Ni­rad Tewarie

Over the course of this week, the de­bate has been rag­ing about how Trinidad and To­ba­go should struc­ture its aid to the re­gion in light of the dev­as­ta­tion left in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Tomas.

The main point of con­tention is whether this coun­try should at­tach con­di­tion­al­i­ties to its as­sis­tance. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said that any as­sis­tance which this coun­try gives to the re­gion must ben­e­fit T&T in some way. This is a dif­fer­ent ap­proach to what was done un­der the Man­ning Ad­min­is­tra­tion. Or is it?

Even those who have lit­tle in­ter­est in crick­et would have for­got­ten that T&T "ac­cept­ed" the "Brown Pack­age" for the 2007 Crick­et World Cup in­stead of go­ing af­ter one of the pack­ages that would have in­clud­ed more high-pro­file games and brought more in­come in­to the coun­try. The then Prime Min­is­ter made it clear that this was done to se­cure con­tin­ued sup­port for this coun­try's bid to se­cure the Sec­re­tari­at of the Free Trade Area of the Amer­i­c­as (FTAA).

For sev­er­al years T&T has been with­out a clear and co­her­ent for­eign pol­i­cy. This has re­sult­ed in de­ci­sions be­ing made on the fly.

More re­cent­ly, T&T–at Gov­ern­men­tal lev­el–and oth­ers in Cari­com have been as­sist­ing with the over­all re­con­struc­tion of Haiti. As­sum­ing the econ­o­my of that coun­try, a Cari­com bretheren, were to ex­pe­ri­ence a boom any­time in the next 20 years, should T&T not po­si­tion her­self to ben­e­fit as well? The Gov­ern­ment of any coun­try is ob­lig­at­ed to look af­ter its cit­i­zens first. Re­mem­ber when all Cari­com coun­tries save Bar­ba­dos (and Guyana be­cause it was ini­tial­ly deemed in­el­i­gi­ble) dumped T&T and switched to Venezue­lan oil be­cause they felt the terms of sale were more ben­e­fi­cial to them un­der the Petro­Caribe ini­tia­tive? We had to live with that de­ci­sion and we did.

Win-win

Wealth can­not be in­creased if it is sim­ply di­vid­ed. Just as the ar­gu­ment against un­pro­duc­tive so­cial ex­pen­di­ture at home re­mains a strong and com­pelling one, so too is the ar­gu­ment against just dish­ing out mon­ey to oth­er states–whether they need it or want it.

On the mat­ter at hand, the Prime Min­is­ter re­count­ed her con­ver­sa­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent Dr Ralph Gon­salves in which the lat­ter said there was a need for hous­ing fol­low­ing the dev­as­ta­tion wreaked by Tomas. If the T&T Gov­ern­ment pays lo­cal con­trac­tors, en­gi­neers, ar­chi­tects and skilled labour­ers to pro­vide the hous­es and these lo­cals pro­vide val­ue for mon­ey, is that arrange­ment not one from which both par­ties ben­e­fit? St Vin­cent gets hous­es and lo­cals get work.

The big­ger pic­ture

More im­por­tant­ly than the im­me­di­ate is­sue though is the coun­try's ide­ol­o­gy to­ward a sin­gle Caribbean civil­i­sa­tion. Are we com­mit­ted to a un­tied Caribbean? If so, what do we mean by The Caribbean–are Cu­ba, the DR and the Eu­ro­pean over­seas ter­ri­to­ries in­clud­ed? What does T&T want to get out of this re­la­tion­ship and what are we pre­pared to give? What do we ex­pect of the oth­er coun­tries?

If not, why? What are the im­pli­ca­tions? What are the al­ter­na­tives? Once we start an­swer­ing these ques­tions, we can put to­geth­er a more co­her­ent and con­sis­tent ap­proach to ex­ter­nal re­la­tions.

Ul­ti­mate­ly though, a coun­try's for­eign pol­i­cy must fur­ther its na­tion­al in­ter­ests. At a time when T&T is run­ning a debt to GDP ra­tio of near­ly 50 per cent, it is un­rea­son­able to ask this coun­try to give mon­ey away. T&T can help no one else if she is floun­der­ing. That is a re­al­i­ty that our Caribbean fam­i­ly must ap­pre­ci­ate.

On the oth­er hand, Caribbean peo­ple are proud and do not like to be "re­proached." Tak­ing that in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, the frank­ness of the Prime Min­is­ter's state­ment would have caused some dis­com­fort. The ac­tions of the Gov­ern­ment and the gen­eros­i­ty of her peo­ple of T&T can over­come what is at worst, un­for­tu­nate phrase­ol­o­gy.

Un­like the Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, T&T is no for­mer colo­nial pow­er. Un­like the US, this coun­try nev­er claimed su­prema­cy in the re­gion (Munroe Doc­trine). This coun­try was not re­spon­si­ble for the dis­place­ment of peo­ple to the Caribbean and did noth­ing to un­der­mine the de­vel­op­ment of re­al, sus­tain­able economies and in­sti­tu­tions in the arch­i­pel­ago. There­fore, the dis­cus­sion about any po­ten­tial for aid from T&T to any oth­er Caribbean coun­try (and vice ver­sa) is very dif­fer­ent from the dis­cus­sion about aid from the EU or US to the re­gion. How­ev­er, giv­en the state­ments and events of the last week, T&T is in dan­ger of los­ing twice. On the one hand the coun­try was moral­ly and now ver­bal­ly com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance, so we have to s(p)end some mon­ey. How­ev­er, even in ful­fill­ing that promise, T&T is in a po­si­tion where we can be dis­liked even for what we do. This sit­u­a­tion can be sal­vaged but the gov­ern­ment will have to do some reach­ing out.

We should help our Caribbean broth­ers and sis­ters for that is in­deed what they are�fam­i­ly. T&T should not how­ev­er, cut off her nose to spoil her face. The Prime Min­is­ter is right. She is look­ing out for the in­ter­ests of her peo­ple but, go­ing for­ward, a bet­ter way should be found to ex­plain our in­ter­ests to the re­gion.

ni­radte­warie@gmail.com