Ja: President Reagan a good friend to Jamaica and the Caribbean

JAMAICAN parliamentarians on Tuesday paid tribute to late former United States president Ronald Reagan, hailing him as a friend of Jamaica and the Caribbean.

At the same time, Robert Pickersgill, chairman of the ruling People's National Party, said in a statement that the former US president played a pivotal role in the paradigm shift in geopolitics, leading to the ending of the cold war in the last decade of the 20th century.

On the motion for adjournment at Tuesday's sitting of the House, Opposition Jamaica Labour Party Member of Parliament Mike Henry rose and asked the House to recognise and appreciate the life of Reagan.
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In his contribution, Opposition MP Audley Shaw praised Reagan's role in establishing the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) that allowed greater access to the US market for goods from the Caribbean, and in welcoming JLP Leader Edward Seaga as the first foreign leader to visit the White House shortly after Jamaica's bitterly divisive elections in 1980 that left an estimated 800 dead.
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Another Opposition MP, Ed Bartlett, then recalled the October 1983 US-led invasion of Grenada and toppling of the extreme Marxist government which had seized power after a bloody coup.

Bartlett said Reagan made the world and the region safer for democracy, and noted that under his presidency Jamaica benefited as one of the first countries to get tax exempt status for convention visitors, which benefited the tourism industry.

".The testimonials highlighting President Reagan's civility, sense of humour and achievements are poignant testimony to the worth of his endeavours on earth and the regard in which Americans and his admirers hold him," said Pickersgill.

The party extended condolences to Reagan's widow Nancy, the other members of his family and the people of the United States on the passing of the former president.

Again, this is in contrast to TT's newspapers. All their morgue files must've been destroyed in the coup of 1990; no wonder none of their editors can find a decent word to publish online regarding President Reagan.

Here's another tribute by the Opposition Jamaican Labour Party.