Jamaica’s ex-pm witnessed Canadian gaffe
OTTAWA — When former Jamaican prime minister Bruce Golding headed out on one of his usual fishing trips on March 27, 2012, there was no way he could have known he was about to have a brush with the Canadian military.
But that’s exactly what happened when Golding’s fishing vessel was stopped on what turned out to be an extremely embarrassing day for the Canadian Forces.
As first reported by Postmedia News, Canadian naval reservists participating in the U.S.-led war on drugs last year sparked a diplomatic flap by firing their ships’ weapons and intercepting fishing trawlers in Jamaican waters — without Jamaica’s knowledge or permission.
According to internal documents, HMCS Goose Bay and Kingston also pulled up alongside one vessel that Jamaican officials said had a “retired senior political figure on board.”
Following the report, a Jamaican radio station spoke to Golding, an avid fisherman who was prime minister from 2007 to 2011, and confirmed he was the Jamaican official stopped by the Canadians.
Golding told Nationwide 90FM that he was on Day 1 of a two-day fishing trip off the Jamaican coast when an inflatable speedboat carrying about 10 Canadians approached. In the distance, Golding could make out a warship, which would have been either Goose Bay or Kingston.
“I saw a small boat approaching my vessel,” Golding told reporter George Davis. “It came directly alongside me, at which time I discovered that they appeared to be foreigners, they were all white people ... and they were all in uniform.”
The Canadians did not search his fishing vessel or even ask who he was, Golding said. Instead, they asked if he had seen anything suspicious and gave him a channel to call if he saw anything out of the ordinary before departing.
Golding said he was about 51 kilometres off Jamaica’s coast when the Canadians approached, which would have put him in international waters.
“Whether or not they were in Jamaica’s territorial waters at some other stage or at some other point, I don’t know,” Golding said.
The next day, Golding called Jamaica’s top soldier, Chief of Defence Staff Maj.Gen. Antony Anderson, to see if he was aware of a foreign vessel patrolling in and around Jamaican waters.
“I wasn’t making a complaint or anything because I wasn’t harassed nor was I searched,” Golding said. “I just mentioned the incident to him to see whether he was aware of it or not. I got the impression he was not aware of their presence in the area.”
That’s when Anderson apparently contacted Canadian officials to find out what was going on and discovered Goose Bay and Kingston had indeed been operating in Jamaican waters — including firing their weapons during a live-fire training exercise.
The mistake has been attributed to the Canadian vessels’ navigational charts, which National Defence says “did not accurately reflect the territorial waters of Jamaica.”
The Defence Department has not explained why the two vessels had inaccurate charts in the first place.
Despite the confusion, Golding told Nationwide 90FM that the Canadians he spoke with were very polite and professional.
Goose Bay and Kingston are Kingston-class maritime coastal defence vessels that are much smaller than the navy’s frigates and destroyers, crewed almost entirely by reservists, and generally used for patrolling Canada’s coasts.
However, they and other Canadian military aircraft and naval vessels have been increasingly active in the Caribbean and East Pacific as part of U.S.-led anti-drug trafficking efforts.
The incident does not appear to have affected relations between Canada and Jamaica, which have been historically strong and, in fact, grew while Golding was prime minister, particularly between the Canadian Forces and the Jamaican Defence Force.
The Canadian and Jamaican militaries have numerous joint-training agreements, while Canadian search-andrescue helicopters helped out when much of Jamaica’s own helicopter fleet was grounded in 2011. Jamaica has also agreed to let Canada position a semi-permanent base on the island.