Bharath warns of T&T’s diplomatic dependence on Washington

Gail Alexan­der

It is a bit­ter irony that Trinidad and To­ba­go, which helped bring the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) in­to ex­is­tence, should now turn its back on the court to cur­ry favour with Wash­ing­ton, says for­mer UNC MP/min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath.

Yes­ter­day, the for­mer min­is­ter ac­cused the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment of hav­ing an “ob­ses­sion” with Wash­ing­ton and sur­ren­der­ing T&T’s sov­er­eign­ty.

“It’s clear Wash­ing­ton’s hos­til­i­ty to­wards the ICC is dic­tat­ing T&T’s diplo­mat­ic pos­ture and that this coun­try is firm­ly in Wash­ing­ton’s back pock­et - the re­al cost of this slav­ish, sub­mis­sive align­ment is the dam­age caused to T&T’s na­tion­al in­ter­ests when poli­cies and politi­cians change in Wash­ing­ton,” Bharath warned.

Bharath spoke a day af­ter T&T ab­stained for the first time in 20 years from vot­ing on a Unit­ed Na­tions res­o­lu­tion on the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court. For­mer prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son was a dri­ving force be­hind the court’s es­tab­lish­ment.

The US Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has main­tained an ag­gres­sive lob­by­ing cam­paign against the ICC, in­clud­ing sanc­tions aimed at dis­man­tling the court.

Yes­ter­day Bharath said, “It’s in­creas­ing­ly clear that Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar and her makeshift Gov­ern­ment is in­tent on de­stroy­ing every long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship and po­si­tion of prin­ci­ple and in­tegri­ty held and trea­sured by T&T for decades. The most trou­bling fea­ture is the emerg­ing pat­tern of diplo­mat­ic sub­servience to­wards Wash­ing­ton, even when that ac­com­mo­da­tion re­quires T&T to aban­don long­stand­ing po­si­tions and com­pro­mise its in­de­pen­dent for­eign pol­i­cy iden­ti­ty.”

Bharath said TT’s ab­sten­tion on the ICC mat­ter is not an in­con­se­quen­tial diplo­mat­ic ad­just­ment. “It is a de­par­ture from a po­si­tion the coun­try helped cre­ate and one the Gov­ern­ment de­fend­ed on­ly last year,” he added.

He said in 2005, T&T told the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly that it re­mained un­wa­ver­ing and res­olute in its sup­port of the ICC’s man­date, in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty.

Bharath said on Mon­day, it sud­den­ly changed. He ques­tioned why.

“What changed? What com­pelling na­tion­al in­ter­est re­quired this de­par­ture? T&T is an in­de­pen­dent re­pub­lic, not an Amer­i­can pro­tec­torate. We didn’t ac­quire in­de­pen­dence in 1962 or be­come a re­pub­lic in 1976 to ex­change British colo­nial tute­lage for diplo­mat­ic de­pen­dence on Wash­ing­ton.”