To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

There are dan­gers to this coun­try's econ­o­my, to its im­age and to the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion move­ment as­so­ci­at­ed with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­ing so hard-nosed about giv­ing as­sis­tance to our Cari­com part­ners on the ba­sis of this coun­try get­ting some­thing in re­turn from lend­ing a hand in a time of need. As with her com­ment of T&T not be­ing an ABM for Cari­com, this state­ment re­quir­ing a pound of flesh for as­sis­tance can seem to be of­fen­sive and de­mean­ing to our Cari­com neigh­bours. As­sis­tance to coun­tries which are vic­tims of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters is a well-es­tab­lished prac­tice in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, even be­tween and amongst coun­tries ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly, cul­tur­al­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly far apart as Ar­genti­na and the New He­brides in the South Pa­cif­ic. More so for Caribbean coun­tries with deep his­tor­i­cal ties, cul­tur­al, fa­mil­ial and eco­nom­ic trad­ing links; frankly, coun­tries which are tied to­geth­er in their eco­nom­ic and so­cial fu­ture.

More­over, it is a lit­tle more than un­nec­es­sary and short-sight­ed for the Prime Min­is­ter to con­tin­ue to ha­rangue on every oc­ca­sion such a need aris­es for as­sis­tance. What is more, the eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ty is that T&T is the ma­jor ben­e­fi­cia­ry of Cari­com trade and has a healthy sur­plus in its bal­ance of trade ac­counts with oth­er mem­bers of the eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion move­ment. We al­ready ben­e­fit from trad­ing part­ners in the east­ern and north­ern Cari­com coun­tries who pur­chase in large quan­ti­ty goods and ser­vices made in and ex­port­ed from this coun­try. And re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, they have more op­tions for im­port sources than we have for ex­ports. To con­stant­ly harp on want­i­ng ben­e­fit from as­sis­tance could be seen to be un­char­i­ta­ble. From the ex­am­ple of as­sist­ing af­ter Hur­ri­cane Ivan dev­as­tat­ed Grena­da, it is clear that our man­u­fac­tur­ers and fi­nan­cial ser­vices com­pa­nies, amongst oth­ers, are reap­ing ben­e­fits be­ing the ma­jor sup­pli­er in the re­gion. Per­haps the Prime Min­is­ter wants to dis­tance her­self from her pre­de­ces­sor by tak­ing a po­lit­i­cal­ly tough stance, but she needs to be cog­nisant to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of giv­ing of­fence abroad.

She should recog­nise too that the words of lead­ers made in their lo­cal en­vi­ron­ment are at times si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly trans­mit­ted around the globe and if not "live," cer­tain­ly with­in min­utes of be­ing said. We in T&T should be grate­ful that our coun­try was large­ly spared a full frontal blow from Trop­i­cal Storm Tomas. Not so many of our Cari­com neigh­bours in the east­ern and soon ex­pect­ed to-be-hit north­ern Caribbean: Ja­maica and Haiti are prepar­ing for a broad­side from the weath­er sys­tem which is vac­il­lat­ing be­tween a storm and a hur­ri­cane. Let us be thank­ful for be­ing spared and not en­gage in un­gra­cious state­ments and acts. From re­ports, the Caribbean Cat­a­stro­phe Risk In­sur­ance Fa­cil­i­ty will make US$12.8 mil­lion in pay­outs to Bar­ba­dos, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and St Lu­cia for the dam­age done in those coun­tries. One as­sess­ment from Vin­cent­ian Prime Min­is­ter Ralph Gon­salves puts the cost of the dam­age done at US$25 mil­lion with the vi­tal ba­nana crop all but de­stroyed.

The tourism fa­cil­i­ties of those coun­tries have al­so ex­pe­ri­enced se­ri­ous loss mere weeks be­fore the high tourist sea­son com­mences. These are there­fore coun­tries with se­ri­ous needs and if to­day T&T is in a po­si­tion to as­sist, we should do so mag­nan­i­mous­ly. Fur­ther north, Ja­maica and Haiti, as far as the lat­ter can, are mak­ing prepa­ra­tions for Tomas. It could be com­plete dis­as­ter if Haiti, deeply wound­ed by the earth­quake of ear­ly this year, were to be se­ri­ous­ly im­pact­ed by the hur­ri­cane. Ja­maica, ex­pect­ing a hit by Thurs­day evening, is as­sid­u­ous­ly prepar­ing it­self, mak­ing Dr Kei­th Row­ley's com­ment about over-prepa­ra­tion and un­nec­es­sary alert­ing of the coun­try sound like the cheap pol­i­tick­ing it was meant to be.