TNAG-0569-FCO40-702-Planning-paper-on-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 145

CONFIDENTIAL

3.

Secretary of State to consider carefully the line he should take during his visit.

III REVIEW OF CARIBBEAN POLICY (PC 76/12)

9.

The Committee finally took the Review of Caribbean Policy. the PUS's suggestion the recommendations in the body of the paper were looked at in turn:

i. Those for the Associated States and Dependent Territories were agreed.

ii. Some re-drafting of the conclusions on Belize should be undertaken to bring out the conclusion of a meeting held by Mr Rowlands that we might have to with- draw under cover of a temporary defence guarantee and. in the meantime, train local Belizean defence forces. It was generally agreed that even a temporary defence guarantee would present dangers and that it should only be contem- plated in the last resort.

iii. Some members of the Committee argued that the paper should be more positive about encouraging the involvement of the EEC in the area: others pointed out that, as a result of the dislike in many Latin American countries of the privileged position of the Commonwealth Caribbean under the Lomé Convention and the fact that, apart from ourselves, the Dutch and the French, other Europeans were not histori- cally interested in the area, Germany would probaly give priority to developing relations with countries such as Brazil.

iv. On Cuba, after some discussion, it was agreed that her intervention in Angola had ruled out the option of doing anything to encourage closer relations between her and her neighbours in the foreseeable future.

V. The recommendations under Regional Security and Economic and Aid Strategy were generally accepted.

At

10. It was agreed that the recommendations in the paper should take into account the points made in the discussion and that redrafts should be circulated to members of the Committee for their comments. The Planning Staff would also amend the main body of the paper in the light of the comments made by members of the Planning Committee. It could then go forward to Mr Rowlands.

CONFIDENTIAL