Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Mwale Hen­ry is cau­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment against es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), even as he ac­knowl­edges that con­cerns raised over the re­cent reap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett are le­git­i­mate.

Hen­ry was speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s push for a spe­cial meet­ing of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment to chal­lenge Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment and the rev­e­la­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go was al­leged­ly “dis­in­vit­ed” from the vot­ing process.

On Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared she would “ruth­less­ly” pur­sue the mat­ter, while For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers con­firmed this coun­try will for­mal­ly re­quest a meet­ing of Cari­com’s Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil.

Hen­ry yes­ter­day said the Prime Min­is­ter’s crit­i­cisms about trans­paren­cy and con­sul­ta­tion with­in the re­gion­al body are valid.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is cor­rect in terms of those crit­i­cisms, if she was not con­sult­ed or the mat­ter was not placed on the agen­da, those are se­ri­ous sys­temic is­sues that need to be ad­dressed,” he said.

How­ev­er, he warned that how Trinidad and To­ba­go re­sponds will be crit­i­cal to main­tain­ing re­gion­al co­he­sion.

Hen­ry point­ed to pol­i­cy dis­agree­ments be­tween this coun­try and Cari­com, par­tic­u­lar­ly on is­sues such as the free move­ment of peo­ple and the re­gion­al econ­o­my, as pos­si­ble con­trib­u­tors to the cur­rent im­passe.

He sug­gest­ed that Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to pause dis­cus­sions on some Cari­com ini­tia­tives may have cre­at­ed “a sense of con­flict and in­er­tia” with­in the bloc.

At the same time, Hen­ry cau­tioned against what he de­scribed as an over­ly ag­gres­sive ap­proach, par­tic­u­lar­ly any sug­ges­tion of with­hold­ing fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to the re­gion­al body.

“The off-ramp for Trinidad and To­ba­go can­not be threat­en­ing cut­ting off fund­ing. Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tributes up to 22 per cent. That sounds like a form of Trump­ism,” he said, draw­ing a com­par­i­son to the Unit­ed Na­tions and fund­ing ten­sions in­volv­ing the Unit­ed States.

In­stead, he is ad­vo­cat­ing for a diplo­mat­ic res­o­lu­tion, sug­gest­ing that Cari­com’s cur­rent lead­er­ship should en­gage Trinidad and To­ba­go and of­fer a path­way for­ward fo­cused on re­form.

Hen­ry said such an “off-ramp” could in­clude com­mit­ments to mod­ernise Cari­com’s gov­er­nance sys­tems and im­prove trans­paren­cy in its de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es, an out­come he be­lieves would ben­e­fit both Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider re­gion.

He al­so stressed that while con­cerns over process are im­por­tant, any re­newed vote on the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al po­si­tion could still yield the same re­sult.

“Are we say­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go has a su­pe­ri­or vote? The out­come may be­come the same,” he not­ed, em­pha­sis­ing that Cari­com op­er­ates on de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples, with each mem­ber state hold­ing a sin­gle vote.

How­ev­er, Hen­ry said the con­tro­ver­sy could present an op­por­tu­ni­ty for broad­er re­form, in­clud­ing greater in­volve­ment of op­po­si­tion voic­es across mem­ber states in re­gion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

De­spite the ten­sions, he ex­pressed con­fi­dence that Cari­com lead­ers will work to­ward a res­o­lu­tion.

“Cari­com has greater minds through its lead­er­ship; one would hope that en­gage­ment at that lev­el pro­vides a way for­ward,” he said.