(Jamaica Observer) Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Kamina Johnson Smith informed the Senate on Friday that progress is being made in discussions with United States authorities on Jamaica’s request for new protocols to protect Jamaican seafarers detained under the Shiprider Agreement.
“With this latest round of exchanges now concluded, both sides have found agreement on the majority of the proposed protocols. A meeting is now being scheduled between the parties to iron out the handful of issues where there still remains a difference of opinion,” Senator Johnson Smith said in a statement to the Senate.
She added that timely responses and constructive engagement have maintained the spirit of cooperation between the parties “and have provided some optimism that we will finalise these protocols within a reasonably short period of time”.
In 2019, following claims of the mistreatment of five Jamaican fishermen by the US Coast Guard for allegedly trafficking drugs aboard a Jamaican-owned vessel — The Jossette — Senator Johnson Smith had assured the Senate that Government would be seeking a review of the protocols of the agreement which was initiated in 1998 to partner with the United States in countering illegal drug trafficking by sea in the region.
The attorney general and director of public prosecution, supported by an interministerial technical team, convened a meeting with senior US officials on January 6 this year to further review the operational procedures associated with implementation of the agreement.
Senator Johnson Smith told the Senate then that, while US representatives had apologised for the discrepancies to fulfil some of the requirements of the agreement involving another vessel — Lady Lawla — which was detained last year, Jamaica wanted to complete the work on the new protocols that it had proposed to protect the rights of the Jamaican sea crews.
She said the Government was aware that the proposals, which required wide consultations among US stakeholders, could not all be implemented at the same time. However, the treatment of the issues involving The Lawla had not been in keeping with the conditions of the 1997 Shiprider Agreement, or the Maritime Drug Trafficking Suppression Act which came into being in 1998, which she described as the critical elements.
These talks were resumed in January and, according to the minister, have been successfully staged and much progress has been made. “I can inform this chamber that progress has been achieved and the work towards finalising those protocols is far advanced,” Senator Johnson Smith told senators.
