Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar?has put Cari­com states on no­tice of a pos­si­ble shift in pol­i­cy re­gard­ing?Pe­tro­le­um Fund as­sis­tance for neigh­bour­ing?is­lands. She has al­so called for the 37-year-old re­gion­al Cari­com move­ment to un­der­go crit­i­cal self-ex­am­i­na­tion be­fore it takes a back­ward step. Per­sad-Bisses­sar telegraphed the mes­sages as she spoke at yes­ter­day's launch?of the 31st Cari­com sum­mit in?Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica. She al­so sig­nalled to T&T re­porters that T&T's role as god­fa­ther to the re­gion may un­der­go some changes in oth­er ar­eas, in­clud­ing the?pro­posed shar­ing of radar and se­cu­ri­ty ves­sels with south­ern states and as­sis­tance with the CL Fi­nan­cial is­sue. On whether T&T would con­tin­ue to be the "god­fa­ther of the re­gion" as it had been un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion which ini­ti­at­ed the Pe­tro­le­um Fund, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters that T&T could not help peo­ple by per­pet­u­at­ing de­pen­den­cies.

"T&T will not shirk in its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, but we must be con­scious of the present fis­cal deficit in T&T and the glob­al cri­sis we're in and keep that in mind?and bal­ance it with what we can give and what we can­not give...But this must re­sult in a lift­ing–it must not be hand­outs," she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the newest ad­di­tion to the re­gion's lead­ers, was one of?four Cari­com heads who de­liv­ered ad­dress­es at yes­ter­day's open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Half Moon Vil­lage in Rose Hall on Ja­maica's Mon­tego Bay coast­line. Al­so speak­ing were?Ja­maican Prime Min­is­ter and in­com­ing Cari­com chair­man Bruce Gold­ing, St Kitts?Prime Min­is­ter Dr Den­zil Dou­glas and out­go­ing Cari­com chair­man, Do­mini­can leader Roo­sevelt Sker­rit.

Sum­mit guests in­clud­ed?Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ban Ki-Moon, Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States sec­re­tary gen­er­al?Jose Miguel?In­sulza and IMF man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Do­minique Stauss-Kahn. The re­gion­al?con­fer­ence gets off the ground as Ja­maica at­tempts to set­tle down, af­ter?last month's spate of killings and?a state of emer­gency which en­sued as US au­thor­i­ties sought Ja­maican "don" Christo­pher "Dudus" Coke on sus­pect­ed gun and drug traf­fick­ing charges. A lim­it­ed state of emer­gency has now been lift­ed in Kingston, but?is still on­go­ing in St Cather­ine's, and sim­i­lar ar­eas, south of the? Cari­com sum­mit venue? which is be­ing held on Ja­maica's north coast, se­cu­ri­ty forces said yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is chair­ing Cari­com's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (il­lic­it drugs and arms) com­mit­tee meet­ings, an in­te­gral part of the agen­da.

The UN, IMF and OAS heads will al­so hold dis­cus­sions with lead­ers?on the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial sce­nario,?its?im­pact on Cari­com states and progress made in deal­ing with this. Ad­dress­ing guests, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the con­fer­ence was be­ing host­ed against the back­drop of change T&T, as well as with­in and out­side the re­gion. "Mr Chair­man, the change in gov­ern­ment which oc­curred in T&T will lead to cer­tain shifts in the pol­i­cy di­rec­tion of my coun­try," she said.

"How­ev­er, I wish to as­sure you that T&T's pos­ture in re­la­tion to the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty re­mains un­changed. My Gov­ern­ment stands com­mit­ted to the ideals of widen­ing and deep­en­ing of the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion process with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com in its 37th year was con­front­ed by new crit­i­cal chal­lenges that call for ur­gent re­spons­es. "The time has come for us to re-ex­am­ine whether the dy­namism and ver­sa­til­i­ty of the ex­ter­nal en­vi­ron­ment has im­pact­ed on our abil­i­ty to chart a clear and con­sol­i­dat­ed path­way to re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment," she said. "To­day the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty seems des­tined to take a back­ward step in ad­dress­ing the is­sue of an ad­e­quate in­sti­tu­tion­al struc­ture to im­ple­ment the idea of 'Cari­com as a com­mu­ni­ty for all.'" Per­sad-Bisses­sar, head of Cari­com's se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee, al­so said that in the Caribbean, guar­an­tee­ing pub­lic safe­ty could not be con­fined to mil­i­tary and po­lice ac­tion.

PM: T&T to take an­oth­er look at off­shore ves­sels

The ac­qui­si­tion of the off­shore pa­trol ves­sels which were to as­sist neigh­bour­ing is­lands, as well as T&T, is be­ing re­viewed, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters?yes­ter­day. "We are hav­ing se­ri­ous prob­lems with the OPVs, they are nowhere ready?for de­liv­ery, mon­ey is be­ing paid and the de­liv­ery dates keep go­ing for­ward," she said. "The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter will be giv­ing us a re­port. So the arrange­ment (to help Cari­com states) is nowhere near in the fu­ture not be­cause of T&T but be­cause of the ones prepar­ing the ves­sels to be sent to T&T." Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said she was not of the view that the lev­els and ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy re­gard­ing dis­burse­ment of the Pe­tro­le­um Fund for Cari­com states were the best in the cir­cum­stances.

She said she would raise this as this week's Cari­com work­ing ses­sions. She al­so said T&T would have to ex­am­ine its fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion be­fore mak­ing any com­mit­ments about as­sist­ing oth­er states on the CL Fi­nan­cial is­sue. She al­so said there was the per­cep­tion by many that the re­gion­al group­ing was not meet­ing its ob­jec­tives and goals. Not­ing "com­mit­tee up­on com­mit­tee" Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she al­so in­tend­ed to raise at the Cari­com ta­ble what the re­gion hoped to achieve from the arrange­ment and ex­am­i­na­tion of the gov­er­nance struc­ture. "We need to get new arrange­ments," she added. She said she would be vis­it­ing the UWI cam­pus and meet­ing with the Ja­maican busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing her state vis­it in Ja­maica on Thurs­day.