Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne’s sug­ges­tion that T&T may be in breach of the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas should not be dis­missed.

At a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at the of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, Beck­les re­spond­ed to Browne’s re­cent con­cerns over the re­cent­ly an­nounced in­crease in im­port du­ties on se­lect­ed Cari­com prod­ucts by the T&T Gov­ern­ment.

The Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas is a sig­nif­i­cant re­gion­al agree­ment signed in 1973 that es­tab­lished the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty and Com­mon Mar­ket, al­so known as Cari­com. A re­vised treaty in 2001 es­tab­lished the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), which is at the heart of Cari­com’s cur­rent eco­nom­ic in­te­gra­tion ef­forts.

Browne stressed the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion ef­forts, cau­tion­ing that weak­en­ing trade re­la­tions could frag­ment, rather than strength­en, the re­gion­al bloc.

Beck­les said she agreed that the is­sue must be treat­ed se­ri­ous­ly, com­par­ing its sig­nif­i­cance to on­go­ing geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions in­volv­ing Venezuela and the Unit­ed States.

“We un­der­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of trad­ing with our Cari­com part­ners,” she said.

“It is very easy for the prime min­is­ter to say you are go­ing to look for a mar­ket else­where, but when we think about the ves­sel, USS Ford, com­ing in­to the re­gion, and so many peo­ple have this feel­ing that some­thing is like­ly to take place in our re­gion, do you re­al­ly think peo­ple are go­ing to come here and in­vest?”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly crit­i­cised Cari­com, de­scrib­ing it as an “un­re­li­able part­ner” that has cho­sen to side with Venezuela over T&T.

Speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view on the Crime Watch pro­gramme last week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­ment­ed on the lack of re­gion­al sup­port for T&T’s en­dorse­ment of Unit­ed States naval as­sets in the Caribbean.

She said, “Cari­com is prov­ing to be an un­re­li­able part­ner in some re­gards be­cause they chose Venezuela over Trinidad. They chose Venezuela over Trinidad, and that is some­thing we need to re­mem­ber.”

Beck­les slams PM’s  drug al­le­ga­tions against PNM

Beck­les al­so fired back at Per­sad-Bisses­sar over state­ments ac­cus­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of pro­tect­ing drug traf­fick­ers, call­ing the claims reck­less and in­flam­ma­to­ry.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a me­dia state­ment is­sued on Oc­to­ber 24, al­leged the Op­po­si­tion was at­tempt­ing to de­rail Gov­ern­ment ef­forts to com­bat traf­fick­ing and se­cure T&T’s bor­ders, fur­ther claim­ing that the PNM had long been “sus­pect­ed of be­ing fi­nanced by the lo­cal drug mafia”.

Beck­les con­demned the ac­cu­sa­tion as base­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble and urged the Prime Min­is­ter to hand over any ev­i­dence to law en­force­ment.

“With­draw that al­le­ga­tion and apol­o­gise be­cause the time has come for the use of in­flam­ma­to­ry lan­guage con­sis­tent­ly wher­ev­er you’re un­der pres­sure; when you are clue­less about gov­ern­ment, you want to put the blame on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to stop.”

Beck­les warned that such com­ments fu­elled na­tion­al di­vi­sion and un­der­mined con­fi­dence in in­sti­tu­tions.