UDP delegates arrive at the Legislative Assembly for Constitutional talks

Another start-stop move has now gone on record in relation to Constitutional Talks for the Cayman Islands. In 2003, with a Draft Constitution in hand, discussions stopped mid-stream. Now, three years later, when a team of five Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) Constitutional Negotiating Team officials visited the Islands for a 20-21 March series of meetings, the sessions have not gone as planned.

What was designated to have been a three-hour meeting between the FCO team and Opposition Members of the Legislative Assembly, on Tuesday 21 March 2006, became a twenty-minute session. According to Opposition Leader, McKeeva Bush, the Opposition saw no purpose in holding discussions with the FCO team when Government members themselves were not prepared to have these discussions.

Speaking at a Press Briefing hosted by the UDP on 21 March, Mr Bush said the mid-afternoon session was cut short based on the FCO team saying to his group that “the PPM Government was not ready” for the talks.

Mr Bush said, “As we understood it the FCO Constitutional Negotiating Team was here to reinvigorate the Constitutional Talks with the Cayman Islands.

“The team stated that at the meeting with Mr Tibbetts and his Government yesterday, the PPM Government were not ready to commence formal negotiations and had not defined a process as to the way forward.”

Based on this information, Mr Bush said, “I was therefore surprised when we were being asked (by FCO officials) for our position. I was taken aback when they said they don’t have a position from the Government.

“We informed the team that we thought that they had come on the invitation of the Government who were ready to restart the constitutional dialogue.”

Mr Bush said he assumed that such an invitation would “obviously” include some sort of agenda, timeline and details on the way forward coming from the Government.

He, however, said nothing like this was in hand and since this was not the case it would be premature and unwise for the Opposition to be drafted into an undetermined and unspecified process. “Therefore until the LGB says to the country and to the Opposition that he is ready, we will not proceed.”

Asked if the UDP knew the content of Government discussions with the FCO team in relation to the Constitutional Talks, Mr Bush said that the FCO team said they could not reveal any information.

Against that background Mr Bush said, “I found that strange. We’re really outsiders here. I know there was a lot of talking going on between them (FCO and the Government).”

The Opposition group said the Government seriously shirked its responsibilities in relation to this visit and reeled off a list of reasons for saying this.

Opposition MLA, Rolston Anglin, said that the Government knew very well that “we don’t have the votes (in LA) to carry constitutional dialogue to the UK,” and used this statement as a basis for saying that the Opposition had to await leadership in relation to this process.

This elicited a comment from Mr Bush about the Government’s leadership and he said, “Their leadership worries me because they simply are not going anywhere. The Leader will not move.”

The UDP outlined its expectations from the Government in relation to this FCO Constitutional Team visit. They said that the Government is “trying to” move the focus over to the Governor to say that he, the Governor, informed them, the Government of the meeting.

However, in reply to this Mr Anglin said, ”At what point couldn’t the Government say they were not ready?

“At the end of the day Cayman has now heard first hand that the Government is not ready for formal negotiations but we are ready.”