Wickham warns: Dispute undermining regional unity

Po­lit­i­cal con­sul­tant and Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Re­search Ser­vices (CADRES), Pe­ter Wick­ham, is warn­ing that the es­ca­lat­ing dis­pute be­tween the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is dam­ag­ing re­gion­al uni­ty and di­vert­ing at­ten­tion from more sub­stan­tive is­sues.

Speak­ing in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Wick­ham de­scribed the on­go­ing back-and-forth as “most un­for­tu­nate,” ar­gu­ing that the pub­lic na­ture of the dis­agree­ment is un­der­min­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the re­gion­al body.

“I know this has de­scend­ed in­to a con­ver­sa­tion about whether her for­eign min­is­ter could have and should have been in­vit­ed, whether he had sick­ness or not,” Wick­ham said. “This is an un­for­tu­nate dis­cus­sion that is bring­ing a ma­jor and im­por­tant is­sue in­to dis­re­pute.”

Wick­ham aligned him­self with what he de­scribed as the ma­jor­i­ty view with­in Cari­com, main­tain­ing that de­ci­sions tak­en at meet­ings must stand, par­tic­u­lar­ly when mem­ber states are not present.

“If you at­tend a meet­ing and a de­ci­sion is made, it stands. If you ab­sent your­self, then un­for­tu­nate­ly you can­not be part of that de­ci­sion-mak­ing process,” he said.

The con­tro­ver­sy stems from the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis, where Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett was reap­point­ed dur­ing a Heads-on­ly re­treat.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar has since ques­tioned the trans­paren­cy of that process, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing the role and par­tic­i­pa­tion of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers.

How­ev­er, Wick­ham ar­gued that the Prime Min­is­ter has yet to clear­ly ar­tic­u­late her fun­da­men­tal ob­jec­tion to Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment.

“One of my con­cerns is that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not stat­ed ex­act­ly what her is­sue with Dr Car­la Bar­nett is,” he said.

“I have not heard any clear in­di­ca­tion as to what her prob­lem is, be­yond claims that her min­is­ter was dis­in­vit­ed and that prop­er pro­ce­dure was not fol­lowed.”

He sug­gest­ed the cur­rent dis­pute may be mask­ing deep­er con­cerns.

“I think this is es­sen­tial­ly a smoke­screen for larg­er is­sues she has with Cari­com, which she has been hint­ing at,” Wick­ham said.

He went fur­ther, call­ing for a more de­fin­i­tive po­si­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fu­ture with­in the re­gion­al bloc.

“If you be­lieve that you are bet­ter off out­side of the in­sti­tu­tion, then leave,” he said. “Fun­da­men­tal­ly, that’s what this ap­pears to be com­ing to.”

Wick­ham al­so ques­tioned whether the cur­rent pub­lic ex­changes are help­ing to re­solve the mat­ter.

“I am not sure that this con­ver­sa­tion, es­pe­cial­ly as it is play­ing out in the me­dia, is help­ful. I don’t think it is go­ing to re­solve any­thing,” he added.

He ar­gued that op­por­tu­ni­ties for di­rect en­gage­ment may have been missed, point­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence from key dis­cus­sions.

“If she want­ed res­o­lu­tion, she would have gone to Nevis—tak­en the boat ride, as he put it—and en­gaged in those dis­cus­sions in pur­suit of re­solv­ing these is­sues,” Wick­ham said.

The Prime Min­is­ter has faced crit­i­cism for leav­ing the Feb­ru­ary sum­mit ear­ly and not at­tend­ing a sub­se­quent emer­gency Cari­com meet­ing on Fri­day.

Wick­ham stressed that Trinidad and To­ba­go has his­tor­i­cal­ly played a cen­tral role in the de­vel­op­ment of Cari­com, ref­er­enc­ing con­tri­bu­tions dat­ing back to Er­ic Williams and lat­er ini­tia­tives un­der Patrick Man­ning.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­ways been cen­tral. It is the largest econ­o­my in the Caribbean, con­tribut­ing more than 20 per cent of the bud­get,” he not­ed.

He warned that any break­down in re­la­tions could have sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences for both Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider re­gion.