LORNA Golding, wife of Prime Minister Bruce Golding, allegedly tried to present the extradition request of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke as a conspiracy against her husband and his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration, according to a leaked United States diplomatics cable published by the Guardian newspaper today via the WikiLeaks website.

Repeated efforts to contact Mrs Golding before publication have proved futile.www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/WikiLeaks–Mayor-tried-to-stop–Dudus–extradition

The cable sent on December 14 of last year by the US Embassy in Kingston, reported that Mrs Golding, in a meeting she initiated at her house with a US Embassy official in Kingston, believed that the US was being influenced by PNP sympathisers regarding the Coke extradition.

“Although it appears unlikely that Mrs Golding was delivering a message on behalf of the PM, Mrs Golding’s rambling comments and penchant for sharing conspiracy theories with a key member of the US Embassy community is consistent with a growing sense among many of indecisiveness and a lack of direction on the part of the PM and the JLP,” said the cable.

She allegedly said that the congressman, influenced by PNP elements in the Jamaican Diaspora in the US, had sought to influence a senior US White House official to ‘downgrade’ the JLP administration.

“Mrs Golding also blamed this cabal for the White House’s delay in naming a new ambassador and the GOJ’s difficulties in finalising a Standby Agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” said the cable.

The cable added that she was unprepared for the meeting “could not stay on message, and had no apparent talking points or agenda”. The cable also said that she was “appartently unaware that, earlier in the week, the Office of the Prime Minister had released a statement to the press indicating that the delay in naming an ambassador was due to the White House’s “preoccupation with other matters” and was unrelated to the extradition request.”

The cable also noted that Mrs Golding insisted that she had invited the US Embassy official on her own initiative and that the PM, although aware of the meeting, hadn’t put her up to it.

“If the PM had hoped to establish a backchannel for discussions with Post or to convey some informal messages to the USG regarding the Coke extradition request, the status of IMF negotiations, or some other matter of mutual concern, it would appear that the opportunity was lost. This is consistent with past practice, however, as the PM and the JLP GOJ have missed a number of opportunities in recent months to signal their willingness to make difficult decisions or to address the myriad economic and social crises the nation faces,” said the cable.

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