Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

This coun­try was rep­re­sent­ed by For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­istry of­fi­cials at yes­ter­day’s 29th Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR) con­fer­ence, where Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett’s open­ing ad­dress fo­cused on re­gion­al uni­ty as an im­per­a­tive.

The event, nor­mal­ly at­tend­ed by For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ters of the re­gion, was held in Suri­name. It was chaired by in­com­ing COF­COR chair­man Melvin Bou­va, Suri­name’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, In­ter­na­tion­al Busi­ness and Co­op­er­a­tion.

But For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers didn’t at­tend the COF­COR’s meet­ing.

Gov­ern­ment has stood firm­ly against Cari­com’s Feb­ru­ary reap­point­ment of Bar­nett for an­oth­er five-year term from Au­gust.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tend­ed Cari­com’s Feb­ru­ary con­fer­ence in St Kitts and Nevis but left be­fore the lead­ers’ re­treat at Nevis, where the reap­point­ment de­ci­sion was made. She said Bar­nett’s ap­point­ment wasn’t done ac­cord­ing to Cari­com’s Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas and no per­for­mance ap­praisal was con­duct­ed. The PM had sought doc­u­men­ta­tion on the is­sue, say­ing T&T wouldn’t at­tend Cari­com meet­ings un­til this was re­ceived.

Cari­com chair­man Ter­rance Drew sent her a let­ter ful­ly de­tail­ing the reap­point­ment de­ci­sion. At a fi­nal lead­ers’ meet­ing on the is­sue on May 8 there were lengthy dis­cus­sions, in­clud­ing on doc­u­men­ta­tion con­firm­ing that pro­to­cols were fol­lowed. A min­istry team un­suc­cess­ful­ly pre­sent­ed T&T’s ar­gu­ments dur­ing the ses­sion as well. How­ev­er, all 10 Cari­com lead­ers present de­cid­ed against re­do­ing the reap­point­ment process. Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er main­tained her po­si­tion, say­ing Cari­com could “ex­pel T&T if it wants”. Cari­com of­fi­cials say that won’t hap­pen, since T&T’s an in­te­gral part of Cari­com.

Min­is­ter Sobers had vir­tu­al­ly at­tend­ed COF­COR’s 28th meet­ing in May 2025.

There was no re­ply from Sobers yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia’s What­sApped queries on whether he at­tend­ed yes­ter­day’s COF­COR meet­ing, what is­sues T&T would have raised and if T&T had on­line or min­istry team rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed that T&T was on­ly rep­re­sent­ed by min­istry of­fi­cials, one of whom spoke yes­ter­day at the event.

Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Bar­nett, in her open­ing ad­dress yes­ter­day, said Cari­com is prepar­ing for crit­i­cal mul­ti­lat­er­al en­gage­ments ahead, in­clud­ing the 28th Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in No­vem­ber host­ed by An­tigua/Bar­bu­da; the 81st Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly; the 56th OAS Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and COP31.

She said Cari­com-wide co­or­di­na­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in these en­gage­ments can shape out­comes on re­gion­al pri­or­i­ties, in­clud­ing repara­to­ry jus­tice, de­vel­op­ments in and sup­port for Haiti, cli­mate change im­pact and ac­cess to cli­mate fi­nanc­ing, plus in­ter­na­tion­al peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

Bar­nett added, “We must con­tin­ue to ac­tive­ly ad­vo­cate on these is­sues for our re­gion, with fo­cus on shap­ing a mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem that is eq­ui­table and serves the in­ter­ests of all. One of our Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty’s great­est strengths is our abil­i­ty to project a unit­ed voice. For us, this is a vi­tal mech­a­nism for en­sur­ing we can be heard and can in­flu­ence glob­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing. This has been so from the ear­li­est days of the Com­mu­ni­ty...”

She added, “While reach­ing com­mon po­si­tions from di­verse na­tion­al in­ter­ests is com­plex, as we’ve demon­strat­ed over the years, the abil­i­ty to co­or­di­nate for­eign pol­i­cy po­si­tions demon­strates that the Com­mu­ni­ty re­mains a most ef­fec­tive means of nav­i­gat­ing an un­pre­dictable glob­al land­scape. None of our small na­tions can ef­fec­tive­ly con­front these chal­lenges in iso­la­tion. Work­ing to­geth­er is there­fore not an op­tion; it’s an im­per­a­tive.”

COF­COR’s spe­cial guests - Japan’s Par­lia­men­tary Vice-Min­is­ter for For­eign Af­fairs, Sin­ga­pore’s For­eign Min­is­ter and a high-lev­el Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates rep­re­sen­ta­tive - will be hav­ing dis­cus­sions with at­ten­dees on mat­ters of mu­tu­al strate­gic im­por­tance.