Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has again re­butted re­cent crit­i­cisms from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne, dis­tanc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go from Cari­com’s “Zone of Peace” pos­ture and ac­cus­ing the re­gion­al bloc of align­ing with Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, even as Browne and for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ques­tioned her stance, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Cari­com had “aligned it­self with the Maduro nar­co gov­ern­ment head­ed by a dic­ta­tor,” al­leg­ing that Venezuela’s lead­er­ship has im­pris­oned or killed thou­sands of po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

She said Trinidad and To­ba­go “wants no part of that align­ment,” adding that her Gov­ern­ment does not sup­port dic­ta­tor­ship, drug traf­fick­ing, or what she de­scribed as Cari­com’s “Zone of Peace fak­ery.”

Her com­ments came amid an es­ca­lat­ing war of words be­tween re­gion­al lead­ers, fol­low­ing Browne’s pub­lic crit­i­cism of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stance on Cari­com and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues.

Turn­ing her at­ten­tion di­rect­ly to An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s lead­er­ship, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Prime Min­is­ter Browne and An­tigua’s am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed States, Sir Ronald Sanders, should fo­cus less on her re­marks and more on ex­plain­ing to their own cit­i­zens why their visas were re­cent­ly re­strict­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so raised con­cerns about Venezuela’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al rhetoric, not­ing that Cara­cas has threat­ened to in­vade Guyana for years and, since June last year, has be­gun mak­ing sim­i­lar claims in­volv­ing T&T.

“Yet Cari­com has cho­sen to sup­port the Maduro nar­co gov­ern­ment through the fake Zone of Peace nar­ra­tive,” she said, ar­gu­ing that the ini­tia­tive is de­signed to en­cour­age the with­draw­al of the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary from the Caribbean, there­by en­abling Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro to re­main in pow­er.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed that her po­si­tion is guid­ed by na­tion­al in­ter­est rather than re­gion­al pol­i­tics.

“My pri­or­i­ty is the best in­ter­ests of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

Yes­ter­day, Browne de­liv­ered a da­ta-dri­ven re­buke to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­clar­ing that her claim that Cari­com is an “un­re­li­able part­ner” to T&T is im­pos­si­ble to rec­on­cile with the re­gion’s eco­nom­ic and se­cu­ri­ty record.

In a state­ment on Sat­ur­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had slammed Cari­com, say­ing, “Cari­com is not a re­li­able part­ner at this time. The fact is that be­neath the thin mask of uni­ty, there are many widen­ing fis­sures that, if left un­ad­dressed, will lead to its im­plo­sion.

“The or­gan­i­sa­tion is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing rapid­ly due to poor man­age­ment, lax ac­count­abil­i­ty, fac­tion­al di­vi­sions, desta­bil­is­ing poli­cies, pri­vate con­flicts be­tween re­gion­al lead­ers and po­lit­i­cal par­ties and the in­ap­pro­pri­ate med­dling in the do­mes­tic pol­i­tics of mem­ber states. That’s the plain truth.”

She added, “Cari­com can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate in this dys­func­tion­al and self-de­struc­tive man­ner as it is a grave dis­ser­vice to the peo­ple of the Caribbean.

An­tigua PM’s

counter-ar­gu­ment

In a strong­ly word­ed Face­book post yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Browne re­ject­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s as­ser­tions fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States’ De­cem­ber 16 an­nounce­ment of par­tial en­try re­stric­tions on na­tion­als of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca, and her sub­se­quent de­ci­sion to dis­tance T&T from a Cari­com Bu­reau state­ment ex­press­ing con­cern.

“An­tigua and Bar­bu­da has nev­er ques­tioned the sov­er­eign right of any Cari­com mem­ber to con­duct its bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions as it sees fit,” Browne wrote.

“Equal­ly, no mem­ber should ques­tion the le­git­i­ma­cy of an­oth­er Cari­com state en­gag­ing re­spon­si­bly, trans­par­ent­ly, and re­spect­ful­ly with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States.”

Browne then turned to the eco­nom­ic facts, which he said flat­ly con­tra­dict claims that Cari­com has failed T&T.

He dis­closed that in 2024 alone, T&T earned more than US$1.1 bil­lion in for­eign ex­change from trade with Cari­com, in­clud­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$784.7 mil­lion in do­mes­tic ex­ports and US$501.3 mil­lion in re-ex­ports. Cari­com, he not­ed, was T&T’s sec­ond-largest ex­port mar­ket, sur­passed on­ly by the Unit­ed States.

