The re­turn of 33 Trinida­di­an na­tion­als from Bar­ba­dos could lead to a diplo­mat­ic spat be­tween the two coun­tries. This af­ter Bar­ba­dos For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Min­is­ter Jerome Wal­cott yes­ter­day said he was “deeply dis­turbed” by com­ments made by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young over the mat­ter.
In a re­lease is­sued by his min­istry yes­ter­day, Wal­cott said it was “re­gret­table” that Young had made a pub­lic state­ment re­fer­ring to coun­tries which had not re­spect­ed the fact that Trinidad and To­ba­go had closed its bor­ders in ref­er­ence to the Trinida­di­an na­tion­als’ re­turn home ear­li­er this week af­ter they were left strand­ed in Bar­ba­dos. He said this gave the wrong im­pres­sion on the mat­ter.

“Min­is­ter Young in­ferred that the gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos was one of such coun­tries. The re­al­i­ty is that in the ab­sence of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of T&T in Bar­ba­dos, the gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos did no more nor no less than sim­ply con­vey to Port-of-Spain re­quests for as­sis­tance made by cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go who were strand­ed in Bar­ba­dos,” Wal­cott said in the re­lease.
“This diplo­mat­ic cor­re­spon­dence, is­sued to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, was in keep­ing with the norms of recog­nised in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an prac­tice.
“In this re­gard, Bar­ba­dos act­ed on the ba­sis of a sin­cere re­gard for the wel­fare of the na­tion­als of a sis­ter CARI­COM coun­try. The Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade of Bar­ba­dos is there­fore deeply dis­turbed that this ac­tion has been framed as a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ter.”

Al­though Young did not name any coun­tries when ref­er­enc­ing the is­sue dur­ing a dai­ly COVID-19 me­dia brief­ing on Wednes­day, the day af­ter the Tri­ni na­tion­als re­turned home, he warned against CARI­COM na­tions let­ting them­selves be used by per­sons seek­ing to com­pro­mise T&T’s strict bor­der mea­sures.
Young said Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Den­nis Moses had been in­struct­ed send a let­ter to CARI­COM coun­tries re­mind­ing them that this coun­try’s bor­ders re­mained closed to both na­tion­als and non-na­tion­als. In that let­ter, Young said Moses would ask that coun­tries re­spect T&T’s stance, not­ing he (Young) would not al­low oth­er coun­tries who con­tin­ue to have their bor­ders open to in­ter­na­tion­al flights be used as a jump­ing point in­to T&T.
Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Wal­cott said it was un­for­tu­nate that Young’s pub­lic state­ment came on the heels of T&T Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s state­ment to a re­cent CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment Spe­cial Emer­gency Meet­ing on the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic that “if ever CARI­COM must speak for the peo­ple, it is now. The an­ti­dote to the pan­dem­ic is CARI­COM”.

De­spite this, Wal­cott said Bar­ba­dos would con­tin­ue to “trea­sure the strong fra­ter­nal re­la­tion­ship and part­ner­ship” it en­joys with T&T.

T&T closed its bor­ders com­plete­ly on March 22. This left the group of 33 na­tion­als, who had flown from Lon­don to Bar­ba­dos on their way back from a Mid­dle East cruise, strand­ed and un­able to en­ter the coun­try. How­ev­er, they were tak­en in by Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment and spent al­most a month un­der quar­an­tine await­ing clear­ance to en­ter T&T. They re­turned home on Tues­day and were im­medaite­ly quar­an­tined at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua. (See page 7)

When the T&T na­tion­als were tak­en in by Bar­ba­dos, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar thank the Ba­jan gov­ern­ment for its ges­ture. At a sub­se­quent press con­fer­ence, Row­ley said T&T had a good re­la­tion­ship with Bar­ba­dos and did not need Per­sad-Bisses­sar to send a thank you on be­half of the coun­try.
Guardian Me­dia mes­saged and called both Row­ley and Young for com­ment on this mat­ter yes­ter­day but got no re­sponse from ei­ther of them.

Mot­t­ley, Row­ley’s good re­la­tion­ship

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and Bar­ba­dos has not al­ways been the smoothest, es­pe­cial­ly un­der for­mer lead­ers Patrick Man­ning and Owen Ar­tur.

Back in 2003, the two coun­tries end­ed up in court fight­ing mar­itime de­mar­ca­tions.
Fast for­ward more than a decade and un­der new lead­ers, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Mia Mot­t­ley and the re­la­tion­ship is far more cor­dial.
In Oc­to­ber 2018, Mot­t­ley vis­it­ed with Row­ley at his of­fice in Port-of-Spain. The two met to dis­cuss CARI­COM and oth­er mat­ters in prepa­ra­tion for the Spe­cial Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing lat­er that year.
In Au­gust 2019, the two coun­tries signed a MoU which es­tab­lished the gen­er­al frame­work for both par­ties to un­der­take co­op­er­a­tive ini­tia­tives in the ar­eas of en­er­gy, en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy ex­plo­ration, de­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion in re­la­tion to hy­dro­car­bon re­sources that ex­tend across their mar­itime bound­aries.
In Feb­ru­ary 2020, the two coun­tries al­so signed uni­ti­sa­tion deal. The agree­ment al­lowed for the ex­plo­ration of hy­dro­car­bon re­sources which strad­dle the mar­itime bound­ary shared by Bar­ba­dos and Trinidad and To­ba­go.