Sobers: T&T’s UN Security Council seat a sign of Caricom’s strong ties

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says Trinidad and To­ba­go’s suc­cess­ful elec­tion to a non-per­ma­nent seat on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil demon­strates the strength of the coun­try’s re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com, de­spite re­cent diplo­mat­ic dis­agree­ments over its gov­er­nance and the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing Wednes­day’s elec­tion at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, Sobers said the over­whelm­ing sup­port re­ceived from Cari­com mem­ber states un­der­scored the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment.

Trinidad and To­ba­go se­cured 181 votes, com­fort­ably sur­pass­ing the re­quired two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty of UN mem­ber states. Hav­ing run un­op­posed for the sole seat al­lo­cat­ed to the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Group (GRU­LAC), the coun­try will be­gin its term on Jan­u­ary 1, 2027.

The elec­tion came months af­ter ten­sions emerged be­tween Port-of-Spain and the Cari­com lead­er­ship over the process used to reap­point Dr Bar­nett to a sec­ond term. How­ev­er, Sobers main­tained that the Gov­ern­ment has nev­er wa­vered in its sup­port for the re­gion­al body.

“We have nev­er, and the Gov­ern­ment has nev­er in­di­cat­ed any­thing oth­er­wise. We have al­ways main­tained that, one, we will nev­er leave Cari­com and, two, that there needs to be some changes in terms of the mech­a­nisms and the run­ning of the Sec­re­tari­at in terms of it be­ing a lit­tle more ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive in terms of car­ry­ing out its man­date, which will re­dound to all in the re­gion. That has al­ways been our po­si­tion,” Sobers said.

The min­is­ter re­it­er­at­ed that T&T’s elec­tion to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil will strength­en the coun­try’s voice on ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues while el­e­vat­ing its stand­ing with­in the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Ques­tions re­main, how­ev­er, about the Gov­ern­ment’s con­cerns re­gard­ing Dr Bar­nett’s re-elec­tion.

Pressed on what po­si­tion T&T will take when Bar­nett’s cur­rent term ex­pires in Au­gust, Sobers re­it­er­at­ed calls for im­prove­ments with­in the re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tion.

“Our po­si­tion re­mains the same. We would like to see a more ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient Cari­com and we will try our best to en­sure that is some­thing that is re­alised with­in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture,” he said.

Asked whether he was call­ing for a fresh elec­tion for the post of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, Sobers replied: “When that time comes, when we reach that bridge, we will cross it.”

The Gov­ern­ment’s con­cerns over Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment first sur­faced in March, when it for­mal­ly wrote to Cari­com Chair­man and Prime Min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis, Ter­rance Drew, ob­ject­ing to the process that led to her sec­ond term. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took um­brage at the elec­tion tak­ing place on a boat ride to Nevis, dur­ing a re­treat for the Cari­com lead­ers, which took place af­ter she had de­part­ed that coun­try.

In cor­re­spon­dence dat­ed March 25, Sobers stat­ed that T&T was nei­ther in­clud­ed in dis­cus­sions nor af­ford­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in de­lib­er­a­tions re­gard­ing Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment. The Gov­ern­ment ar­gued that the mat­ter was not placed on the pro­vi­sion­al agen­da for the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment and was not dis­cussed dur­ing ple­nary ses­sions.

Ac­cord­ing to Sobers, dis­cus­sions re­port­ed­ly took place dur­ing a re­treat of Heads of Gov­ern­ment on Feb­ru­ary 26 in Nevis, from which T&T, along with sev­er­al oth­er mem­ber states, was ex­clud­ed.