US State Department representative to lobby UK government
Campaign News | Friday, 27 April 2007
Supporters urged to protest against meetings
Following the secretive 2005 visit to the UK by Caleb McCarry, the US appointed ‘Transition Co-ordinator for Cuba’, the Bush administration is to send another envoy to rally support for its aggressive foreign policy towards the Caribbean island.
CSC has just learned that hastily arranged meetings will take place next week, between Monday 30 April and Tuesday 2 May 2007. The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Kirsten D. Madison, will meet Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, address MPs at the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Cuba and speak at other engagements in London.
What is a representative of the Bush administration doing briefing British MPs and government on Cuba?
Kirsten Madisons’s sole purpose is to interfere in UK/Cuba relations and encourage the British government to follow US policy on Cuba, in advance of the European Union vote on the Common Position on Cuba in June.
CSC urges all trade union affiliates, MPs and supporters to protest about this visit by raising the following questions wherever they can. Specifically, we need supporters to ask their MPs to attend the APPG on Cuba meeting on Wednesday 2 May to question Kirsten Madison on the following issues:
1 What is the secret annex contained in the 2006 report by the US “Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba”?
2 Why is a representative of the US government lobbying the UK government and MPs on Cuba?
3 What gives the US government the right to undermine British sovereignty and anti-discrimination laws by imposing the extraterritorial measures of the Helms-Burton act on British based companies that trade with Cuba?
4 Who did Caleb McCarry meet with and what did he discuss when he came to the UK in 2005, and why does she think the British government is refusing to answer these questions despite a Freedom of Information Act request?
Please write to your MP today at
http://www.writetothem.com and raise these questions wherever you can.
Kirsten Madison - a history of aggression towards Cuba
Although, Kirsten Madison was only appointed to her current role in 2005, she has a history of working to isolate Cuba within the international community and destabilize the country’s economy to bring down the Cuban government and system.
During the 1990’s she worked for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee of Jesse Helms, the Senator responsible for introducing the Helms-Burton Act which penalises non US-based companies which trade with Cuba.
In the last two months, this legislation has been invoked by the US government to force Hilton Hotels and Barclays bank to ban Cuban customers in the UK. (see report in The Guardian Newspaper on 16 April 2007 at http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2057886,00.html)
Alongside Caleb McCarry and National Security Council senior Director, Daniel Fisk, Madison is responsible for US policy on Cuba and has been cited by Roger Noreiga, the US official responsible for drafting the Helms-Burton legistlation as “stalwart“ for the cause of freedom in Cuba.
US policy is universally condemned
In 2006, the UN voted unanimously for the 15th consecutive year against the US blockade of Cuba by 183 to 4 votes - only the US, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands supported the illegal 47 year-old blockade in this international arena.
US policy towards Cuba has been universally condemned in the United Nations. So now, the US is attempting to bypass the UN and influence international opinion by lobbying countries individually and through secretive or last minute meetings that avoid public scrutiny. Kirsten Madison has already had meetings on Cuba in Italy, Belgium, and France.
In 2005, Caleb McCarry (US Tranistion Co-ordinator for Cuba) also had secretive meetings in the UK with FCO officials. The exact content of these meetings, and disclosure of who was present is the subject of a Freedom of Information request filed almost two years ago.
Kirsten Madison is continuing in McCarry’s footsteps and we should make it clear that both she and the policies she is promoting are not welcome in the UK.
Please raise this issue and contact your MP today at http://www.writetothem.com
To read more on the US administration’s Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, Cuba Tranistion Co-ordinator Caleb McCarry and the secret annex go to:
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/cubasi_article.asp?ArticleID=65
