Akash Sama­roo

Re­port­ing from UN­GA,

New York

De­spite con­cerns ex­pressed by her par­ty’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer (PRO), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she has no is­sue with Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les at­tend­ing side meet­ings dur­ing the high-lev­el week of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) in New York.

Both the Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader were in New York for the event, with the lat­ter ar­riv­ing three days be­fore Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

In a Face­book post, how­ev­er, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo ques­tioned the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s mo­tives for be­ing there, sug­gest­ing they may have a clan­des­tine na­ture.

“What is she do­ing in the UN? Is she there to de­lib­er­ate­ly cause con­fu­sion? To con­tra­dict the Gov­ern­ment? Is this a plot by over­seas PNM el­e­ments in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TT-based Op­po­si­tion?” Meighoo asked.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the UN Head­quar­ters on Sat­ur­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said she does not share his con­cerns.

“The US is a free coun­try. Peo­ple are free to pur­sue what­ev­er aims and ends that they seek to do. I have no is­sue. I did not meet her (Beck­les),” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The Prime Min­is­ter added that she had no idea Beck­les was in New York un­til it was brought to her at­ten­tion by Guardian Me­dia dur­ing an in­ter­view the day pri­or.

“So, she has not reached out to us. I have not reached out. We’ve been so busy, as you can ap­pre­ci­ate. So it’s go­ing well. I have no is­sue with that.”

On Thurs­day, Guardian Me­dia spoke with Beck­les, who was in­vit­ed as the fea­ture speak­er for a Health In­no­va­tion Ex­change Or­ga­ni­za­tion event at the Church Cen­tre UN Plaza, which is di­rect­ly op­po­site the UN Head­quar­ters.

When Guardian Me­dia asked Beck­les to ex­plain the role of an Op­po­si­tion Leader dur­ing the high-lev­el week, she ex­plained, “Well, it’s not so much the role of an Op­po­si­tion Leader. I’ve been com­ing to the UN for the last 30 years. I came here first even as an at­tor­ney to speak on is­sues re­lat­ing to women, so I’m here as they keynote speak­er at this event, which deals with in­fra­struc­ture, cli­mate change, health and how it im­pacts on small is­land de­vel­op­ing states.”

Ex­plain­ing her agen­da fur­ther, Beck­les added, “I al­so at­tend­ed yes­ter­day and I mod­er­at­ed a pan­el with In­ter­na­tion­al Par­lia­men­tary Union to deal with is­sues of gen­der par­i­ty as it im­pacts on women. So, they’re look­ing at, since you had Bei­jing (Bei­jing De­c­la­ra­tion and Plat­form for Ac­tion) some 30 years ago, and they talked about coun­tries im­prov­ing women’s par­tic­i­pa­tion. In pol­i­tics, we’ve on­ly moved from 11 per cent to about 27 per cent.”

Beck­les said she is al­so a for­mer pres­i­dent of UN Women, which had an event the day be­fore.

“So, I’m here be­cause I’m in­vit­ed to speak at sev­er­al events and be­cause I see the UN 80 years lat­er, where the theme is ba­si­cal­ly look­ing at is­sues such as peace and se­cu­ri­ty, bet­ter to­geth­er, that’s re­al­ly the theme.”

The UN will be fa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry for Beck­les, who served as the Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Re­pub­lic of T&T to the UN in New York be­tween 2016 and 2020.

Beck­les has al­so post­ed a few pic­tures to so­cial me­dia with Cari­com lead­ers, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ters Mia Mot­t­ley (Bar­ba­dos), Dr Ralph Gon­salves (St Vin­cent) and An­drew Hol­ness (Ja­maica).

In her post with the Ja­maican PM, Beck­les said, “Hav­ing served as a for­mer Am­bas­sador at the UN, I un­der­stand the pow­er of en­sur­ing that my voice as an elect­ed MP and one of on­ly 10 women in the Low­er House of our Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go is heard and rep­re­sent­ed.”

She added, “From Par­lia­ment to the UN, lead­er­ship and rep­re­sen­ta­tion re­main my mis­sion. Al­ways hum­bled by the op­por­tu­ni­ties to be in­vit­ed to share my ex­pe­ri­ences on the world stage.”

PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was al­so said to have had a meet­ing with Hol­ness sched­uled dur­ing her time in New York.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that is yet to take place.

Lat­er to­day, the PM goes via train to Wash­ing­ton DC to meet with US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio.