Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she val­ues uni­ty with Cari­com lead­ers, but in­sists her first du­ty is to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She was speak­ing to re­porters at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s on Tues­day, af­ter re­ward­ing World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships medal­lists Keshorn Wal­cott and Jereem Richards and Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers skip­per Nicholas Pooran for their re­cent suc­cess.

Asked whether she ex­pects to meet with her re­gion­al coun­ter­parts dur­ing her cur­rent trip to the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, she replied, “Oh, most cer­tain­ly, any of those who are there, we will def­i­nite­ly meet with them.”

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who trav­elled to the UN­GA yes­ter­day, pushed back on sug­ges­tions that her re­cent po­si­tions on Venezuela and US in­volve­ment in the south­ern Caribbean sig­nalled a weak­en­ing of her com­mit­ment to Cari­com.

“I like when you said some may mis­con­strue, and some of the ones who are mis­con­stru­ing, mis­con­stru­ing are in the me­dia. By the way, we re­main with good re­la­tions with the peo­ple of Venezuela. That’s the first point. The sec­ond point is Trinidad and To­ba­go first. I put the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go first.”

She ar­gued that while Cari­com mem­bers share com­mon bonds, each na­tion has the sov­er­eign right to pur­sue what is best for its peo­ple.

“So whilst we have the uni­ty in Cari­com, every na­tion state in the Cari­com is free to ex­er­cise their sov­er­eign rights as they think best. At this time, our will­ing­ness in ac­cept­ing the US in the wa­ters of the South­com, in the South­ern Caribbean, in the in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters, I’m very hap­py about that. That is my sov­er­eign right for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The Prime Min­is­ter point­ed to the scale of vi­o­lent crime as one of the dri­ving forces be­hind her po­si­tion. “Re­mem­ber, many of the oth­er Cari­com na­tions do not have the car­nage we have here. We had over 600 mur­ders in this tiny is­land state in one year. We have the nar­co traf­fick­ing, the hu­man traf­fick­ing, and many oth­er ills that comes from the crim­i­nal­i­ty. Many of those Cari­com na­tions do not face a sim­i­lar thing. They don’t have 600 mur­ders a year. We have it here.”

She said these re­al­i­ties de­mand a shift in ap­proach.

“At this time, I think it is the right time and the right place for Trinidad and To­ba­go to change our par­a­digms when it comes to our sov­er­eign in­ter­ests and the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I put that first.”

Still, Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed that she re­mains com­mit­ted to re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty.

“To my Cari­com part­ners or cousins, broth­ers, sis­ters in the Cari­com, we love them. We are com­mit­ted to the Cari­com. So noth­ing I’m say­ing is against the Car­com. It has to do, as I say, with first of all, look­ing af­ter the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”