Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Caribbean lead­ers have ral­lied in de­fence of Cari­com, af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered a sharp cri­tique at the open­ing of the 50th Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in St Kitts this week.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress ques­tioned the bloc’s stance on re­gion­al sov­er­eign­ty, de­fend­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sup­port of Unit­ed States op­er­a­tions against Venezuela, crit­i­cised al­leged in­ter­fer­ence in re­gion­al elec­tions and fault­ed the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at over its re­sponse to the kid­nap­ping of T&T na­tion­al Brent Thomas.

Speak­ing ahead of yes­ter­day’s re­treat in Nevis, Grena­da Prime Min­is­ter Dick­on Mitchell pushed back at Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claims, point­ing to Cari­com’s role in eas­ing ten­sions be­tween Guyana and Venezuela.

“I think cer­tain­ly Cari­com played a sig­nif­i­cant role in drop­ping the tem­per­a­ture be­tween Guyana and Venezuela. And I think we ap­pre­ci­ate that Guyana is the seat of Cari­com. So, I think the record speaks for it­self in terms of the role of Cari­com in de­fend­ing and sup­port­ing Guyana and en­sur­ing that we pur­sue an op­por­tu­ni­ty for dis­cus­sion and di­a­logue,” Mitchell said.

On con­cerns raised about T&T’s po­si­tion, Mitchell said mem­ber states are ob­lig­at­ed to de­fend each oth­er’s sov­er­eign­ty.

“In the case of the com­plaints about Trinidad and To­ba­go, our view is, and I think this is con­sis­tent, is that we cer­tain­ly al­ways will pro­tect a Cari­com mem­ber from any per­ceived threats made by any coun­try against them to their sov­er­eign­ty or to their se­cu­ri­ty. And I think that’s the po­si­tion. But, you know, some­times you could nev­er an­swer what some­one else is think­ing or their view of some­thing else.”

Mitchell al­so aligned with Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness, in not­ing that Cari­com is nei­ther a po­lit­i­cal nor an eco­nom­ic union, un­der­scor­ing that mem­ber states re­tain in­de­pen­dent for­eign poli­cies.

“You ap­pre­ci­ate some mem­bers of Cari­com are not part of, for ex­am­ple, the Caribbean sin­gle mar­ket. For ex­am­ple, the Ba­hamas, which from day one carved that out. So, I think it’s im­por­tant for us to ap­pre­ci­ate that in the ab­sence of po­lit­i­cal union and the ab­sence of eco­nom­ic union, that coun­tries are free to pur­sue their own for­eign pol­i­cy.”

Do­mini­ca Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit al­so re­spond­ed to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks, cau­tion­ing against pub­lic dis­putes among re­gion­al lead­ers.

“I have been around for some time and if you do your re­search, you’d have nev­er seen me en­gag­ing in any spar­ring across the Caribbean Sea. I’ve nev­er be­lieved in this. I’ve nev­er en­gaged in this. I don’t think that is the right ap­proach to take,” he said.

Sker­rit said dis­agree­ments with­in Cari­com are not new but are usu­al­ly re­solved pri­vate­ly.

“With­in Cari­com, we’ve had very fiery ex­changes in closed doors. And we have been able to re­solve those is­sues af­ter heads have been cooled... Every coun­try has a sov­er­eign right to ex­press them­selves in a man­ner that suits their own na­tion­al in­ter­est and the in­ter­est of their cit­i­zens... I have no dif­fi­cul­ty with that. But some­times there are things that could be said in dif­fer­ent spaces at dif­fer­ent times.”

On Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tion that re­gion­al lead­ers have al­lowed their min­is­ters to par­tic­i­pate in oth­er coun­tries’ elec­tions, which she la­belled as po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, Sker­rit ar­gued that cross-bor­der po­lit­i­cal sup­port has long been part of Caribbean pol­i­tics.

“I am not aware of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the Caribbean, none, that has not in­volved it­self in sup­port of a par­ty in a par­tic­u­lar coun­try. None. In re­cent times, in past times, and cer­tain­ly in fu­ture times. There’s no po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the Caribbean, from Ja­maica all the way down, that has not pro­vid­ed sup­port—one po­lit­i­cal par­ty or the oth­er—in an­oth­er coun­try. There’s none. And he who is with­out sin must cast the first stone. And I don’t think any­body can cast the stone in the Caribbean when it comes to that par­tic­u­lar mat­ter.”

He added, how­ev­er, that po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences should not af­fect state-to-state re­la­tions.

“I have been a long-stand­ing friend and col­league of Dr Ralph Gon­salves but I will work very well with Prime Min­is­ter Fri­day. He is the Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines. I think we have to have the ma­tu­ri­ty to rise above some lo­cal pol­i­tics and recog­nise that we are on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.”

Saint Lu­cia’s Prime Min­is­ter Philip J. Pierre said Cari­com has nev­er had full con­sen­sus on for­eign pol­i­cy but ex­pressed hope that dif­fer­ences would not frac­ture the bloc.

“What I’m hop­ing for, what I’m hop­ing for is that Cari­com does not get frac­tured on any is­sue. That’s what I’m hop­ing for. But I have no con­trol over any oth­er gov­ern­ment. We are all in­de­pen­dent coun­tries and we take our own path.”