Abstract
During the 1980s a substantial redefinition of British policy towards the Commonwealth Caribbean took place. At the beginning of the decade the essence of British policy towards the region was the continuation of the long process of withdrawal first set in motion with the creation of the Federation of the West Indies in 1958. By the end of the 1980s not only had this policy been halted but elements of a selective re-engagement in the region were emerging. The causes of this reversal of policy are many and varied and touch on developmental considerations as well as on political factors. While the former are important it is nevertheless the latter which have arguably played a more dynamic part in promoting re-engagement and have raised the profile of the British presence in the region. The net result has therefore been a continuing and largely unanticipated British commitment to security in the region.
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Notes
This paragraph draws on the material presented by Major General Edward Fursdon, The British, the Caribbean and Belize’, Journal of Defense and Diplomacy 6 (6) (June 1988).
House of Commons, Eighth Report from the Defence Committee, Session 1987–88. British Forces in Belize, Report and Appendices, together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence and Appendices (London: HMSO, 1988), p. vii.
Richard Luce, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, in evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee, 14 Dec. 1981. See House of Commons, Fifth Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1981–82. Caribbean and Central America, together with an Appendix; part of the Proceedings of the Committee relating to the Report; and the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee with Appendices (London: HMSO, 1982), pp. 65–66.
Manuel Esquivel, Prime Minister of Belize, cited in Caribbean Insight, Feb. 1985.
Staff Headquarters, Regional Security System, The roles of the Regional Security System in the East Caribbean’, Bulletin of Eastern Caribbean Affairs, 11 (6) (1986).
Report of the Team Appointed by the Council of Ministers to Evaluate the Central Liaison Office of the Regional Security System (Barbados: 31 Oct. 1989).
Figures given by Baroness Walker, Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords (Hansard), 540 (63) (23 Nov. 1992), col. 911
See Regional Security System, Ten Years of Service to the Eastern Caribbean (an extract for the press from a review prepared for the Council of Ministers, 1992).
See Paul Sutton and Anthony Payne, The off-limits Caribbean: the United States and the European dependencies’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 533 (May 1994).
See Humberto Garcia Muniz, ‘Defence policy and planning in the Caribbean: an assessment of Jamaica on its twenty-fifth Independence anniversary’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 27 (1) (1989).
Statement by Mr Garel-Jones, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the House of Commons, 13 May 1993.
Interviews with FCO and MoD personnel, London, May 1994.
Figures supplied by Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Oct. 1993.
Regional Security System, Memorandum of Understanding, July 1992.
Interviews with FCO personnel, Barbados and London, 1992 and 1993.
Interviews with FCO and MoD personnel, London 1993.
See Paul Sutton, ‘US intervention, regional security, and militarization in the Caribbean’, in Anthony Payne and Paul Sutton (eds) Modern Caribbean Politics (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).
For a review of these interests, see Paul Sutton, The politics of small state security in the Caribbean’, in Paul Sutton and Anthony Payne (eds), Size and Survival: the Politics of Security in the Caribbean and the Pacific (Frank Cass: London, 1993).
The new role is discussed in Humberto Garcia Muniz and Jorge Rodriguez Beruff, ‘US Military Policy toward the Caribbean in the 1990s’, The Annals, 533 (May 1994).
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© 1996 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Sutton, P. (1996). Britain and the Commonwealth Caribbean. In: Beruff, J.R., Muñiz, H.G. (eds) Security Problems and Policies in the Post-Cold War Caribbean. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24493-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24493-5_4
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