Kamla welcomes Caricom chairman to T&T

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

De­spite her re­cent de­scrip­tion of Cari­com as an un­re­li­able part­ner, com­ments that raised con­cerns about pos­si­ble frac­tures with­in the re­gion­al bloc, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is reaf­firm­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s com­mit­ment to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

She made the re­marks in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, with Cari­com chair and St Kitts and Nevis Prime Min­is­ter Ter­rance Drew and a re­gion­al del­e­ga­tion present dur­ing an of­fi­cial vis­it to the coun­try.

Ad­dress­ing law­mak­ers, the Prime Min­is­ter said T&T re­mains one of Cari­com’s largest con­trib­u­tors and con­tin­ues to in­vest in the re­gion’s col­lec­tive growth and de­vel­op­ment. She al­so ex­pressed sup­port for Drew’s New Year’s Day mes­sage, which em­pha­sised re­gion­al uni­ty, while main­tain­ing that re­form with­in the bloc re­mains nec­es­sary.

“As a gov­ern­ment, we share the warm sen­ti­ments ex­pressed by Prime Min­is­ter Drew in his New Year’s mes­sage to the com­mu­ni­ty up­on as­sum­ing chair­man­ship of Cari­com. And those words I quote from Prime Min­is­ter Drew: Our col­lec­tive strength is greater than any sin­gle is­sue be­fore us.”

She re­it­er­at­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s fu­ture.

“While Trinidad and To­ba­go be­lieves that Cari­com is in ur­gent need of some trans­for­ma­tion, we re­main com­mit­ted to Caribbean uni­ty. I re­peat, we re­main com­mit­ted to Caribbean uni­ty. My Gov­ern­ment looks for­ward to en­gag­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Drew and his del­e­ga­tion in pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions on is­sues fac­ing the re­gion. We will both en­sure that the work of Cari­com re­mains rel­e­vant to the peo­ple of Cari­com.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged the up­com­ing Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing sched­uled for next month in St Kitts and Nevis, but stopped short of con­firm­ing her at­ten­dance or an­nounc­ing T&T’s del­e­ga­tion.

Fol­low­ing the par­lia­men­tary ex­change, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Drew held a pri­vate meet­ing at the Red House. For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and mem­bers of Drew’s del­e­ga­tion were al­so present.

In a one-minute video lat­er up­loaded to the Prime Min­is­ter’s so­cial me­dia ac­count, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed their ear­li­er dis­cus­sions as “very en­cour­ag­ing” and said she was “very im­pressed” by Drew’s ap­proach to ad­dress­ing con­cerns with­in Cari­com.

Thank­ing the Prime Min­is­ter for re­ceiv­ing him and for the hos­pi­tal­i­ty ex­tend­ed, Drew re­it­er­at­ed his hope for a uni­fied re­gion­al bloc un­der his tenure.

“As you know, I’m the chair, as you would have men­tioned, and I am seek­ing to reach out to all of our mem­bers so that we can con­tin­ue to build Cari­com to stronger and more sta­ble and se­cured heights that would ben­e­fit all of us on the prin­ci­ples of re­spect and un­der­stand­ing that each of us is sov­er­eign with­in the frame­work.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar first de­scribed Cari­com as an un­re­li­able part­ner last Oc­to­ber, in re­sponse to ques­tions about the Gov­ern­ment’s iso­lat­ed stance in sup­port of the Unit­ed States’ war on drug car­tels in this re­gion. She re­peat­ed the sen­ti­ment in De­cem­ber, char­ac­ter­is­ing the bloc as “an un­re­li­able part­ner” and a “dys­func­tion­al and self-de­struc­tive” or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Those re­marks fol­lowed a state­ment is­sued by the Bu­reau of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com, which called for en­gage­ment with the US af­ter Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced poli­cies fur­ther re­strict­ing the en­try of na­tion­als from Haiti, Do­mini­ca, and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last week, Drew dis­missed sug­ges­tions of re­gion­al sus­pi­cion sur­round­ing T&T’s al­leged role in the de­ten­tion of for­mer Venezue­lan pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro by the Unit­ed States on Jan­u­ary 3. He said T&T re­mains an im­por­tant mem­ber of Cari­com and that no ac­cu­sa­tions have been lev­elled against it by fel­low states.

Drew al­so con­firmed that he had re­quest­ed a meet­ing with Per­sad-Bisses­sar and hoped to see her at the Cari­com 50th an­niver­sary meet­ing in Bas­seterre, St Kitts. He said dis­cus­sions at the Cari­com cau­cus would be con­fi­den­tial, al­low­ing lead­ers to open­ly ven­ti­late con­cerns.

How­ev­er, in a What­sApp ex­change on Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed prepa­ra­tions to re­ceive Drew but ex­pressed ze­ro con­fi­dence that the cau­cus would re­main con­fi­den­tial, cit­ing con­cerns about pos­si­ble leaks.

She added that peo­ple would ul­ti­mate­ly be­lieve what they choose re­gard­ing T&T’s role, or lack there­of, in Maduro’s cap­ture.