T&T–Caricom tensions loom as leaders meet in St Lucia

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has trav­elled to Gros Islet, St Lu­cia, for the 51st Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), where a dis­pute over the reap­point­ment of the bloc’s Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al is ex­pect­ed to be a cen­tral is­sue.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar left Trinidad and To­ba­go yes­ter­day for the sum­mit, which is be­ing held un­der the theme “From Re­silience to Re­new­al in a Chang­ing World.” Dur­ing her ab­sence, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John is serv­ing as act­ing Prime Min­is­ter.

Al­though the Prime Min­is­ter was not present for the start of the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, re­gion­al lead­ers pro­ceed­ed with the sched­uled pro­gramme.

The meet­ing is the first un­der the chair­man­ship of St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J Pierre, who as­sumed the ro­tat­ing six-month post from St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ter­rance Drew.

It comes months af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly crit­i­cised as­pects of the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at dur­ing the open­ing of the 50th Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis on Feb­ru­ary 24, where she raised con­cerns over the al­leged lack of re­sponse to cor­re­spon­dence re­gard­ing the re­port­ed kid­nap­ping of a Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zen.

“I wrote to the Sec­re­tari­at of the Cari­com ask­ing what hap­pened. How could you have fa­cil­i­tat­ed the kid­nap­ping of a T&T cit­i­zen? Please let us know what was hap­pen­ing and how it hap­pened. To date, that was 2022, I have not had the re­sponse from the Sec­re­tari­at,” she said.

She added that the lack of re­sponse could re­flect “poor man­age­ment, lax ac­count­abil­i­ty, or, most con­cern­ing, that one ceas­es to be recog­nised by the Sec­re­tari­at as a mem­ber cit­i­zen of Cari­com when not in gov­ern­ment.”

The is­sue has since been fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett for a sec­ond five-year term dur­ing a Heads-on­ly re­treat in Nevis.

Bar­nett se­cured the sup­port of a ma­jor­i­ty of mem­ber states present. How­ev­er, Trinidad and To­ba­go was not rep­re­sent­ed at the ses­sion af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turned home ear­ly for a Cab­i­net meet­ing. The Gov­ern­ment has main­tained that the reap­point­ment was not ex­plic­it­ly list­ed on the agen­da, while the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at has said it formed part of gov­er­nance mat­ters un­der dis­cus­sion.

Ten­sions deep­ened af­ter For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers said he had been dis­in­vit­ed from the re­treat, while the Sec­re­tari­at main­tained that he de­clined to at­tend due to con­cerns about trav­el­ling by fer­ry be­cause of sea­sick­ness.

The Prime Min­is­ter has since stat­ed that her ad­min­is­tra­tion will not recog­nise Bar­nett as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al be­yond the end of this month.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said the mat­ter is like­ly to dom­i­nate dis­cus­sions at the sum­mit.

“I think this is some­thing that she’s go­ing to try to get Philip Pierre to ad­dress, be­cause all eyes are on him as the new chair of Cari­com,” Ram­per­sad said, adding that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions make the is­sue par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant.

She al­so point­ed to re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty as an­oth­er key agen­da item, not­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“It is im­per­a­tive for Cari­com to recog­nise her sig­nif­i­cance and the sig­nif­i­cance of Trinidad and To­ba­go in Cari­com and in the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil,” she said.

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les said the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al is­sue would have to be re­vis­it­ed, ar­gu­ing that the cur­rent im­passe rais­es ques­tions about the le­git­i­ma­cy of Bar­nett’s con­tin­ued role.

“As I see it, re­al­ly, the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al would have to re­sign be­cause even though they claim she was reap­point­ed, she’s not recog­nised by the Gov­ern­ment here,” he said.

Gon­za­les al­so ques­tioned the process lead­ing to the reap­point­ment, say­ing greater trans­paren­cy was re­quired among mem­ber states.

“They claim that was done in the past and that’s a stan­dard prac­tice, but that is not good enough,” he said.

Days be­fore the sum­mit, in­com­ing chair­man Philip Pierre called for uni­ty among mem­ber states. How­ev­er, Gon­za­les said grow­ing geopo­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions with­in the bloc could com­pli­cate that ob­jec­tive, with Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana and Ja­maica ap­pear­ing more close­ly aligned with the Unit­ed States, while oth­er mem­bers pur­sue dif­fer­ing for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tions.

The 51st Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing con­cludes on Wednes­day.