Spotlight on Rubio at Caricom’s 50th conference

STO­RIES BY GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The spot­light will be on US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, who is the spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guest for Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence in St Kitts and will ad­dress to­mor­row’s Open­ing Ple­nary ses­sion of re­gion­al lead­ers seek­ing to ad­vance shared pri­or­i­ties - in­clud­ing “deep­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion to com­bat il­lic­it traf­fick­ing, and pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic growth, health, and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty across the Caribbean.”

And as Cari­com’s Gold­en Ju­bilee con­fer­ence opens to­day, for­mer T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer Ja­maican Prime PJ Pat­ter­son have un­der­scored the re­cent call from 11 for­mer Cari­com lead­ers for the US to re­move its em­bar­go on Cu­ba, a sit­u­a­tion which has had dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects on that coun­try.

And Pat­ter­son says he an­tic­i­pates T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is at­tend­ing the con­fer­ence, “...will ful­ly en­gage in con­struc­tive dis­cus­sions which ad­vance our col­lec­tive in­ter­ests for our shared hu­man­i­ty.”

This, as the cur­tain goes up on this af­ter­noon’s launch of Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence in St Kitts and Nevis, a ses­sion poised to be his­toric “….and one of the largest and most con­se­quen­tial in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty’s his­to­ry,” says St Kitts In­for­ma­tion Ser­vice.

The con­fer­ence is be­ing held in Bas­seterre un­til Fri­day on the theme “Be­yond Words: Ac­tion To­day for a Thriv­ing, Sus­tain­able Cari­com”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived in St Kitts yes­ter­day.

Ac­com­pa­ny­ing the PM were For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nico­las Mor­ris, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tus and Cari­com Am­bas­sador Ralph Maraj.

When Per­sad-Bisses­sar land­ed in St Kitts, she said she was look­ing for­ward to all the meet­ings ahead.

“It’s an his­toric time ....50 years, there’s much at Cari­com we’ve done to­geth­er and there’s far much more we can do to­geth­er,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is sched­uled to de­liv­er re­marks at this af­ter­noon’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Mar­riot Dome.

Ad­dress­es will al­so be de­liv­ered by new Cari­com chair­man, St Kitts Prime Min­is­ter Ter­rence Drew; out­go­ing chair, Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness and re­cent­ly ap­point­ed lead­ers, Suri­name’s Pres­i­dent Dr Jen­nifer Geer­lings-Si­mons and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter God­win Fri­day. Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett will de­liv­er open­ing re­marks.

An es­ti­mat­ed 95 per cent of lead­ers from Cari­com’s 15 mem­ber states con­firmed at­ten­dance.

Ac­cord­ing to Cari­com, the agen­da will con­sid­er press­ing glob­al and hemi­spher­ic is­sues and their im­pact on re­gion­al pri­or­i­ties.

De­lib­er­a­tions in­clude the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), cli­mate change and fi­nanc­ing, food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, trans­porta­tion, repa­ra­tions and for­eign and com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions.

The St Kitts In­for­ma­tion Ser­vice (SKIS) said the meet­ing will al­so ad­dress geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments. The con­fer­ence has been de­scribed by St Kitts as “mark­ing a piv­otal mo­ment for re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and glob­al part­ner­ship.”

St Kitts PM Drew said yes­ter­day, “The world’s eyes will be on Saint Kitts and Nevis as we host this land­mark gath­er­ing. Our theme, ‘Be­yond Words,’ chal­lenges us to move from de­lib­er­a­tion to de­ci­sive ac­tion...we sig­nal to our peo­ple and the world that Cari­com is en­ter­ing a new era of im­ple­men­ta­tion, re­silience and sus­tain­able pros­per­i­ty.”

The SKIS stat­ed that Ru­bio will join a dis­tin­guished ros­ter of glob­al lead­ers and heads of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions “as a spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guest” and he’s sched­uled to ad­dress to­mor­row’s Open­ing Ple­nary Ses­sion

Ru­bio, dur­ing his one-day vis­it to­mor­row, will en­gage with Cari­com heads from 1 pm to 3.30 pm in a spe­cial meet­ing chaired by Drew. This will be fol­lowed by the lead­ers’ cau­cus.

The US State De­part­ment yes­ter­day con­firmed Ru­bio’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Cari­com lead­ers’ meet­ing.

“Dur­ing his vis­it, the Sec­re­tary will reaf­firm the Unit­ed States’ com­mit­ment to work­ing with Cari­com mem­ber states to en­hance sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty in our hemi­sphere,” US State De­part­ment said.

St Kitts of­fi­cials last week de­scribed Ru­bio’s vis­it as the US’s bid to re­set re­la­tions with the re­gion, strength­en its po­si­tion on Cu­ba and counter Chi­na’s ex­pand­ing pres­ence in the Caribbean.

Strong spot­light will be on Ru­bio, as this will be the first time re­gion­al lead­ers will have an in-per­son meet­ing with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s top tier since the US’s mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion from last Au­gust - and its con­se­quences.

While T&T sup­port­ed the US, the ma­jor­i­ty of re­gion­al lead­ers voiced con­cerns on the mil­i­tary pres­ence in what Cari­com deemed the Caribbean’s zone of peace and the fall­out on this: the de­struc­tion of al­leged drug boats, killing two T&T na­tion­als last Sep­tem­ber and three St Lu­cian cit­i­zens re­cent­ly. Con­cerns were al­so ex­pressed on the US oust­ing of Venezuela’s pres­i­dent and the re­cent em­bar­go ex­pan­sion on Cu­ba.

St Kitts has been abuzz with prepa­ra­tions since last week - es­pe­cial­ly re­gard­ing the US pres­ence. Ad­vance US teams from oth­er lo­ca­tions went to the is­land.

The USS An­to­nio al­so ar­rived at Port Zante, St Kitts last Sun­day. It is the lead ship of a class of am­phibi­ous as­sault ships. The ves­sel’s pres­ence amid the Cari­com lead­ers’ sum­mit has drawn mixed re­ac­tions in St Kitts, with peo­ple post­ing com­ments on so­cial me­dia.

Oth­er speak­ers for Cari­com’s three-day meet­ing in­clude Adel al-Jubeir (Min­is­ter of State for For­eign Af­fairs, King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia); Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at Shirley Botch­wey, Noura bint Mo­hammed Al Kaabi (Min­is­ter of State for For­eign Af­fairs, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates), and Dr George Elom­bi (pres­i­dent and chair­man of the Board of Di­rec­tors, African Ex­port-Im­port Bank).

Apart from to­mor­row’s ple­nary ses­sion, high-lev­el en­gage­ments are set to fol­low through­out the week, ac­cord­ing to SKIS.