Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has fired back at Dr Ralph Gon­salves, say­ing his ref­er­ence to sea­sick­ness at the Cari­com Sum­mit in St Kitts and Nevis was said as a joke.

In a stun­ning al­le­ga­tion, for­mer St Vin­cent and the Grenadines prime min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves claimed Sobers was not “dis­in­vit­ed” from the Nevis re­treat, but in­stead de­clined to go to the Feb­ru­ary 26 event, cit­ing sea­sick­ness.

This con­tra­dicts Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion that it was de­lib­er­ate­ly ex­clud­ed from the vote to reap­point Dr Car­la Bar­nett, af­ter Cari­com failed to recog­nise Sobers as head of T&T’s del­e­ga­tion, fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­par­ture. As such, T&T could not par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion.

In re­sponse to Gon­salves’ al­le­ga­tions, Sobers yes­ter­day said he was jok­ing when told the trip to Nevis would be by boat.

“I made a joke about the modal­i­ty of trans­porta­tion but at no point in time, and I re­peat, at no point in time did I say that I would not be will­ing or did not want to at­tend,” Sobers con­tend­ed in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

Sobers said he, in fact, told the Cari­com of­fi­cials he had to at­tend the re­treat as head of T&T’s del­e­ga­tion. How­ev­er, he said he was told on the morn­ing of the re­treat that he would not be able to do so.

“We were told, no, we’re get­ting in­for­ma­tion, they want heads of gov­ern­ment on­ly, not heads of del­e­ga­tion.”

He added that he told the of­fi­cials, “I am head of del­e­ga­tion, I want to at­tend. That is how it is. I’ve been des­ig­nat­ed as head of del­e­ga­tion. I have my in­stru­ment of full pow­ers. I can at­tend. That was elu­ci­dat­ed. They are the ones who then re­tort­ed by say­ing, no, the po­si­tion is that it is for heads of gov­ern­ment on­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Sobers for the mes­sage he re­ceived but he de­clined to share it. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia checked with a re­gion­al source and was lat­er pro­vid­ed with the mes­sage sent to the min­is­ters, which said, “Good morn­ing For­eign Min­is­ters. Chair­man PM Drew has in­di­cat­ed that to­day will be a Heads on­ly re­treat. Notwith­stand­ing any in­di­ca­tion oth­er­wise, he would like it to re­main Heads on­ly. He apol­o­gis­es for any in­con­ve­nience. Min­is­ters should there­fore re­main for the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Meet­ing to com­plete its work, in­clud­ing those agen­da items from the Heads’ agen­da which the Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil is to con­sid­er and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions to Heads for adop­tion.”

Sobers said cor­re­spon­dence will be in­clud­ed in a let­ter he is prepar­ing for Cari­com chair­man Ter­rence Drew. He as­sured the let­ter will al­so be shared with the me­dia.

Sobers al­so con­firmed that af­ter three let­ters rais­ing con­cerns about Dr Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment, the Cari­com chair has re­spond­ed to Gov­ern­ment. He de­clined to dis­close the con­tents, but said his re­ply will ad­dress the is­sues raised.

How­ev­er, he did share that Cari­com did not dis­pute that Bar­nett’s reap­point­ment was not on the agen­da.

If Cari­com al­lows a fresh elec­tion to take place, Guardian Me­dia asked Sobers if T&T has its own choice for Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al.

“We don’t have a new horse in the race. At the end of the day, the most im­por­tant thing is that it was not an agen­da item and Cari­com has not dis­put­ed that.”

On Wednes­day, Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali made it clear he had no is­sue with the process used to reap­point Bar­nett and he ex­pressed full con­fi­dence in her ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Guardian Me­dia point­ed that out to Sobers, who said, “Pres­i­dent Ali, with all due re­spect to his ex­cel­len­cy, that’s his opin­ion. Trinidad and To­ba­go, we are sov­er­eign, just like Guyana is. And that’s why we have ar­tic­u­lat­ed our po­si­tion on this and he has ar­tic­u­lat­ed his.”

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to Ralph Gon­salves, Sobers said, “I am not one to ill-treat the el­der­ly at all, but in this case I’ll make an ex­cep­tion.”

Claim­ing Gon­salves was par­tak­ing in mis­chief, Sobers said the for­mer St Vin­cent and the Grenadines prime min­is­ter seems to have a prob­lem with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

He cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied Gon­salves’ al­le­ga­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar on­ly at­tend­ed one meet­ing at the Cari­com sum­mit - the one where US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio was in at­ten­dance.

“To­tal bold­face lie! The Prime Min­is­ter was there at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Con­fer­ence of Heads, which you all know be­cause she spoke. The Prime Min­is­ter at­tend­ed the ple­nary ses­sion the fol­low­ing day. She had the meet­ings with Sec­re­tary of State Ru­bio. She had meet­ings with the Pres­i­dent of Guyana. She had meet­ings with Ja­maica. She had meet­ings with Suri­name. She had a pull aside meet­ing with An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.”

Sobers said Dr Gon­salves, who lost his coun­try’s gen­er­al elec­tion on No­vem­ber 27, 2025, is mere­ly seek­ing rel­e­vance.

“He should be more con­cerned with re­spect to his HDC mort­gage pay­ments to Vic­to­ria Keys and try­ing to win more than one seat in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines. And in­stead of try­ing to utilise my good name to be­come rel­e­vant, as he’s cur­rent­ly ir­rel­e­vant.”