Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne says the mat­ter of Pales­tine be­ing recog­nised by T&T as an in­de­pen­dent state con­tin­ues to be un­der ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion by the Cab­i­net and that there should be an up­date be­fore the end of the week.

Re­cent­ly, Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised Pales­tine as a state and Guyana be­came the sixth Latin Amer­i­can coun­try to make the recog­ni­tion.

Ja­maica’s For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Min­is­ter, Sen­a­tor Kam­i­na John­son Smith, said Ja­maica con­tin­ued to ad­vo­cate for a two-state so­lu­tion as the on­ly vi­able op­tion to re­solve the long-stand­ing con­flict, guar­an­tee the se­cu­ri­ty of Is­rael and up­hold the dig­ni­ty and rights of Pales­tini­ans.

She said her gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion was aligned with the prin­ci­ples of the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions, which seeks to “en­gen­der mu­tu­al re­spect and peace­ful co-ex­is­tence among states, as well as the recog­ni­tion of the right of peo­ples to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Browne said he re­spect­ed this po­si­tion and that the voice of T&T’s Gov­ern­ment in these mat­ters had been pos­i­tive­ly aug­ment­ed by the clear mul­ti­lat­er­al lead­er­ship be­ing ad­vanced by the cur­rent pres­i­dent of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) Den­nis Fran­cis. He al­so said he had met with mem­bers of a man­dat­ed UN Leg­isla­tive com­mit­tee on this and oth­er mat­ters. 

“I was en­thu­si­as­tic to meet this week, in my of­fice, with the Com­mit­tee on the Ex­er­cise of the In­alien­able Rights of the Pales­tin­ian Peo­ple. Our dis­cus­sions were wide-rang­ing and T&T re­ceived di­rect com­men­da­tion and thanks from the com­mit­tee for our prin­ci­pled po­si­tions with re­gard to Pales­tine and peace in the Mid­dle East, in­clud­ing our ex­cel­lent record of re­spon­si­ble sup­port for and co-spon­sor­ship of the rel­e­vant UN res­o­lu­tions, de­signed to end the cy­cle of hor­rif­ic vi­o­lence and bring re­lief to those most af­fect­ed by it,” the Min­is­ter shared.

Browne said the meet­ing al­so fea­tured de­tailed di­a­logue on de­ter­mi­na­tions made by a grow­ing num­ber of states to recog­nise the state of Pales­tine in ad­vance of the achieve­ment of full UN mem­ber­ship.

“In­for­ma­tion shared by the vis­it­ing del­e­ga­tion will be im­por­tant and rel­e­vant in help­ing to de­ter­mine the next steps,” he said.

Op­po­si­tion Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Na­pari­ma, Rod­ney Charles, said the Prime Min­is­ter need­ed to walk the talk on Pales­tine UN mem­ber­ship.

“Take the moral high ground, be on the right side of his­to­ry, sup­port our Is­lam­ic cit­i­zens and fol­low the ma­jor­i­ty of CARI­COM by recog­nis­ing Pales­tine,” Charles said.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, he said in the past, this coun­try was al­ways at the fore­front of re­gion­al is­sues of glob­al im­por­tance. He point­ed to 1972, when this coun­try, Bar­ba­dos, Guyana and Ja­maica took a moral stance against the mighty US on the mat­ter of the Cuban em­bar­go.

“For which we gained uni­ver­sal re­spect which led to us at the UN gain­ing a rep­u­ta­tion, as we did with the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, for be­ing the moral con­science of the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty,” Charles wrote.

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) David Ab­du­lah told Guardian Me­dia that this was some­thing this coun­try should have done a long time ago and T&T should not have to wait for Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica to recog­nise Pales­tine.

“We should have tak­en this de­ci­sion some time ago and cer­tain­ly af­ter Pales­tine brought up a res­o­lu­tion to the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil call­ing on it to im­plore its full mem­ber­ship,” Ab­du­lah said.

Last week, the Unit­ed States ve­toed that de­ci­sion. The vote in the 15-mem­ber Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil was 12 in favour, the Unit­ed States op­posed and two ab­sten­tions from the Unit­ed King­dom and Switzer­land.

Trinidad and East­ern Caribbean Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Na­tion of Is­lam (a re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed in the Unit­ed States) Dr David Muhammed said any de­ci­sion made by this coun­try oth­er than recog­nis­ing Pales­tine as an in­de­pen­dent state was an in­di­rect en­dorse­ment of the crimes against hu­man­i­ty that Is­rael was cur­rent­ly com­mit­ting.

“To me, at this stage, it is unimag­in­able for any in­de­pen­dent po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion of a free coun­try that val­ues hu­man life, to not give full, com­plete and ab­solute recog­ni­tion, ac­knowl­edge­ment and sup­port for Pales­tine, a coun­try that is cur­rent­ly the vic­tim of the worst open geno­cide for the decade thus far,” Dr Muhammed said.

He added that the world was wit­ness­ing a clear and ev­i­dent blood lust and blood thirst that was be­ing fed on a dai­ly ba­sis with geno­cide and col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment in the search for some ter­ror­ists.

The con­flict be­tween Is­rael and Hamas-led Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant groups start­ed on Oc­to­ber 7.