Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­firmed that she will at­tend the 80th ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA), mark­ing her first over­seas trip since tak­ing of­fice in April.

The an­nu­al ses­sion be­gan yes­ter­day at the UN head­quar­ters in New York. The high-lev­el gen­er­al de­bate, where heads of state and gov­ern­ments de­liv­er their speech­es, is sched­uled to be­gin on Sep­tem­ber 23.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the dates are yet to be fi­nalised, af­ter which Cab­i­net ap­proval will fol­low.

This will be Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first over­seas work­ing trip af­ter she failed to at­tend the 49th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), which was held in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, from Ju­ly 6 to 8. At the time, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers said the PM had press­ing na­tion­al is­sues to at­tend to.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so did not at­tend the Sec­ond Africa-Cari­com Sum­mit, which was held on Sep­tem­ber 6 to 7 at the African Union Head­quar­ters in Ad­dis Aba­ba, Ethiopia.

Guardian Me­dia asked the PM yes­ter­day what would be on her agen­da at the UN­GA and if there are any im­por­tant side meet­ings that have been re­quest­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond. How­ev­er, on Mon­day evening, when re­spond­ing to ques­tions about her call with Deputy US Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau, the PM said, “A face-to-face meet­ing was pro­posed by Mr Lan­dau to be held lat­er this month on the mar­gins of the UN­GA.”

Be­fore the PM con­firmed her at­ten­dance late yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said her pres­ence in per­son was es­sen­tial.

“It would be im­por­tant for Trinidad and To­ba­go to be rep­re­sent­ed at the high­est pos­si­ble lev­el. I would rec­om­mend that the del­e­ga­tion be head­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter her­self, once she is able to trav­el at that time,” Browne said.

He lament­ed the PM’s ab­sence from two oth­er ma­jor events.

“The PM’s ab­sence from the Cari­com Heads’ Meet­ing in Ja­maica has, up to now, not been prop­er­ly ac­count­ed for or ex­plained. It ap­pears that she just could not be both­ered to go. Her re­gret­table fail­ure to at­tend the Africa-Cari­com Sum­mit was made even worse by the de­ci­sion to not even send a Cab­i­net Min­is­ter to rep­re­sent T&T at that im­por­tant fo­rum,” the PNM Sen­a­tor posit­ed.

Dr Browne added, “Hope­ful­ly, bet­ter thought and due con­sid­er­a­tion for our na­tion­al and re­gion­al im­age would re­sult in bet­ter de­ci­sions with re­gard to how we are rep­re­sent­ed at High-Lev­el Week at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly for 2025.”

Al­so com­ment­ing pri­or to the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­fir­ma­tion, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath of­fered a dif­fer­ing per­spec­tive.

Dr Ra­goonath said it would not be the end of the world if the PM did not go to the UN­GA in per­son.

“Many lead­ers don’t go to these things be­cause they don’t see it as crit­i­cal in their par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stance at that point in time. I know Dr Row­ley didn’t re­al­ly go be­cause it used to be around bud­get time every year. So, I don’t think he used to re­al­ly make it a pri­or­i­ty.”

The theme for the 80th ses­sion is “Bet­ter To­geth­er: 80 years and more for peace, de­vel­op­ment and hu­man rights.”

At yes­ter­day’s open­ing ses­sion, the key speech­es and re­marks were de­liv­ered by the in­com­ing Pres­i­dent of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, An­nale­na Baer­bock, and the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res.

Baer­bock, in her open­ing re­marks, high­light­ed nu­mer­ous glob­al crises, in­clud­ing chil­dren starv­ing in Gaza, Afghan girls be­ing banned from school, women in Dar­fur fac­ing vi­o­lence, and ris­ing sea lev­els threat­en­ing Pa­cif­ic is­lands.

Mean­while, Guter­res point­ed out that the UN Char­ter is not a self-ex­e­cut­ing doc­u­ment and re­quires coun­tries to look be­yond their na­tion­al in­ter­ests to build trust and faith in one an­oth­er.