Amidst the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment’s in­creas­ing­ly tur­bu­lent tenure lo­cal­ly, the ad­min­is­tra­tion has savoured its mo­ment of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with Cari­com re­gion­al­ly; and head­way with its is­sue con­cern­ing the Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al’s reap­point­ment.

Gov­ern­ment’s ad­vances at Cari­com’s re­cent St Lu­cia con­fer­ence ar­rives when the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s im­age in in­ter­na­tion­al cir­cles has in­creased, but its lo­cal stocks haven’t.

De­vel­op­ments at Cari­com’s con­fer­ence bore out open­ing ad­dress­es from host St Lu­cian speak­ers that their coun­try was the place where prin­ci­ples that were be­ing lost could be recom­mit­ted to.

Af­ter months of carp­ing on the is­sue con­cern­ing Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett’s Feb­ru­ary reap­point­ment by lead­ers, whether or not Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s move to diplo­ma­cy was in­flu­enced by T&T’s el­e­va­tion to the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil seat - and the im­age and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty re­quired of such a po­si­tion - her suc­cess­ful pro­pos­al to Cari­com to re­fer the reap­point­ment is­sue to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) for ad­vi­so­ry opin­ion ben­e­fit­ted both coun­try and Cari­com.

The PM ap­peared to have won. Cari­com’s uni­ty pro­file ap­peared re­in­forced.

How­ev­er, the out­come was con­firmed as a joint T&T/re­gion­al ef­fort with Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica’s let­ter on the is­sue in the fore­front of res­o­lu­tion. Of­fi­cials said Cari­com be­lieved the CCJ was the best mech­a­nism “to ac­com­mo­date T&T’s con­tin­u­ous ob­jec­tion” to the reap­point­ment, since the court was de­signed to han­dle such in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, oth­er mem­ber states and Cari­com’s Sec­re­tari­at ex­pect the mat­ter to be dealt with ur­gent­ly - “well be­fore year’s end” - and Bar­nett’s SG role con­tin­ues, pend­ing the CCJ opin­ion.

“The is­sue con­cerns whether the reap­point­ment process was prop­er­ly done. If it’s found to be, all move on ac­cord­ing­ly. If not, then it’s re-done prop­er­ly,” Cari­com sources not­ed.

Cari­com deputy SG Dr Arm­strong Alex­is is tipped to spear­head arrange­ments. It’s ahead whether Cari­com’s gen­er­al coun­sel (le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive) re­cus­es her­self as Gov­ern­ment wants. The GC is re­spon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing le­gal ad­vice to the Com­mu­ni­ty - and pro­vid­ing le­gal ser­vices to Cari­com’s Sec­re­tari­at.

Since CCJ rules al­low all par­ties to have an in­put, T&T’s ex­pect­ed to have le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion “to as­sist the court in its de­lib­er­a­tions,” Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said. Al­so, in­put’s like­ly from St Kitts, whose leader chaired Cari­com when the SG is­sue arose.

Bar­nett, post-con­fer­ence, went to her Be­lize home­land to de­liv­er a lec­ture, it’s con­firmed.

Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion won’t wash away the PM’s pre­vi­ous con­dem­na­tion of Cari­com, af­ter her ab­sence from the Feb­ru­ary Nevis re­treat set in mo­tion her SG is­sue, dam­ag­ing T&T’s re­la­tions in the fra­ter­ni­ty. Nor will it re­move the sting­ing re­spons­es to her at the con­fer­ence open­ing. St Lu­cian speak­er Rahym Au­gustin-Joseph, among re­marks, said, “The fam­i­ly mem­ber this re­gion wants to re­mem­ber isn’t the aun­ty that comes to the re­union bring­ing up her fam­i­ly gos­sip from 20 years ago but the one who‘s fo­cused on build­ing that fam­i­ly’s fu­ture … we can­not on­ly love Cari­com when we have our way and when we win!”

Pre­vi­ous Cari­com chair­man Ter­rance Drew sharply ref­er­enced T&T’s SG is­sue through­out his ad­dress, laud­ing Bar­nett. Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s grim ex­pres­sion ac­knowl­edged the land­ed blows.

Af­ter Drew not­ed Cari­com’s sup­port for T&T’s UN­SC seat, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s nod of ac­knowl­edge­ment in­di­cat­ed move­ment to come. Con­ces­sions sub­se­quent­ly of­fered to Cari­com were in­struc­tive, as was the fact that her (larg­er) del­e­ga­tion to this con­fer­ence in­clud­ed Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the PM, Dar­rel Al­la­har, a vet­er­an at­tor­ney whose work had in­clud­ed mat­ters be­fore the CCJ.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­course to the CCJ is the lat­est of flip-flops: 2005 re­jec­tion over judges’ eth­nic com­po­si­tion, 2012 an­nounce­ment of moves for the CCJ to re­place the Privy Coun­cil, and sub­se­quent Op­po­si­tion re­jec­tion of the CCJ. The SG is­sue us­es the CCJ’s orig­i­nal ju­ris­dic­tion, not its ap­pel­late as­pect, which the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress re­ject­ed.

Court judges head­ed by Ja­maica’s Win­ston An­der­son in­clude Chan­tal Onon­ai­wu (Ja­maica), Mau­reen Ra­j­nauth-Lee (T&T), Pe­ter Ja­madar (T&T), Denys Bar­row (Be­lize), Arif Bulkan (Guyana), Chile Eboe-Os­u­ji (Nige­ria).

Con­ces­sions the PM of­fered Cari­com - and ad­mis­sion of Forex need - con­firmed that T&T re­quires re­gion­al re­bond­ing af­ter some for­eign en­ti­ties’ de­par­ture and lo­cal ones un­set­tled. The Hadeeds/Star Sab­ga de­ten­tion le­gal bat­tle con­tin­ues, with the Gov­ern­ment’s coun­ter­play ex­tend­ing from CAL’s Blue Wa­ters ban to land mat­ters, as cer­tain Gov­ern­ment spokes­men’s re­marks con­tin­ue tar­get­ing the Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty.

It’s ahead how Cari­com’s SG is­sue set­tles T&T and meets chair­man Pierre’s tar­get: that Cari­com im­proves re­gion­al cit­i­zens’ dai­ly lives.