Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

If Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­tends to re­vive the is­sue of the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett at the up­com­ing Cari­com con­fer­ence, for­mer For­eign Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne says the re­gion­al group­ing should re­sist any such move and in­stead fo­cus on pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance to Venezuela.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, along with For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry Nicholas Mor­ris, will at­tend Cari­com’s 51st Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in St Lu­cia, which runs from Sun­day to Wednes­day. The meet­ing will be host­ed by in­com­ing Cari­com Chair­man Phillip J Pierre, who vis­it­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar in April.

Fol­low­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­ten­dance at the last con­fer­ence in St Kitts in Feb­ru­ary, she raised con­cerns about the reap­point­ment of Bar­nett, which was lat­er con­firmed by lead­ers at their Nevis re­treat. The Prime Min­is­ter had left be­fore that re­treat.

She did not at­tend two sub­se­quent meet­ings con­vened by Cari­com lead­ers to dis­cuss the mat­ter. At the most re­cent meet­ing on May 8, 10 of Cari­com’s 15 lead­ers sup­port­ed the reap­point­ment and agreed not to re­open the process.

Last week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s po­si­tion on the is­sue was re­vived and re­in­forced by a le­gal opin­ion from Pro­fes­sor Ra­jen­dra Ram­lo­gan, UWI Com­mer­cial and En­vi­ron­men­tal Law spe­cial­ist, who ar­gued that the reap­point­ment process was “de­fec­tive.”

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said while the Prime Min­is­ter is not sched­uled to speak at the open­ing of the con­fer­ence, they ex­pect her to make com­ments on the Bar­nett is­sue at some point, pos­si­bly on the side­lines. They said she is ex­pect­ed to at­tend the full con­fer­ence, in­clud­ing the lead­ers’ re­treat in St Lu­cia—un­like at the St Kitts meet­ing, which she left ear­ly.

The main agen­da items for the con­fer­ence are ex­pect­ed to in­clude the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my, free move­ment of peo­ple, aid to Cu­ba, cli­mate is­sues—with Venezuela’s re­cent earth­quakes ex­pect­ed to be dis­cussed—food se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic growth, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, and ex­pand­ed trade and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Browne said the par­ty is pleased the Prime Min­is­ter will at­tend the con­fer­ence, not­ing her at­ten­dance at pre­vi­ous re­gion­al meet­ings was “in­con­sis­tent and un­pre­dictable,” and that her last par­tic­i­pa­tion re­sult­ed in what he de­scribed as a “diplo­mat­ic dis­as­ter” over the sec­re­tary gen­er­al is­sue.

He said he hoped Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not go­ing to St Lu­cia to at­tempt to re­vive what he de­scribed as a “cri­sis,” and urged Cari­com to re­sist any ef­fort to re­open the mat­ter.

“A pri­or­i­ty at the con­fer­ence should be the co­or­di­na­tion of ad­di­tion­al as­sis­tance and sup­port to Venezuela fol­low­ing the re­cent dev­as­tat­ing earth­quakes,” Browne said.

“Cari­com should re­sist any at­tempt by Trinidad and To­ba­go to re­vive the agen­da of at­tacks on the Cari­com Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al and on the out­come of the Nevis re­treat that Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar failed to at­tend. The re­gion­al fam­i­ly must bear in mind she has not of­fered an ex­pla­na­tion or ex­cuse for her un­ac­cept­able ab­sence from that fo­rum.”

Browne fur­ther crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment’s “reck­less, ir­re­spon­si­ble po­si­tions” on Cari­com mat­ters.

“We an­tic­i­pate that at this up­com­ing Cari­com meet­ing there will be re­sis­tance to any at­tempts to re­vive the is­sue of those at­tacks against the sec­re­tary gen­er­al and the process from which Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Prime Min­is­ter ab­sent­ed her­self,” he said.

“It’s an un­ex­plained ab­sence still—why did she ab­sent her­self from the lead­ers’ Nevis re­treat? That ab­sence was the trig­ger for every­thing that sub­se­quent­ly oc­curred. If the Prime Min­is­ter was present, it would have avert­ed, or should have avert­ed, a lot of the dif­fi­cul­ties she and her Min­is­ter sub­se­quent­ly foist­ed up­on Cari­com.”

Browne de­scribed the post-Nevis po­si­tion as “rather tru­cu­lent, child­ish and bereft of prin­ci­ple.”

He added that in­com­ing Cari­com chair­man Phillip J Pierre is “a man of rea­son and peace,” who had pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed the sec­re­tary gen­er­al’s reap­point­ment process, and said he ex­pects the new chair­man­ship pe­ri­od to fo­cus on “sol­i­dar­i­ty and mov­ing Cari­com for­ward.”

Sobers did not re­spond to Browne’s com­ments.