WHO VEX LOSS!

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

In a hard-hit­ting ad­dress to fel­low Cari­com lead­ers, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered a force­ful de­fence of her un­wa­ver­ing sup­port for Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, while sharply re­buk­ing mem­bers of the re­gion­al bloc for what she de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence across the re­gion and their fail­ure to con­front Venezuela in de­fence of Guyana.

De­liv­er­ing an ad­dress at the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in St Kitts and Nevis yes­ter­day evening, the Prime Min­is­ter start­ed her speech by pledg­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sup­port for Cari­com.

How­ev­er, that tone of ca­ma­raderie soon gave way to crit­i­cism, and what be­gan as ally­ship shift­ed in­to open ad­mon­ish­ment.

“Who vex loss,” the Prime Min­is­ter said as she dou­bled down on her sup­port for the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion in a room where the pres­ence of the US mil­i­tary in the South­ern Caribbean had sharply split opin­ion over the last cou­ple months.

“Thanks again to Pres­i­dent Trump and thanks again to Sec­re­tary Mar­co Ru­bio. I thank them and the US mil­i­tary for the co­op­er­a­tion and what they shared with us for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters. Maybe in your is­lands, you don’t have the kind of crime we have. I know (Ja­maica) Prime Min­is­ter (An­drew) Hol­ness, we tried to pass the ZOSO Bill in Trinidad, we were not as for­tu­nate as you in the Par­lia­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is due to meet with Ru­bio to­day, said she will wel­come the US mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion again, as it had led to a 42 per cent de­cline in mur­ders in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Some of us, the crime is so bad, I can­not de­pend on just my mil­i­tary, my pro­tec­tive ser­vices and cer­tain­ly from you in the Cari­com, many of you do not have mil­i­tary or large po­lice ser­vices to help us down there. So again, I re­peat, in Trinidad, there’s a say­ing, who vex loss. But we gained, we gained from that mil­i­tary help and I will wel­come them again.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so asked re­gion­al lead­ers why they did not stand up for Trinidad and To­ba­go and Guyana when they were be­ing “threat­ened” by Venezuela.

“So, how can it be when that regime was threat­en­ing vi­o­lence to two Cari­com mem­ber states, there was no voice from the Cari­com.”

In­ter­fer­ence in re­gion­al elec­tions

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so claimed that Cari­com gov­ern­ments and their po­lit­i­cal par­ties had ac­tive­ly in­volved them­selves in the do­mes­tic and po­lit­i­cal af­fairs of mem­ber states to as­sist “sis­ter or broth­er” par­ties.

“When, in the last elec­tion, you sent your mis­sives, you sent your peo­ple from your par­ty to open­ly cam­paign against an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty ... I’m sor­ry I have to share this, but it hurt me a lot when I saw it tran­spired with­in the last set of elec­tions in the Cari­com,” she said.

“So Cari­com gov­ern­ments, if we are to hug up each oth­er and co­op­er­ate, it can­not be that last week you sent your per­son down to St Vin­cent or to Ja­maica or to wher­ev­er, Guyana. You sent your po­lit­i­cal per­sons, not tech­nocrats, you sent them down to cam­paign. I don’t think that is right be­cause to­day I will have to face you.”

While the Prime Min­is­ter spoke, there was no­tice­able dis­com­fort from oth­er re­gion­al lead­ers who sat in the front row. Many were seen shift­ing in their chairs, fold­ing their arms or star­ing at their cel­lu­lar phones.

No sup­port for dic­ta­tor­ship in Cu­ba

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar was not done there. She then turned her at­ten­tion to Cu­ba. The US gov­ern­ment has ex­plic­it­ly stat­ed that “regime change” in Cu­ba is a goal it hopes to see re­alised by the end of this year. Re­ports sug­gest US of­fi­cials are ac­tive­ly try­ing to iden­ti­fy “in­sid­ers” with­in the Cuban gov­ern­ment or mil­i­tary who might be will­ing to break away from the cur­rent regime in ex­change for a deal.

For­mer Cari­com lead­ers claim that the US is us­ing the is­land’s 11 mil­lion civil­ians as pawns in a po­lit­i­cal vendet­ta through its tar­iffs and fu­el block­ades. But Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on Cari­com to al­low Cu­ba to con­duct its own po­lit­i­cal af­fairs.

“There is glob­al fo­cus to­day on Cu­ba. Every leader here par­tic­i­pat­ed in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions in our re­spec­tive coun­tries. There­fore, I ask, why do some Cari­com gov­ern­ments and po­lit­i­cal par­ties be­lieve that they and their po­lit­i­cal par­ties’ sup­port­ers should have the right to con­test de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions to choose their lead­ers, but Cuban cit­i­zens should not have the right to do the same? You can­not ad­vo­cate for oth­ers to live un­der com­mu­nism and dic­ta­tor­ship but want to live un­der democ­ra­cy and cap­i­tal­ism your­self.”

And Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so crit­i­cised the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at for an “un­set­tling” mat­ter in 2022.

“In Oc­to­ber 2022, the then-sit­ting T&T gov­ern­ment co­or­di­nat­ed the kid­nap­ping of a Trinidad cit­i­zen from an­oth­er Cari­com state. He was vis­it­ing an­oth­er Cari­com state, and he was kid­napped. Our Supreme Court has ruled that he was kid­napped. He was placed in hand­cuffs, trans­port­ed to the air­port, and then back to Trinidad. I think an RSS plane was used to trans­port him. He was kid­napped,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She was re­fer­ring to an in­ci­dent in 2022, when T&T busi­ness­man Brent Thomas was ar­rest­ed in a Bar­ba­dos ho­tel and re­turned to Trinidad via a mil­i­tary air­craft with­out for­mal ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings be­ing ini­ti­at­ed.

A High Court judge lat­er ruled this act an “un­law­ful ab­duc­tion,” lead­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment to apol­o­gise and both na­tions to ac­cept li­a­bil­i­ty for con­sti­tu­tion­al breach­es.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when she wrote to the Cari­com sec­re­tari­at as the then Op­po­si­tion Leader dur­ing that time, she re­ceived no re­sponse.

In the pres­ence of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I wrote to the sec­re­tari­at of the Cari­com ask­ing what hap­pened? How could you have fa­cil­i­tat­ed the kid­nap­ping of a T&T cit­i­zen? Please let us know what was hap­pen­ing and how it hap­pened. To date, that was 2022, I have not had a re­sponse from the sec­re­tari­at.

“So, I say to Cari­com, that re­sponse, non-re­sponse, it may be the re­sult of poor man­age­ment, lax ac­count­abil­i­ty, or most con­cern­ing, that one ceas­es to be recog­nised by the sec­re­tari­at as a mem­ber cit­i­zen of Cari­com when not in gov­ern­ment.”

The Prime Min­is­ter con­clud­ed her speech by again reaf­firm­ing this coun­try’s com­mit­ment to Cari­com and in­vit­ed peo­ple in the Caribbean to en­roll in the UWI South Cam­pus in Debe up­on the com­mence­ment of its aca­d­e­m­ic year.