Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and ten oth­er for­mer Cari­com heads of state have urged ad­her­ence to the Caribbean’s con­sis­tent pat­tern of re­frain­ing from per­mit­ting mil­i­tary as­sets in­to the re­gion that have the po­ten­tial to lure the area in­to con­flicts.

The call was ex­pressed in a state­ment late on Thurs­day.

It comes as US-Venezuela ten­sions con­tin­ue to rise, with the US naval de­stroy­er USS Grave­ly set to ar­rive in this coun­try on Sun­day and re­main un­til next Thurs­day. The 22nd US Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit will con­duct joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the T&T De­fence Force.

The ap­peal for peace came from for­mer heads of Cari­com ter­ri­to­ries Bald­win Spencer (An­tigua and Bar­bu­da), Said Musa and Dean Bar­row (Be­lize), Fre­un­del Stu­art (Bar­ba­dos), Edi­son James (Do­mini­ca), Till­man Thomas (Grena­da), Don­ald Ramo­tar (Guyana), Bruce Gold­ing and PJ Pat­ter­son (Ja­maica), and Ken­ny An­tho­ny (St Lu­cia).

Row­ley added his voice to the call via a Face­book post yes­ter­day, stat­ing, “To­day, on my 76th birth­day, I find it nec­es­sary and du­ti­ful to sign on to this his­toric state­ment of for­mer heads of Cari­com.

“It is with a deep sense of loss and sad­ness that I re­flect on the lead­er­ship pro­vid­ed by Trinidad and To­ba­go, at an ear­li­er time, with­in all the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples out­lined and em­bod­ied in this state­ment.

“It was Trinidad and To­ba­go’s voice, sup­port­ed by all my col­leagues, when we af­firmed that ‘to­geth­er we are stronger’. We main­tained, even in the most dif­fi­cult of cir­cum­stances, that ‘we may be small but not in­signif­i­cant, and our voice and our in­ter­ests should be re­spect­ed’.

“I am to­day em­bar­rassed to ac­cept that with our proud record of lead­er­ship and ac­com­plish­ments, to­day, it is Trinidad and To­ba­go that reck­less­ly sub­scribes to the dis­pens­ing with these prin­ci­ples in the ex­pec­ta­tion of plen­ty.

“It is a dan­ger­ous dere­lic­tion of du­ty, un­der any cir­cum­stances, to em­brace the dis­card­ed colo­nial mantra that might is right and that the rule of law, lo­cal or in­ter­na­tion­al, is an in­con­ve­nience and a hum­bug.”

The Cari­com el­ders’ views came a week af­ter the present Cari­com lead­ers dis­cussed the in­creased se­cu­ri­ty build-up in the Caribbean. Lead­ers—save for T&T, which re­served its po­si­tion—reaf­firmed main­tain­ing the Caribbean re­gion as a Zone of Peace and the im­por­tance of di­a­logue and en­gage­ment to­wards the peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of dis­putes and con­flict. They stat­ed that Cari­com re­mains will­ing to as­sist to­wards that end.

On Thurs­day, the for­mer re­gion­al lead­ers, in­clud­ing Row­ley, who called for the Caribbean to re­main a Zone of Peace where the rule of law pre­vails, said, “We who have pre­vi­ous­ly served as Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty feel oblig­ed, with the ben­e­fit of our ex­pe­ri­ence, to make pub­lic our ap­pre­hen­sion on the in­creased mil­i­tary se­cu­ri­ty build-up and the pres­ence of nu­clear ves­sels and air­craft with­in the Caribbean arch­i­pel­ago.

“We are im­pelled to urge a pull back from mil­i­tary build-up to avoid any diminu­tion of peace, sta­bil­i­ty, and de­vel­op­ment with­in our re­gion­al space that has the po­ten­tial to pull the re­gion in­to con­flicts which are not of our mak­ing.

