In an emo­tion­al send-off, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in his last Cari­com meet­ing as a head of gov­ern­ment, last night urged his fel­low Caribbean lead­ers to keep uni­ty alive as he pledged to al­ways an­swer Cari­com’s call even in re­tire­ment.

Dur­ing the me­dia con­fer­ence in Bar­ba­dos, Dr Row­ley re­flect­ed that when he first joined Cari­com, there was a neg­a­tive per­cep­tion of the re­gion­al body. How­ev­er, he said that has now changed and he urged his col­leagues to keep it that way.

“As Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go who host­ed us all at the 50th an­niver­sary at the found­ing lo­ca­tion in Ch­aguara­mas re­cent­ly, I sim­ply want to leave by ask­ing my col­leagues to con­tin­ue to sub­scribe to what I have en­cour­aged you to do be­cause to­geth­er, we are al­ways stronger in every sin­gle cir­cum­stance. Once we are to­geth­er, we will be stronger, we might grow in size phys­i­cal­ly but cer­tain­ly we will not be in­con­se­quen­tial,” Row­ley said.

“Es­pe­cial­ly at this time, where the world is chang­ing from news hour to news hour, we are re­quired to rise to the oc­ca­sion and nev­er ac­cept that we can be left be­hind.”

Row­ley said dur­ing this 48th Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads he was par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased, as a ge­ol­o­gist with an ex­per­tise in vol­ca­noes, to see Mar­tinique be­come an as­so­ciate mem­ber.

As he bid farewell to peo­ple he de­scribed as friends, he pledged to con­tin­ue to serve the re­gion in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty that may arise.

“If there is any­thing I can do to con­tin­ue to be of ser­vice to the peo­ple of Caribbean, it is one na­tion that I have a coun­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go in Cari­com and I will nev­er shy away from de­fend­ing or serv­ing as I’ve tried to do.”

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley al­so paid trib­ute to the out­go­ing PM.

“His knowl­edge, not just as a Prime Min­is­ter or po­lit­i­cal leader, but his train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence in the area of ge­ol­o­gy and en­er­gy, has been in­valu­able to our con­sid­er­a­tions on a range of top­ics and I know that we will miss his guid­ance and his very firm po­si­tions on a range of is­sues.”

She said Dr Row­ley is the kind of man who you’d want at your side in any bat­tle.

“I cer­tain­ly was an ex­treme­ly proud per­son to have PM Row­ley at my side when we had to con­front the is­sue of Venezuela and Pres­i­dent (Juan) Guai­do and when there was a de­ter­mi­na­tion to have a change of recog­ni­tion of a change of head of gov­ern­ment. No­body gave us any chance of be­ing able to make any dif­fer­ence, but we, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and my­self, and the then-PM of St Kitts and Nevis, we went to New York, we met with the sec­re­tary gen­er­al, we met with dif­fer­ent re­gions of the world. And what ap­peared to be an im­pos­si­ble task was all of a sud­den achieved, and if ever there was a per­son who you’d want at your side to fight any bat­tle Kei­th Row­ley is once such per­son.”

Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness mean­while thanked Dr Row­ley for re­pair­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween both coun­tries.

“For me per­son­al­ly, com­ing in as Prime Min­is­ter in 2016 and meet­ing PM Row­ley at a time when re­la­tions be­tween Ja­maica and Trinidad were pos­si­bly at an all time low, where there were threats of boy­cotts and block­ing cit­i­zens’ move­ments, and I said lis­ten Prime Min­is­ter come to Ja­maica, come to vis­it me man and let us talk these things over. You were my first in­ter­na­tion­al guest and we had a very good talk about the is­sue, we de­vel­oped a very strong re­la­tion­ship and we were able to re­solve the is­sues. And to­day, trade is bet­ter, move­ment of cit­i­zens be­tween the two coun­tries are bet­ter and I think the re­gion is bet­ter.”

Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali, who will be tak­ing up Dr Row­ley’s Cari­com re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as it per­tains to West In­dies crick­et, jok­ing­ly said, “Those who know him, don’t get car­ried away by the stone face and the hard views. Be­neath that we have had, since my time here, very strong con­ver­sa­tions but at the end of it they were all geared to­wards the best in­ter­est of the re­gion and to give us the best pos­si­ble re­sult. I want to thank you for your friend­ship and your guid­ance.”

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley’s “stone face” was al­so ref­er­enced jok­ing­ly by Ba­hamas PM Philip Davis.

Dr Row­ley was al­lowed by Mot­t­ley to close the meet­ing.

The T&T Prime Min­is­ter said, “And on that ba­sis, I ac­cept the ho­n­our to bring this un­usu­al­ly suc­cess­ful, his­toric meet­ing to a close.”