revoked nearly three years after Mr Bunting left his office and his party out of Government. Further, Mr Tapia reported that with the imprimatur of Washington, he caused an internal embassy review of the visa’s revocation. That review, he said, determined that the decision was wrong. Nonetheless, the consular officer who took the initial decision refused to yield. In such an event, why did not higher-ups in Washington intervene against that recalcitrant official? We assume that Mr Tapia reported the consular officer’s behaviour in cable to the State Department. It also begs the question of why would a US government official, with access to the world’s most sophisticated investigative agencies, act on the dictates of a Jamaican institution.
The implication of Mr Tapia’s argument is that the United States and its embassy in Jamaica engaged in political partisan action and abetted the politicisation of an investigative institution that was intended to be above this kind of corruption. Given that Mr Tapia has written to scores of US senators on this matter, the State Department should disclose the findings of its internal investigation and say whether the reputation of a Jamaican government minister was unfairly tarnished. In which event he deserves a full apology.
Prime Minister Holness does not have to wait on the Americans to act. Neither should he just hope for the matter to blow over. Keeping Mr Vaz in the Cabinet, we appreciate, is itself a statement. What the public wants to know is the basis of that statement and the nuances therewith.