“Pre­serv­ing our Caribbean space as an es­tab­lished Zone of Peace is for us a vi­tal im­per­a­tive. Our shared his­to­ry and com­mon in­ter­ests de­mand one­ness. We have gone too far to turn back now.”

They added, “Since our In­de­pen­dence, Caribbean states have con­sis­tent­ly re­frained from per­mit­ting the host­ing of mil­i­tary as­sets which have the po­ten­tial to lure the re­gion in­to con­flicts which are not of our own mak­ing.

“We urge ad­her­ence to this ex­er­cise of our col­lec­tive sov­er­eign­ty to avoid en­dan­ger­ing our cit­i­zens in any cross­fire or suf­fer­ing col­lat­er­al dam­age and eco­nom­ic harm.

“The safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the Caribbean Sea and the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty of our small states are of in­es­timable val­ue. The Caribbean Sea is the most heav­i­ly used sea for in­ter­na­tion­al trade, cruise tourism, and yacht­ing.

“It is vi­tal for land-based tourism, on which most states de­pend for their eco­nom­ic vi­a­bil­i­ty; im­por­tant for deep-sea and ar­ti­sanal fish­ing; and strate­gic for the move­ment of per­sons and goods among the is­lands, es­pe­cial­ly as costs and pol­lu­tion from air trav­el in­crease.”

The group re­count­ed that when Caribbean lead­ers gath­ered at Ch­aguara­mas in 1972, with Dr Er­ic Williams as chair­man, “It was ac­cept­ed that peace was a dom­i­nant fac­tor in shap­ing the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal frame­work for Caribbean de­vel­op­ment.

“As a re­sult, the ‘Zone of Peace’ has been cod­i­fied and be­come a cor­ner­stone in the ar­chi­tec­ture of our Caribbean sov­er­eign­ty and the ax­is for our re­la­tion­ship with the coun­tries of our hemi­sphere, Eu­rope, and the world at large. From this plat­form, our re­gion has main­tained that es­tab­lished in­ter­na­tion­al law and con­ven­tions, rather than war and mil­i­tary might, should pre­vail in find­ing so­lu­tions to seem­ing­ly in­tractable prob­lems.”

US Shiprid­er Agree­ment re­gard­ing drug traf­fick­ers

The group not­ed the Shiprid­er Agree­ment with the US: “Dur­ing 52 years of its ex­is­tence, lead­ers of our Com­mu­ni­ty have nev­er wa­vered in their to­tal com­mit­ment to the rule of law and re­liance on the pro­vi­sions of the UN Char­ter, which for­bid the threat or use of force against the ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty or po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence of any state.

“We and suc­ces­sive heads have re­mained stead­fast in our re­pu­di­a­tion of ex­ter­nal in­ter­ven­tion to ef­fect regime change. Re­gard­less of the changes flow­ing from the swings of the elec­toral pen­du­lum in our democ­ra­cy, we have in­sist­ed that mil­i­tary ac­tion in our mar­itime wa­ters should be gov­erned by in­ter­na­tion­al law and not ef­fec­tive­ly de­ny due process.

“We sub­scribed to the Shiprid­er Agree­ment to en­sure il­lic­it drug traf­fick­ers could be tracked, pur­sued, searched, and law­ful­ly ap­pre­hend­ed with­out ex­tra ju­di­cial killing and the de­struc­tion of that which could pro­vide con­clu­sive ev­i­dence of crim­i­nal op­er­a­tion. The safe­ty and liveli­hood of the peo­ple of the re­gion are im­per­illed by any act or ut­ter­ance which threat­ens the norms of in­ter­na­tion­al law or un­der­mines our sov­er­eign ter­ri­to­r­i­al rights.”

They added, “The grav­i­ty of present sig­nals de­mands that we use all ex­ist­ing chan­nels for di­a­logue to per­pet­u­ate a Zone of Peace on the ed­i­fice of re­spect for our sov­er­eign­ty, in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tions, and the rule of law.”