JAMAICA: DEMARCHE DELIVERED FOR ATTENDEES OF NAM

C O N F I D E N T I A L KINGSTON 001769 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR WHA/CAR (R. BUDDEN) E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/08/2016 TAGS: PREL UNGA PTER PHUM CU JA SUBJECT: JAMAICA: DEMARCHE DELIVERED FOR ATTENDEES OF NAM SUMMIT REF: STATE 145242 Classified By: CDA JAMES T. HEG, REASONS 1.4B AND D. 1.(C) Per Reftel, PolOffs delivered the demarche for attendees of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in a private meeting with the Director of the Department of International Organizations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade (MFAFT) of the Government of Jamaica (GoJ),Ambassador Vilma McNish, the afternoon of Sept. 7. In response, McNish indicated the following: (A) With respect to Jamaica,s position on Guatemala vs. Venezuela for the UNSC seat: she said she had nothing to add to what senior GoJ officials already had indicated, i.e., that the GoJ had not taken a formal position on the question. However, she then added that, consistent with recent statements by GoJ officials, in light of the longstanding Belize-Guatemala border dispute, as a CARICOM member Jamaica would find it difficult to support Guatemala. (B) With respect to the Middle East: she agreed that any NAM statements should be &balanced8, but said that, in light of the disproportionate Israeli response to the recent capture of two of its soldiers, which had resulted in the devastation of Lebanon, any forthcoming NAM statement was unlikely to be &moderate8. 2.(C) McNish had no substantive comments in response to the points on terrorism or democracy. HEG