Former PNM foreign affairs minister Paula Gopee-Scoon has condemned the stand taken by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar that the Government would not help Caricom countries hit by Hurricane Tomas without benefits to T&T.Gopee-Scoon, in a lengthy release yesterday, said she found Persad-Bissessar's statement somewhat disconcerting.
"My level of discomfort is relieved only by the fact that it is still somewhat early days and, at times, things said are often misconstrued or maybe not meant," she said."It becomes painful when we hear utterances and statements and positions taken by this Government which suggest some indifference in the treatment of the Caribbean.
"Statements like T&T is not an ATM card is simply thoughtless and undiplomatic."Gopee-Scoon said the cancellation of the purchase of the offshore patrol vessels and the assistance of radar systems to the Eastern Caribbean showed a general sort of detachment and nonchalance by the PP Government to the Caribbean.
She said while T&T faced continuing economic decline, perhaps T&T's initial response could have been to despatch with immediacy, an assessment team of experts from the Defence Force, Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management, Ministry of Public Utilities and Ministry of Works and Transport.
She said this team might have been able to determine where T&T can assist in kind, rather than in cash, though a little of that would also go a long way."The Point Fortin MP said clearly there needed to be a well-articulated Caribbe`an foreign policy by which the present Government could operate.
"And I wish to make strong overtones to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to so expose," she said. "One needs to keep closely, the inextricable link of the Caribbean to T&T, for we are truly inseparable, and it is more than simply geography."She said it was well documented that Caribbean people have contributed to the development of our oil industry.
"When oil was commercialised some 100 years ago, persons from the islands came to T&T to be part of this energy process," she said.
Gopee-Scoon said Point Fortin was one of the areas that was established through immigrants from Caribbean islands who came to work in T&T's oil industry.
She said in 1921, 47,667 people came from other islands and the figure was doubled later on."In short, they were the largest contributors to the population of T&T and the commercialisation of oil," she said.