Rowley rejects Kamla’s Caricom ‘victory’

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has dis­missed sug­ges­tions that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar se­cured a diplo­mat­ic vic­to­ry at the re­cent Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing, say­ing in­stead that re­gion­al lead­ers “bailed out Trinidad and To­ba­go from it­self” af­ter what he de­scribed as an un­nec­es­sary for­eign pol­i­cy dis­pute.

Row­ley was re­spond­ing to claims that Per­sad-Bisses­sar emerged vic­to­ri­ous af­ter Cari­com lead­ers agreed to seek an ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion from the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) on is­sues sur­round­ing the reap­point­ment process of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

Row­ley re­ject­ed that in­ter­pre­ta­tion, ar­gu­ing that the mat­ter on­ly reached that stage be­cause of the way Trinidad and To­ba­go han­dled the is­sue.

“It was a to­tal­ly un­nec­es­sary, un­forced er­ror by Trinidad and To­ba­go in the way it went about, in a con­fronta­tion­al way, to treat with an is­sue which oth­er peo­ple would have dealt with dif­fer­ent­ly,” he said.

Us­ing an anal­o­gy to ex­plain his po­si­tion, Row­ley said cre­at­ing a prob­lem and then be­ing praised for re­solv­ing it should not be con­sid­ered an achieve­ment.

“If you take a match and start a fire in the for­est and then have to put it out, and you’re then la­belled the hard­est-work­ing fire­man, what vic­to­ry is that?” he asked.

“This was cre­at­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go mis­han­dling for­eign af­fairs.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly raised con­cerns over the process used for Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment, ar­gu­ing that is­sues of trans­paren­cy and gov­er­nance need­ed to be ad­dressed.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion has since been de­fend­ed by mem­bers of her ad­min­is­tra­tion and some uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers, who de­scribed the de­ci­sion to seek the CCJ’s guid­ance as a win for ac­count­abil­i­ty and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form with­in the re­gion­al body.

How­ev­er, Row­ley ar­gued that the re­fer­ral did not rep­re­sent a change in Cari­com’s po­si­tion.

“No part of the de­ci­sion has been changed and they’ve gone for an ad­vi­so­ry from the ap­pel­late court. What is that? They bail you out. That’s what we should be grate­ful for. The rest of the Cari­com lead­er­ship has bailed out Trinidad and To­ba­go from it­self,” he said.

Row­ley al­so ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment cel­e­brat­ing the CCJ re­fer­ral while Trinidad and To­ba­go has not adopt­ed the court as its fi­nal ap­pel­late ju­ris­dic­tion.

“Look at where they park it, in a place where we nev­er want it to be. Trinidad and To­ba­go are no part of the ap­peal ju­ris­dic­tion of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice, but you’re hap­py now to go there for an ad­vi­so­ry?” he said.

Trinidad and To­ba­go recog­nis­es the CCJ’s orig­i­nal ju­ris­dic­tion, which deals with mat­ters aris­ing un­der the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, but con­tin­ues to use the Privy Coun­cil as its fi­nal court of ap­peal.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter al­so crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pre­vi­ous state­ments about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com, in­clud­ing re­marks con­cern­ing the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to the re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion.

He claimed the dis­pute stemmed from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Bar­nett over pre­vi­ous cor­re­spon­dence sent while she was Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“This didn’t come as any ex­am­i­na­tion of any process. She want­ed to pun­ish Dr Bar­nett,” Row­ley claimed.

He said if Per­sad-Bisses­sar had con­cerns, those mat­ters should have been ad­dressed di­rect­ly at the Cari­com meet­ing where the reap­point­ment was dis­cussed.

Row­ley said he hoped the coun­try would now move for­ward with a more mea­sured ap­proach to re­gion­al diplo­ma­cy.

“I’m hop­ing that we go for­ward in a more sober way and that the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go be­haves her­self in a more de­cent man­ner with Cari­com,” he said.