Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor — Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

De­spite ex­press­ing di­verg­ing views from some of her Cari­com col­leagues on the world stage on the pres­ence of the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary in Caribbean wa­ters, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says to her knowl­edge, this has not led to any ten­sion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the rest of the re­gion­al body.

And while the Prime Min­is­ter did not hold bi­lat­er­al talks with Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers dur­ing the high-lev­el week of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA), For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has at­trib­uted that to sched­ul­ing con­straints rather than diplo­mat­ic ten­sions.

To­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is in Wash­ing­ton, DC, for a meet­ing with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, af­ter leav­ing New York, where she en­gaged in dis­cus­sions with Kuwait, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and the UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al. How­ev­er, she did not con­vene any for­mal meet­ings with her Cari­com coun­ter­parts, de­spite their pres­ence in New York for the As­sem­bly.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that a meet­ing with Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter, An­drew Hol­ness, was planned for last Fri­day but did not ma­te­ri­alise. Sobers con­firmed this was due to time lim­i­ta­tions and dis­missed sug­ges­tions of strained re­la­tions with­in the re­gion­al bloc fol­low­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s UN ad­dress.

In her re­marks at the UN­GA last Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dif­fered from sev­er­al Cari­com lead­ers who crit­i­cised the height­ened ten­sion in the re­gion caused by the pres­ence of US mil­i­tary as­sets near Venezuela. In­stead, she voiced sup­port for the US, ar­gu­ing that the long-held no­tion of the Caribbean as a zone of peace was mis­lead­ing. She en­dorsed a hard­line stance against nar­co-traf­fick­ing, in­sist­ing that fight­ing fire with fire with­in the bounds of in­ter­na­tion­al law was nec­es­sary.

Her po­si­tion con­trast­ed sharply with state­ments from Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves, both of whom urged the US and Venezuela to pur­sue diplo­ma­cy to ease re­gion­al ten­sions.

When asked yes­ter­day if her state­ment had led to any ten­sions be­tween T&T and the rest of Cari­com, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I have not seen nor heard of any such ten­sion. We are each sov­er­eign de­mo­c­ra­t­ic states en­ti­tled to pur­sue such ac­tion and pol­i­cy in the best in­ter­ests of our cit­i­zens. There­fore, we can re­spect­ful­ly agree to dis­agree.”

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne said, via What­sApp mes­sage yes­ter­day, he wel­comes Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s dif­fer­ing view.

He wrote, “To each his own. We re­spect di­ver­si­ty of views.”

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence in Do­mini­ca yes­ter­day, that coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit urged Caribbean coun­tries against sow­ing “seeds of dis­cord among our­selves.”

A CMC ar­ti­cle quot­ed Sker­rit as say­ing, “So we all have to lead our coun­tries with hu­mil­i­ty, recog­nis­ing that we are just pass­ing through and that’s what I do here. But we have to be care­ful that we don’t try to sow seeds of dis­cord, dis­uni­ty, and ten­sion among our­selves, with our­selves. It is not good for any­body for that mat­ter,” as he re­spond­ed to a ques­tion re­gard­ing whether or not he agreed with a state­ment by Per­sad-Bisses­sar that the no­tion of the Caribbean be­ing a zone of peace is a farce.

He added, “Every coun­try ex­press­es them­selves as sov­er­eign na­tions. Peo­ple have di­ver­gent views on a par­tic­u­lar mat­ter. This is not un­usu­al.”

At­tempts to get oth­er re­gion­al lead­ers on the mat­ter were un­suc­cess­ful.

But Min­is­ter Sobers is al­so in­sist­ing there is no an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween this coun­try and the rest of Cari­com. Speak­ing briefly with Guardian Me­dia be­fore de­part­ing for Wash­ing­ton, DC, Sobers said, “All is well with our Cari­com neigh­bours.”

Fur­ther­more, the min­is­ter said bi­lat­er­al meet­ings were pre-planned and there­fore the Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­dress to the UN­GA on Fri­day could not have im­pact­ed on whether or not there was a will­ing­ness to meet with T&T.

Apart from the meet­ing with Ja­maica, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands a bi­lat­er­al meet­ing be­tween Min­is­ter Sobers and of­fi­cials from Suri­name took place pri­or to the Prime Min­is­ter’s ar­rival.

Sobers point­ed out that there would have still been some en­gage­ment with Cari­com of­fi­cials as he at­tend­ed two meet­ings of the Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR).

COF­COR con­sists of Min­is­ters of For­eign Af­fairs with­in Cari­com and is an or­gan of the re­gion­al body re­spon­si­ble for de­ter­min­ing its re­la­tions with in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and third states.

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing her ad­dress to the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke ex­clu­sive­ly with Guardian Me­dia out­side of the UN Head­quar­ters. She was asked if her state­ment could com­pli­cate her re­la­tion­ship with Cari­com, con­sid­er­ing she is the re­gion­al body’s lead for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“This in­ter­ven­tion can on­ly ben­e­fit all of us at Cari­com. I don’t know what is the boogey­man nar­ra­tive that has been pur­sued by some per­sons. What is wrong with hav­ing peo­ple com­ing to help us fight against nar­co-traf­fick­ing, against hu­man traf­fick­ing? Why are you so con­cerned? Do you have any link­ages with the drug car­tels? No, we don’t. And, there­fore, I take se­ri­ous um­brage to some per­sons with a false nar­ra­tive about this in­ter­ven­tion and what it will do for sov­er­eign­ty and what will not,” she said.