That trade re­la­tion­ship, Browne stressed, has over­whelm­ing­ly favoured T&T. He point­ed out that the coun­try record­ed the largest mer­chan­dise trade sur­plus with­in Cari­com and re­mains the on­ly mem­ber state to have main­tained a net pos­i­tive trade bal­ance with the Com­mu­ni­ty con­sis­tent­ly since Cari­com’s in­cep­tion in 1973.

Browne al­so re­ject­ed any at­tempt to nar­row Cari­com’s val­ue to trade alone. Not­ing that T&T faces some of the high­est lev­els of or­gan­ised crime in the re­gion, he said re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion through Cari­com se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms, in­tel­li­gence shar­ing, and co­or­di­nat­ed law-en­force­ment ini­tia­tives has been a crit­i­cal pil­lar of the re­sponse.

He al­so flat­ly re­ject­ed what he de­scribed as an un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed as­ser­tion that An­tigua and Bar­bu­da’s lead­ers have “bad-mouthed” the Unit­ed States.

“No ev­i­dence has been of­fered be­cause none ex­ists,” Browne said.

Row­ley: PM reck­less and in­com­pe­tent

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so yes­ter­day warned that the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments risk iso­lat­ing T&T, weak­en­ing re­gion­al uni­ty, and un­der­min­ing the coun­try’s sov­er­eign­ty.

In a Face­book post, Dr Row­ley fur­ther ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing “un­pa­tri­ot­ic” and “reck­less­ly in­com­pe­tent.”

“I have al­so nev­er wit­nessed a more of­fen­sive state­ment about our­selves and our sov­er­eign rights,” Row­ley wrote, de­scrib­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s pos­ture as re­duc­ing the coun­try to “a vas­sal state” al­leged­ly op­er­at­ing un­der “se­cret in­struc­tions from an­oth­er coun­try.”

Row­ley al­so ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of ef­fec­tive­ly warn­ing cit­i­zens to “be­have our­selves” to avoid of­fend­ing the Unit­ed States and los­ing ac­cess to US visas, a stance he said amount­ed to tear­ing up the Con­sti­tu­tion and aban­don­ing the very idea of na­tion­al self-re­spect.

“To so pub­licly with­draw from per­ti­nent Cari­com is­sues and de­ci­sions is as close to be­ing a dan­ger­ous fifth-colum­nist as we could get,” Row­ley charged, ac­cus­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar of wear­ing “the shame” of re­gion­al with­draw­al in the hope of re­ward and pro­tec­tion from Wash­ing­ton.

He ques­tioned the Prime Min­is­ter’s trans­paren­cy, ac­cus­ing her of mil­i­taris­ing the coun­try while re­fus­ing to ex­plain to the pop­u­la­tion what agree­ments she has en­tered in­to with US au­thor­i­ties. He al­so con­demned her re­fusal to face the lo­cal me­dia, dis­miss­ing her claim that pub­lic scruti­ny amounts to be­ing “an­ti-Amer­i­can.”

Padarath to Row­ley:

Stay in re­tire­ment

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath yes­ter­day fired back at Dr Row­ley af­ter the lat­ter’s so­cial me­dia post, claim­ing that the for­mer prime min­is­ter used Cari­com to ad­vance what he de­scribed as his own per­son­al in­ter­ests.

“For ten years, Row­ley used Cari­com as a boys’ club to ad­vance his own per­son­al, my­opic, self­ish in­ter­est. Cari­com was nev­er meant to be a spine­less, tooth­less talk­shop. We will not ig­nore the re­al­i­ty that the re­gion con­tin­ues to face with high in­ci­dents of gun traf­fick­ing, drug traf­fick­ing, and hu­man traf­fick­ing. Nei­ther would we ca­jole tyran­ny and despo­tism.”

Ac­cord­ing to Padarath, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re­defin­ing for­eign pol­i­cy by ac­tion that will bring tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits in the spheres of na­tion­al and eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty.

“Re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty is not de­fined by liv­ing in a utopía that the Caribbean is a zone of peace. The Hon PM is draw­ing the lines in the sand in terms of where Trinidad and To­ba­go stands.”

He not­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments were aligned to tak­ing on what he said were the deep-root­ed prob­lems the coun­try faced af­ter ten years of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in­ac­tion.

