Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Paula Gopee-Scoon, for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter in the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, be­lieves the con­tro­ver­sial ed­i­to­r­i­al in the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er news­pa­per crit­i­cis­ing the T&T Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous enough to war­rant the in­ter­ven­tion of the Gov­ern­ment.

Gopee-Scoon, Point Fortin Op­po­si­tion MP, re­spond­ing to ques­tions on whether an opin­ion in a pri­vate news­pa­per war­rant­ed gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion, said: "Ob­vi­ous­ly, there is need for di­a­logue be­tween the two coun­tries to set­tle what­ev­er out­stand­ing is­sues there may be. There must be con­cern about our im­age." She said, how­ev­er, she was not sur­prised at the con­tents of the ed­i­to­r­i­al.

"T&T has gone from be­ing a well-re­spect­ed mem­ber of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and a leader in the re­gion to be­ing a dis­grace. T&T is the laugh­ing stock of the world. "Sure­ly it (the ed­i­to­r­i­al) is a re­sult of bad re­la­tions be­tween this Gov­ern­ment, from the start, and oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion."

Gopee-Scoon re­called the phrase of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at a Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Sum­mit in Ja­maica in Ju­ly 2010 that T&T is not an ATM card. In an ar­ti­cle by "Mon­tego Bay" at the time, the writer re­port­ed that the PM "cau­tioned re­gion­al gov­ern­ments that T&T does not op­er­ate like an ATM card while stat­ing the oil-rich twin-is­land re­pub­lic was not pre­pared to fund the re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty bud­get."

Fur­ther, in No­vem­ber 2010, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again stat­ed there was to be no help for Cari­com coun­tries, like St Lu­cia, hit by Trop­i­cal Storm Tomas, un­less there were ben­e­fits for T&T, Gopee-Scoon fur­ther re­called. The Ja­maica Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion said it did not know about the ed­i­to­r­i­al in The Ob­serv­er.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, vice pres­i­dent Bri­an Schmidt, said he did not read the ar­ti­cle and, there­fore, could not com­ment. Schmidt apol­o­gised pro­fuse­ly and re­ferred the T&T?Guardian to pres­i­dent Christo­pher Barnes. Af­ter stat­ing what the call was about, the T&T Guardian was told Barnes was on an in­ter­na­tion­al call and would call back in ten min­utes. He did not.

The Ob­serv­er's ed­i­tor-in-chief Desmond Allen de­clined to be in­ter­viewed, but re­port­ed­ly told an­oth­er news­pa­per on Thurs­day that The Ob­serv­er has the fullest ad­mi­ra­tion for the peo­ple of T&T and any of­fence tak­en from the ed­i­to­r­i­al was un­in­tend­ed. An of­fi­cer at Ja­maica's For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry, asked for a re­sponse, said the re­quest was passed on to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and he was await­ing a re­sponse.

T&T's High Com­mis­sion­er to Ja­maica, the Rev Iva Gloudon, af­ter a day of si­lence on the mat­ter, is­sued a re­lease yes­ter­day say­ing she felt re­gret and dis­ap­point­ment over the ar­ti­cle. "My main con­cern is that so much of what was said lacked, among oth­er things, the truth, re­spect and an over­all un­der­stand­ing of the com­plex­i­ty of gov­er­nance in the Caribbean. When log­ic and em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence are not pre­sent­ed, one of­ten re­sorts to gen­er­al­i­sa­tions which can be­come in­flam­ma­to­ry."

Gloudon said af­ter al­most two years in Ja­maica she has ex­pe­ri­enced enough to know that the views ex­pressed in the ed­i­to­r­i­al hard­ly re­flect­ed the sen­ti­ments of the gov­ern­ment or the peo­ple of Ja­maica. She told the T&T Guardian while she felt this way, her role as a diplo­mat is to main­tain diplo­mat­ic deco­rum and, thus, would say no more on the mat­ter.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston?Dook­er­an is out of the coun­try but Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, act­ing for him, called on The Ob­serv­er to apol­o­gise to Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the peo­ple of T&T.