PM makes letter public amid dispute over Caricom Secretary General

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made pub­lic a let­ter by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers to Cari­com re­gard­ing this coun­try’s at­ten­dance at any meet­ing to dis­cuss the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

In a post on Face­book yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said that be­cause the con­tents of a let­ter dat­ed April 8 to the Prime Min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis, who is al­so Cari­com chair­man, were leaked, she chose to share the de­tails of a let­ter this coun­try sent to Cari­com say­ing it would not at­tend any talks. She al­so called on the re­gion­al group­ing to pro­vide the rel­e­vant doc­u­men­ta­tion on the mat­ter.

She said, “While the doc­u­men­ta­tion is be­ing gath­ered…can some­one in Cari­com al­so speak to the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at about the com­mu­ni­ca­tions on the morn­ing of the re­treat dis­invit­ing Min­is­ter Sobers from the meet­ing.”

The Prime Min­is­ter went on­to wish every­one a “won­der­ful week­end” punc­tu­at­ed with a yel­low heart and a smi­ley face.

Her post came hours af­ter T&T’s Am­bas­sador to Cari­com, Ralph Maraj, said he has no doubt that the cur­rent is­sue in­volv­ing Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett will be re­solved and will make the re­gion­al group­ing stronger.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Maraj said Trinidad and To­ba­go raised con­cerns over the reap­point­ment of Bar­nett, say­ing it will not par­tic­i­pate in meet­ings of the re­gion­al body un­til it re­ceives doc­u­men­ta­tion re­lat­ed to the process.

Maraj not­ed that sup­port for Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment, which ends in Au­gust, has been ex­pressed by some Cari­com mem­ber states, in­clud­ing Guyana and Be­lize, while most coun­tries have not pub­licly stat­ed a po­si­tion.

He said Cari­com chair­man, Dr Ter­rance Drew, has sought to con­vene a spe­cial meet­ing of Heads of Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the is­sue. How­ev­er, T&T in­di­cat­ed it will not at­tend any such meet­ing un­til the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed.

While it has yet to be of­fi­cial­ly con­firmed whether Cari­com ac­tu­al­ly met on Fri­day to dis­cuss the dis­pute, two po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say that Gov­ern­ment has more ques­tions to an­swer than the re­gion­al group­ing.

Last week, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers claimed T&T was dis­in­vit­ed from the vot­ing process for Bar­nett.

Of­fer­ing his take, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj, who at­tend­ed the con­tro­ver­sial Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis in Feb­ru­ary, be­lieved the in­ci­dent sug­gest­ed there was a lack of un­der­stand­ing about the pro­to­cols in­volved in the de­ci­sion mak­ing process.

“This re­treat oc­curred in Nevis, and a num­ber of Prime Min­is­ters failed to at­tend be­cause they ei­ther left the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing be­fore the prime min­is­ter’s re­treat or were not there in per­son. When the Prime Min­is­ters’ re­treat was oc­cur­ring. In the in­ter­est of re­gion­al in­tegri­ty, we need to see the dis­in­vi­ta­tion. We need to un­der­stand if there was, in fact, a dis­in­vi­ta­tion, whether that was ver­bal or writ­ten.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er Dr Win­ford James be­lieved that the coun­try does not suf­fi­cient­ly un­der­stand the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment.

He said an­swers are need­ed for some im­por­tant ques­tions.

“Did Cari­com break a law or break a rule? It seems from all the in­for­ma­tion that I have that Cari­com did not break any rules. Al­though Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar does not want Bar­nett to re­turn, why she doesn’t want Ben­nett to be there, not that she’s ob­lig­at­ed to give a rea­son, why she doesn’t want the la­dy to be there is be­yond me. It’s per­haps not the most im­por­tant ques­tion, but it is a ques­tion we need to have an­swered.”

He be­lieves that the Prime Min­is­ter’s stance on this mat­ter seemed to be an­oth­er in­di­ca­tion that her pos­ture was re­sem­bling that of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.