Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­try in­to a US-led al­liance, as an­nounced by Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, will serve the coun­try’s in­ter­ests as the T&T gov­ern­ment in­ten­si­fies ef­forts against car­tels.

The US has de­ployed war­ships to the Caribbean to tar­get drug car­tels. On Tues­day, Ru­bio an­nounced that T&T had joined the group­ing—com­pris­ing sev­er­al Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries—work­ing to stem the flow of drugs in­to the Unit­ed States. These in­clude EcuaPrime­dor, Paraguay, Guyana, Ar­genti­na, and now Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the clos­ing of the JA­VA crick­et camp held in Pe­nal yes­ter­day, she said this was the best way to curb crime.

“I think it’s a very ben­e­fi­cial thing for Trinidad and To­ba­go. I can­not give you de­tails. Those are na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, and I would pre­fer not to pro­nounce the spe­cif­ic de­tails at the time. But I think it’s a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for us,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She added: “We’ve had 25 years of run­away crime, mur­ders, blood and may­hem. We have not been able to stem it on our own, and there­fore, any in­ter­na­tion­al coali­tion against drugs, nar­co­traf­fick­ing, hu­man traf­fick­ing, crime, I think, is wel­come for all the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The on­ly peo­ple who have to fear are the crim­i­nals. They are the ones who have to fear. Not the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. They have noth­ing to fear but all to gain.”

On re­gion­al re­la­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her stance re­mains firm de­spite rum­blings with­in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com).

“This is­sue that I’m frac­tur­ing the Cari­com, the Cari­com was al­ready frac­tured. All the na­tions that are signed on to AL­BA, Trinidad and To­ba­go is not a par­ty to AL­BA, they have al­ready made their stance be­fore I even spoke on this mat­ter. They took their po­si­tions at the AL­BA meet­ing a cou­ple of days ago. So we are al­ready frac­tured in that re­gard, but I re­main and am com­mit­ted to Cari­com to be a mem­ber work­ing with Cari­com neigh­bours. But as I say, Trinidad and To­ba­go first, I may get dam­aged for that state­ment, but I make no apolo­gies for it.”

—Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va