Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

Jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to vote against ex­tend­ing the tenure of Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights Volk­er Türk, in­sist­ing the move was based on con­cerns about the ap­point­ment process, not the of­fi­cial’s per­for­mance or Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion on the Is­rael-Pales­tine con­flict.

Last week, Trinidad and To­ba­go stood alone among Cari­com mem­ber states in op­pos­ing the ex­ten­sion of Türk’s man­date un­til 2030. The res­o­lu­tion nev­er­the­less passed com­fort­ably, with 144 coun­tries vot­ing in favour, ten against and 13 ab­stain­ing.

The vote sparked crit­i­cism from for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of aban­don­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­de­pen­dent for­eign pol­i­cy.

In a Face­book post last week, Browne wrote: “Yes, the once sov­er­eign Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go was the on­ly Cari­com na­tion to vote against the ap­point­ment with no re­lease or ra­tio­nale to the me­dia or the peo­ple of the coun­try to ex­plain or in­di­cate why. Every week PM Kam­la and Min­is­ter Sobers reaf­firm our sta­tus as a vas­sal state.”

Re­spond­ing yes­ter­day, Sobers ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of de­lib­er­ate­ly strip­ping the vote of its con­text and mis­lead­ing the pub­lic.

“I think what has hap­pened is that the Op­po­si­tion has not pre­sent­ed any con­text to al­low for per­sons to un­der­stand why the vote was tak­en and how the vote was tak­en. It sim­ply just ran with the vote it­self,” Sobers said.

He de­scribed Browne’s com­ments as “ex­treme­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble,” adding that they were par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing com­ing from a for­mer for­eign min­is­ter.

Sobers al­so crit­i­cised Browne’s record in of­fice, claim­ing that dur­ing his tenure he “did ab­solute­ly noth­ing to ad­vance this coun­try’s po­si­tion glob­al­ly at the diplo­mat­ic world stage.”

The For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter stressed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ob­jec­tion was pro­ce­dur­al rather than per­son­al.

He ex­plained that mem­ber states were on­ly no­ti­fied on a Fri­day that Türk’s reap­point­ment would be con­sid­ered the fol­low­ing Mon­day, leav­ing lit­tle time for gov­ern­ments to con­sult their cap­i­tals be­fore in­struct­ing diplo­mats on how to vote.

He said an­oth­er con­cern was that a new Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al is ex­pect­ed to take of­fice lat­er this year and should have been giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with, or make rec­om­men­da­tions re­gard­ing, the High Com­mis­sion­er.

Sobers re­peat­ed­ly em­pha­sised that the vote had noth­ing to do with Türk’s per­for­mance.

He al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the de­ci­sion re­flect­ed any change in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long­stand­ing po­si­tion on the Is­rael-Pales­tine con­flict.

Sobers reaf­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to sup­port a two-state so­lu­tion and point­ed to his re­cent bi­lat­er­al meet­ing with the Pales­tin­ian Am­bas­sador dur­ing the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in Saint Lu­cia as ev­i­dence of the coun­try’s con­tin­ued en­gage­ment.

Browne has re­newed his crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion, de­scrib­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s vote against ex­tend­ing the man­date of UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights Volk­er Türk as “bizarre” and de­mand­ing that the ad­min­is­tra­tion pub­licly ex­plain its po­si­tion.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Browne not­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go was the on­ly Cari­com coun­try to op­pose Türk’s reap­point­ment, de­spite the Aus­tri­an diplo­mat re­ceiv­ing the back­ing of 144 mem­ber states.

He de­fend­ed Türk’s record, de­scrib­ing him as an ac­com­plished in­ter­na­tion­al diplo­mat with decades of ser­vice in con­flict zones and hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises.

Mean­while, Sobers sought to re­as­sure mem­bers of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty fol­low­ing crit­i­cism from some re­li­gious lead­ers af­ter his re­cent meet­ing with Is­rael’s Non-Res­i­dent Am­bas­sador and MASHAV Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al Ey­nat Shlein.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is a mul­ti-eth­nic, mul­ti-re­li­gious so­ci­ety and the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion has demon­strat­ed not on­ly tol­er­ance but re­spect and love for all mem­bers of dif­fer­ent re­li­gious faiths.

“We’ve nev­er tak­en any sides that would prej­u­dice any faith with­in this coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly the Is­lam­ic pop­u­la­tion.”

Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein, who is Mus­lim, al­so de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s record, say­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion has strength­ened ties with Mus­lim-ma­jor­i­ty coun­tries since tak­ing of­fice in April 2025.

Ho­sein said Trinidad and To­ba­go has pub­licly pri­ori­tised re­la­tions with the Mid­dle East, point­ing to the pre­sen­ta­tion of cre­den­tials by Pales­tin­ian Am­bas­sador Dr Lin­da Sobeh Ali in Sep­tem­ber 2025 and mul­ti­ple meet­ings be­tween the am­bas­sador and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, in­clud­ing at the re­cent Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing.

On the do­mes­tic front, Ho­sein said one of his pri­or­i­ties as Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs was fa­cil­i­tat­ing the grant of a state lease to AS­JA for the es­tab­lish­ment of a Mus­lim ceme­tery in Ch­agua­nas af­ter what he de­scribed as a wait of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years.

He fur­ther re­vealed that Sau­di Ara­bia has of­fered places for Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als to par­tic­i­pate in Quran­ic recita­tion com­pe­ti­tions in Mec­ca and that dis­cus­sions are con­tin­u­ing to in­crease this coun­try’s an­nu­al Ha­jj quo­ta.

“There­fore, it is quite shock­ing to read some of the mat­ters now be­ing raised. Many voic­es were silent while we were work­ing to en­sure that we es­tab­lish ties with the Mus­lim world,” he said.

On Tues­day, Pres­i­dent of the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild and Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, called on Mus­lims to stop sup­port­ing the UNC, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s for­eign pol­i­cy has be­trayed the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.