RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As for­eign mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in­ten­si­fies across the Caribbean—deep­en­ing di­vi­sions with­in Cari­com over how the re­gion should re­spond—the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day amend­ed an Op­po­si­tion mo­tion that sought to con­demn the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent pub­lic state­ments on the mat­ter.

The mo­tion, brought by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les, asked Par­lia­ment to de­nounce what she de­scribed as “reck­less and dam­ag­ing” re­marks by the Prime Min­is­ter on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues in­volv­ing Venezuela and the pres­ence of US mil­i­tary per­son­nel in Trinidad and To­ba­go. She ar­gued that, at a time when Cari­com it­self is split over mil­i­tary de­ploy­ments and diplo­mat­ic pos­tures, the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion risked iso­lat­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“We are in a mo­ment where the Caribbean is al­ready un­der im­mense pres­sure, and sev­er­al Cari­com mem­bers have tak­en sharply dif­fer­ent po­si­tions on mil­i­tary build-ups in the re­gion,” Beck­les told the House. “In­stead of pro­vid­ing clar­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy, the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ments have on­ly cre­at­ed con­fu­sion. This gov­ern­ment must reaf­firm its com­mit­ment to Cari­com’s es­tab­lished for­eign-pol­i­cy prin­ci­ples.”

Beck­les said the Op­po­si­tion’s mo­tion was in­tend­ed to pro­tect “the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic, diplo­mat­ic and se­cu­ri­ty in­ter­ests at a time when re­gion­al uni­ty is al­ready frag­ile.”

How­ev­er, Beck­les com­mit­ted a pro­ce­dur­al er­ror when she said, “I beg to move,” which is used to close off or end a de­bate. This meant Beck­les failed to get in­to the meat of her con­tri­bu­tion, pre­ma­ture­ly end­ing her op­por­tu­ni­ty to kick off the de­bate. Af­ter a brief sus­pen­sion to con­sid­er if there was any way Beck­les could ac­tu­al­ly make her con­tri­bu­tion, Speak­er Jagdeo Singh ruled that Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal could move an amend­ment. It was sec­ond­ed as Singh told the House:

“The Mem­ber is with­in his right to pro­pose an amend­ment once it is prop­er­ly struc­tured and does not al­ter the core pur­pose of the mo­tion be­yond what the Stand­ing Or­ders al­low.”

How­ev­er, the amend­ment sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed the di­rec­tion of the mo­tion, re­mov­ing the call for con­dem­na­tion and in­stead prais­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s en­gage­ment with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.

Mooni­lal ar­gued that, con­trary to the Op­po­si­tion’s claims, the Prime Min­is­ter had strength­ened se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion across the re­gion at a time when transna­tion­al threats—in­clud­ing gun-run­ning, drug traf­fick­ing, and hu­man traf­fick­ing—were in­creas­ing.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has been work­ing close­ly with the Unit­ed States and oth­er part­ners to ad­dress the very is­sues threat­en­ing re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty,” Mooni­lal said. “We re­cent­ly en­gaged the Chair­man of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff on co­or­di­nat­ed re­spons­es to traf­fick­ing and or­gan­ised crime. That is the work that pro­tects cit­i­zens.”

Mooni­lal al­so re­ject­ed the as­ser­tion that the Gov­ern­ment had de­vi­at­ed from Cari­com prin­ci­ples, say­ing:

“There is no ev­i­dence what­so­ev­er that Trinidad and To­ba­go has breached any treaty, any agree­ment, or any shared com­mit­ment with­in Cari­com. What we are see­ing in the re­gion—whether in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines or else­where—is the nor­mal flux of diplo­ma­cy, not the col­lapse of uni­ty.”

But Op­po­si­tion MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les un­der­scored the im­por­tance of Cari­com, say­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to re­gion­al trade and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty was im­por­tant to T&T. He said, “Cari­com ac­counts for 9 bil­lion dol­lars of ex­ports, 14 per cent of to­tal ex­ports, and 1 bil­lion of im­ports.” He warned that state­ments un­der­min­ing Cari­com as a re­li­able part­ner could jeop­ar­dise decades of re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

The MP al­so high­light­ed T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy prin­ci­ples as out­lined by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, in­clud­ing “re­spect for the sov­er­eign­ty and the sov­er­eign equal­i­ty of all states, non-in­ter­fer­ence in the in­ter­nal af­fairs of oth­er states… and re­spect and ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law and the prin­ci­ples of the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions.”