Caricom chair details Kamla’s repeated no-shows amid Barnett dispute

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Caribbean lead­ers have laid out a de­tailed time­line of events sur­round­ing the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Car­la Bar­nett, con­firm­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go nei­ther at­tend­ed key dis­cus­sions nor a sub­se­quent emer­gency meet­ing con­vened to ad­dress the is­sue.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing Fri­day’s spe­cial meet­ing, CARI­COM Chair­man Ter­rance Drew said nei­ther Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar nor any rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Trinidad and To­ba­go took part in the talks, which were called to ad­dress con­cerns raised by Port of Spain over gov­er­nance and Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment.

The re­gion­al body said all mem­ber states were for­mal­ly no­ti­fied ahead of the Feb­ru­ary 24–27 Con­fer­ence of Heads in St Kitts and Nevis, in­clud­ing the agen­da, pro­gramme of work and de­tails of a Heads-on­ly re­treat where the reap­point­ment was dis­cussed.

Ac­cord­ing to the agen­da, the Feb­ru­ary 26 re­treat was sched­uled to be­gin at 10 am with an of­fi­cial pho­to­graph of lead­ers wear­ing co­or­di­nat­ed CARI­COM shirts, for which Per­sad-Bisses­sar had been asked to pro­vide her size. The agen­da in­clud­ed geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, fi­nanc­ing and gov­er­nance of the com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er is­sues raised by lead­ers.

CARI­COM said Per­sad-Bisses­sar left the con­fer­ence on the evening of Feb­ru­ary 25, ahead of the re­treat. For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers lat­er con­tact­ed the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al to ask whether he could at­tend in her ab­sence.

The Chair­man re­layed a mes­sage from the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al: “Chair­man. TT For­eign Min­is­ter Sobers called me to ask if he should come to re­treat in the ab­sence of his PM. I in­di­cat­ed that oth­er Heads who have left may be rep­re­sent­ed by their FMs.”

“He al­so in­di­cat­ed he gets sea­sick, so he’s not look­ing for­ward to the boat ride. So we may not have TT rep­re­sent­ed to­mor­row.”

CARI­COM said the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al lat­er sent a fol­low-up mes­sage to Sobers: “Min­is­ter, if the boat trip will cause nau­sea am sure the Chair­man would un­der­stand if you chose not to come to­mor­row.”

The state­ment said Sobers did not sub­se­quent­ly in­di­cate he would at­tend, leav­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go un­rep­re­sent­ed dur­ing the re­treat.

Heads of Gov­ern­ment, meet­ing with­out the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al present, agreed to reap­point Bar­nett in keep­ing with the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. The an­nounce­ment was de­layed to al­low ab­sent lead­ers to be in­formed, but CARI­COM said at­tempts to reach Per­sad-Bisses­sar by phone and email were un­suc­cess­ful.

The state­ment al­so urged a re­turn to es­tab­lished chan­nels for re­solv­ing dis­putes: “It is hoped that as the Com­mu­ni­ty moves for­ward, it will be pos­si­ble to re­vert to the use of in­ter­nal mech­a­nisms for ad­dress­ing the chal­lenges that arise from time to time, lest un­for­tu­nate and er­ro­neous state­ments di­min­ish the progress to­wards deep­en­ing the in­te­gra­tion process for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of the Re­gion.”

The de­vel­op­ments come af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go for­mal­ly wrote CARI­COM on April 9 in­di­cat­ing it would de­cline par­tic­i­pa­tion in meet­ings un­til doc­u­men­ta­tion re­lat­ed to Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment is pro­vid­ed. The coun­try has al­so said it will not recog­nise her con­tin­u­a­tion in of­fice be­yond Au­gust.

De­spite Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for a meet­ing of CARI­COM heads to ad­dress the is­sue, Trinidad and To­ba­go did not at­tend Fri­day’s emer­gency ses­sion.

Re­spond­ing on Sun­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­put­ed CARI­COM’s ac­count, point­ing to what she said were gaps and con­tra­dic­tions in the time­line and cor­re­spon­dence.

Cen­tral to her re­sponse was a What­sApp mes­sage cir­cu­lat­ed to for­eign min­is­ters on the morn­ing of the re­treat: “Good morn­ing For­eign Min­is­ters. Chair­man PM Drew has in­di­cat­ed that to­day will be a Heads on­ly re­treat. Notwith­stand­ing any in­di­ca­tion oth­er­wise, he would like it to re­main Heads on­ly. He apol­o­gizes for any in­con­ve­nience. Min­is­ters should there­fore re­main for the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Meet­ing to com­plete its work, in­clud­ing those agen­da items from the Heads agen­da which Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil is to con­sid­er and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions to Heads for adop­tion.”

She ques­tioned why this mes­sage had not been ad­dressed.

“When will Bar­nett and Miller ad­dress this What­sApp mes­sage which was sent to for­eign min­is­ters in­clud­ing Min­is­ter Sobers that was ver­i­fied by our Di­rec­tor of CARI­COM? At best Min­is­ter Sobers was dis­in­vit­ed be­cause he had no fan­cy CARI­COM shirt, at worst he was dis­in­vit­ed to de­lib­er­ate­ly fa­cil­i­tate Ms Bar­nett’s sur­rep­ti­tious reap­point­ment process.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so raised con­cerns about trans­paren­cy, ask­ing for min­utes of the re­treat, Bar­nett’s per­for­mance ap­praisal and doc­u­men­ta­tion re­lat­ed to both the 2021 and 2026 ap­point­ment process­es.

De­spite her ear­li­er call for a meet­ing of CARI­COM heads to ad­dress the is­sue, Trinidad and To­ba­go did not at­tend Fri­day’s emer­gency ses­sion.