Having become aware that Caleb McCarry, the “Cuba Transition Co-ordinator” appointed under the “Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba,” was about to visit Ireland, the Cuba Support Group wrote to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, on 29 April 2007 calling on the Irish Government not to meet McCarry.
The next day the Cuba Support Group contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and asked if McCarry had requested any meeting. “Not to my knowledge,” replied an official in the Americas Section. She was asked to consult senior officials who might have more knowledge. She agreed to do this and get back to us by phone. We are still waiting for the call. However, it transpired that McCarry was in the building, meeting officials, at about the same time this conversation was taking place.
For the next three days we attempted to get the department to confirm that the meeting did indeed take place. We spoke to the same official again and to two other senior officials in the department.
Before our final call to the department we contacted the US embassy in Dublin. Within a few minutes we had confirmation from the embassy that McCarry had met officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and had discussed Cuba-related issues. Yet in conversation with the deputy head of the Americas Section, during which he was informed that the US embassy had confirmed that the meeting had taken place, he continued to insist that he would neither confirm nor deny that any such meeting took place.
This behaviour could be dismissed as a one-off event if it were not for all the other evidence that has piled up suggesting that the Department of Foreign Affairs is slavishly and unashamedly taking its lead (if not its orders) from Washington. Indeed it is strongly argued that the more the Irish people reject US foreign policy generally the more closely aligned to, and protective of, US foreign policy the outgoing Irish Government becomes.
Another example of this indecent exposure occurred in October 2006, when the Middle East Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs repeatedly refused to view a video of the Israeli military attacking Palestinian civilians at a check-point in Jerusalem, when a number of Irish citizens on a study tour of the West Bank were also attacked. The Middle East Section of the department repeatedly and decisively refused to view the video.
However, when it was offered to the Americas Section of the Department of Foreign Affairs as showing scenes of Cubans, and the Irish cameraman being “manhandled” by Cuban security forces, the section not only agreed immediately to view the video but also requested that all the background information relating to the incident be made available to the department.
Embarrassed into viewing the video, the department agreed to make representations to the Israeli embassy in Dublin, and agreed to get back to us with whatever response they got from the Israelis. More than six months later we are still waiting for a response from the department. However, they did assure us that “there is no conspiracy against Cuba” in the Department of Foreign Affairs. What a pity! If there was a conspiracy we could at least try to address the problem. It is worse than that. Hostility to Cuba in the department requires no conspiracy: it is ingrained as a matter of policy, and the expression of that hostility requires only the slightest catalyst.
It should be noted that the decision on the part of the Irish Government to talk to McCarry was taken despite the fact that the Cuban government’s position on McCarry and his commission is well known and was likely to be regarded by the Cubans as a distinctly unfriendly act.
However, the Irish Government is not shy about adopting unfriendly positions against Cuba. A study of questions and answers related to Cuba in Dáil Éireann over the past decade revealed a list of policies and positions that could have—and probably did—come straight from the US State Department’s handbook on Cuba. (See http://www.cubasupport.com/Irish%20Government%20Hostility.html). The same rationale and the same language are now being used to deal with questions related to Venezuela.
Whatever the result of the forthcoming general election, the prospect for the development of an independent foreign policy looks bleak. We may be able to rotate our various shades of conservative politicians and administrations, but to a large extent we will still be left with the officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs, who for the most part are hopelessly contaminated with pro-US viruses. Worse still, they do not even see the need to be cured.
As for McCarry: his planned lecture in the National University of Ireland turned into a disaster for him. Having toured at least eleven European countries without incident, he was faced with a demonstration in the lecture hall. An alternative (and of course secret) lecture room was hastily arranged, but because it was secret very few students knew where it was. The demonstrators found the new venue, and the game was over. Apart from telling us his name, McCarry did not get to speak another word.
Not every place in Ireland is as friendly towards interventionists and warmongers as the Department of Foreign Affairs.
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