An­a­lysts weigh in

Re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs an­a­lysts yes­ter­day warned that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments could have last­ing con­se­quences for T&T’s strate­gic po­si­tion.

Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi, An­tho­ny Bryan, re­ject­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s claim that Cari­com is un­re­li­able, de­scrib­ing it as un­jus­ti­fied and dan­ger­ous for a small state.

“Cari­com of­fers sup­port for in­di­vid­ual mem­ber ob­jec­tives and does not im­pose a one-size-fits-all re­quire­ment,” Bryan said.

He warned that turn­ing away from the re­gion­al bloc risks leav­ing T&T iso­lat­ed and ex­posed.

“Set­ting our­selves adrift to fend for our­selves as a small is­land state would be an un­sus­tain­able cir­cum­stance,” he cau­tioned.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Derek Ram­samooj mean­while warned that sharp rhetoric and uni­lat­er­al po­si­tion­ing could ir­repara­bly dam­age the re­gion­al project. He cau­tioned that T&T must not be­come the au­thor of Cari­com’s col­lapse.

“As a sov­er­eign state, we need to be care­ful that we do not ini­ti­ate the de­struc­tion of Cari­com by in­ju­di­cious state­ments,” he said.

Ram­samooj urged diplo­ma­cy and con­sen­sus-build­ing, warn­ing that the con­se­quences of poor de­ci­sions would not be borne by in­di­vid­ual lead­ers, but by the coun­try’s 1.2 mil­lion cit­i­zens.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad con­tend­ed that while Per­sad-Bisses­sar is with­in her rights to di­verge from Cari­com po­si­tions, her com­ments ex­pose a deep and un­re­solved fault line be­tween na­tion­al­ism and re­gion­al­ism.

Ram­per­sad not­ed that Cari­com has long strug­gled with what many aca­d­e­mics de­scribe as a “co­matose” state, marked by chron­ic im­ple­men­ta­tion fail­ures.

She point­ed to re­peat­ed breach­es of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, in­clud­ing free move­ment pro­vi­sions un­der the CSME, as ev­i­dence that mem­ber states of­ten ig­nore col­lec­tive com­mit­ments when na­tion­al in­ter­ests in­ter­vene.

“This is not new,” Ram­per­sad said, not­ing that sev­er­al coun­tries have al­ready pur­sued their own sub-re­gion­al arrange­ments out­side the bloc.

She added that T&T wields eco­nom­ic in­flu­ence with­in Cari­com, with the re­gion ac­count­ing for a sig­nif­i­cant share of the coun­try’s ex­ports, even as many mem­ber states de­pend heav­i­ly on T&T for trade.

Ram­per­sad framed the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion as po­lit­i­cal­ly prag­mat­ic, ar­gu­ing that lead­ers are elect­ed by do­mes­tic con­stituen­cies, not re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“All pol­i­tics are do­mes­tic,” she said, not­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s elec­toral man­date comes from T&T’s pop­u­la­tion, not Cari­com.

She al­so high­light­ed the over­whelm­ing in­flu­ence of the Unit­ed States as a glob­al su­per­pow­er and T&T’s largest trad­ing part­ner, de­scrib­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s align­ment with Wash­ing­ton as a cal­cu­lat­ed, if con­tro­ver­sial, choice.

Re­gion­al po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and di­rec­tor of Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Re­search Ser­vices (CADRES), Pe­ter Wick­ham, yes­ter­day stressed that while Cari­com is not per­fect, the PM’s tone was undiplo­mat­ic and struck at the foun­da­tion of the re­gion­al body.

“I think that it is un­for­tu­nate that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been thrust in­to this po­si­tion. I am look­ing for­ward to the day that she fur­ther qual­i­fies these kind of com­ments and per­haps we can hear some kind of state­ment sug­gest­ing that the way for­ward for Trinidad and To­ba­go is to leave Cari­com be­cause that seems to be the di­rec­tion she is go­ing.”

Wick­ham said in­stead of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s seem­ing­ly “parental scold­ing” she should have opt­ed for so­lu­tions to im­prove the re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion.

“The re­gion and in­sti­tu­tion is not per­fect. With­in any re­gion or group, there will be im­per­fec­tions, even in the Unit­ed States. What one would have ex­pect­ed is that as a lead­ing mem­ber and fun­der of the in­sti­tu­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go would have been work­ing to­wards try­ing to iden­ti­fy these im­per­fec­tions and sort­ing them out,” he said.