Regional leaders voice their positions on Caricom row

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne says his coun­try will be stay­ing out of the im­passe be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Cari­com de­spite be­ing drawn in­to the con­tro­ver­sy by this coun­try’s For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter.

Mean­while, Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali has open­ly backed the reap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett and de­fend­ed the process be­hind it.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, PM Browne took a more cau­tious ap­proach, say­ing he does not want to add fu­el to the fire.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da has now been drawn in­to the grow­ing con­tro­ver­sy, af­ter For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers claimed that both An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and the Ba­hamas were al­so barred from at­tend­ing the re­treat in Nevis.

Sobers ar­gued that this was be­cause their Heads of Gov­ern­ment had al­ready de­part­ed, and Cari­com did not recog­nise the au­thor­i­ty del­e­gat­ed to of­fi­cials to act as heads of their re­spec­tive del­e­ga­tions.

Guardian Me­dia asked PM Browne if he had any is­sues with the reap­point­ment of Dr Bar­nett; how­ev­er, he would on­ly say, “The Ras­ta Dread­man, Gassy Dread is stay­ing above the fray. Ain’t pour­ing any fu­el to in­flame dif­fer­ences among my brethrens and sis­terens in Cari­com. Seen !!”

At­tempts to get a com­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter of the Ba­hamas Philip Davis were un­suc­cess­ful.

But even as Trinidad and To­ba­go in­ten­si­fies pres­sure on Cari­com over the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett, Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali has firm­ly de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion, in­sist­ing es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed and the out­come re­flects a col­lec­tive po­si­tion of re­gion­al lead­ers.

Speak­ing to re­porters on the side­lines of an event at the Guyana De­fence Force head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, Ali made it clear he was di­rect­ly in­volved in the dis­cus­sions that led to Bar­nett se­cur­ing a sec­ond term.

“Let me be ful­ly trans­par­ent on this mat­ter, I was in­volved in the dis­cus­sions, as all oth­er Heads, on the reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al,” Ali said. “We sup­port the reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, that’s the first thing, and I hope it brings clar­i­ty.”

Ali pushed back against claims of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty, main­tain­ing that the pro­ce­dure used was con­sis­tent with past prac­tice.

“I was there when the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al was ap­point­ed the first time, and we did not fol­low any process that is dif­fer­ent from the first time,” he said.

“When you go to Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing, there is of course the gen­er­al meet­ing, the ple­nary and then there was the cau­cus and this mat­ter was dis­cussed in cau­cus and views were ex­changed and the de­ci­sion was tak­en,” Ali ex­plained.

He added that dif­fer­ing views among lead­ers are part of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process with­in Cari­com.

T&T’s Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced that it will be seek­ing a spe­cial meet­ing of Cari­com to ad­dress the is­sue of Dr Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment.